Education Stakeholders Workshop - Swahili Proverbs

On Thursday and Friday, we had a workshop with school inspectors, academic officers (school administrators), and ward executive officers (administrators for specific wards, which are similar to neighborhoods).  The purpose of the workshop was to share the LTP methodology with the educational stakeholders that work with Arusha area teachers that use LTP so that the stakeholders would understand this participatory learning method.

Over the course of the two days, we did a reading photographs activity with both the stakeholders and with primary school students, a swahili proverbs activity, and an ABC project, where participants worked in groups to brainstorm words from A-Z for a specific subject (science, history, etc). and took pictures to represent these words.  The electricity went out during the ABC project (not uncommon), so they weren't able to print the pictures with the kodak photo printer and create a visual aid during the workshop.

The most interesting activity was the Swahili proverbs activity because proverbs in Tanzania are much more engrained in their culture than they are in the US.  Students learn Swahili proverbs at a very young age, both at home and in school.  Kangas, a type of fabric that many women wear in informal situations, have proverbs written on them.  The importance of proverbs in Tanzania reminds me of the 4-character sayings called chengyu's (成语) in Chinese because they deal with teaching a lesson or moral.

The picture below shows the proverb that means "unity is strength, separation is weakness".  Like all translation, not all proverbs translate perfectly into English, but the general concept is still clear.

The participants split into groups and brainstormed proverbs together.  Then they picked their favorite proverbs and took pictures with a digital camera to represent the proverb meaning.  The Duke students showed them how to use the digital camera (many had not used one before or only use them rarely) and print them using a kodak photo printer.  (All of this equipment and materials are available in Pelle's, the Tanzanian coordinator, LTP office/resource center in Arusha for teachers to check out and use in the classroom).  Then the participants pasted their pictures onto paper and wrote the proverb under them. 

It was great to see these key stakeholders get so into the LTP activities because they were able to see firsthand how participatory methods (lectures are typically more common in classrooms) can enhance learning in the classroom and encourage critical thinking, group discussion, and FUN!

Word of the day: Methali - proverb