Training visit to Bahir Dar

As part of the training for my small group of guys from the woredas, I took all four of them to Bahir Dar for a quick trip over the last three days.

The main highlights were:

• Two of them frightened to use a ferengi shintabet (western toilet) and having to go to a hotel with a hole-in-the-ground-style one to complete their business.
• Visiting the ELIP (English Language Improvement Centre) at Bahir Dar University where some other volunteers are working, to allow the guys to do some research.
• Having pizza at one of the many “Obama” restaurants that have sprung up recently!!!!
• Seeing two overturned trucks on the roads on the way (and two days later, still there on the way back.)
• Suddenly finding out that the college car that was due to take us back after we had gone halfway in the minibus, had broken down 50km away and we had to get a bus – something I’ve previously mentioned as being pretty horrific – coupled with the fact that at first we were told there had been no buses today and only by chance did one come, which the guys managed to scramble and push on to, to reserve us seats.

Training at the Private Catholic School

One of the main reasons we went, was to do our training at a private catholic school on the outskirts of Bahir Dar which had contacted the VSO people at the uni.

It was a very busy day. We were collected before 8am and spent the morning looking at the resources and observing lessons – this would feed into our training in the afternoon.

The school has around 350 paying students from Kindergarten to Grade 8 with an additional 150 from the surrounding community who have free sponsored places.

The guys with me were a little overwhelmed by all the resources: the brick-built buildings, the large, well-stocked library etc, but as soon as we started observing the lessons, we realised the teaching was not so good. In fact, in some classes we observed, the classroom management was much worse than in the mud and stick government schools back in our area. I was really pleased in a way, because it proved a point I had been making with the guys which is: “Money and resources are of very little importance to student’s learning. It is the teacher and the methodology that is important.”* So much time was wasted by the students not doing any work. Some able students finished the work on the board quickly and had nothing to do, others didn’t understand and just copied the questions, others queued in a long line for the teacher to mark their books etc. There was one boy crawling under the desks, a girl was hitting another on the head with a pencil. In another class the usual “copy all the questions so it looks like I am working, but actually I don’t have to think” was observed being used by many students.

Anyway, in the afternoon, all five of us took turns doing the training on active teaching/learning and introducing number fans. I just did small parts and the rest was performed in Amharic by my “trainees” who did a really good job, were expressive and really got the whole “active method” idea while they were training. This is what VSO is all about. I’ve passed on my knowledge to local people and have stepped back to allow them to take over and do the job at hand.

The training was received very well – comments like (and I’ve put it into my own words here), “we’ve had training before but it’s not been relevant and has had no impact, but this training has really hit a chord with the teachers who have found it very useful.” The “sister” said she will start getting the teachers to use number fans tomorrow.

We ended the day by discussing some of the observed problems (in a general way) with the head, deputy and sister who really seemed to take everything on board, so hopefully we have had a big impact. I should be able to make a return visit in about six weeks and see if there are any changes.

*a recent VSO-conducted survey of teachers in a different locations in the country found that they mentioned “lack of resources” as the major concern and reason why the teaching wasn’t so good and if they had more money and resources it would be better. It’s pretty much the standard psychological “externalising their problems” thing (they think that if it goes well, it is because of themselves, if there are problems then it’s due to something outside and beyond their control (and in this instance is because the schools have no money and no resources.))

I wish more Ethiopian teachers could have the experience my guys have had over the last few weeks – firstly having success teaching maths actively and student-led with nothing more than bits of card and bottle tops, and then seeing a “rich” school where the children are not learning very effectively because of “bad” teaching.