The week was interrupted by May Day yesterday, which messed up our program a little bit, but after small adjustments we got to visit 3 schools in 4 working days anyway. And what a week it has been!
On Monday and Tuesday we worked at Mabatini school. The school is very popular, they have almost 1.300 students and that it is largely because of the school's excellent acadamic results. The problem is that they only have 7 classrooms, so there are classes of over 200 students. However, our teachers were impressed by the quality of teaching done inside of those classrooms.
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| Mabatini third class with 170 students? |
Mabatini is a new school in this project, so we used the most of our visit getting to know each other and talking about the expectations from the co-operation, but Kaisa & Ira again showed some new teaching methods that can be used in a big class (and also outside of the classroom) and Jasmine and me again gave our suggestions on how the councelling could be organized in the school if they wish to do that in the future.
We also saw some familiar faces at Mabatini. The assistant head teacher, Mr. Ilanga Edson was a member of the Mwanza delegation at Tampere in March. And our own exchange student Monica Mzema was there, too, giving lessons about Finland and also some environmental issues, including recycling. A pleasant surprise was to meet a dozen students from Butimba Teachers' College, who were on an observation period in Mabatini. We had great discussions with them and will continue to do so via internet.
On Wednesday we went to Iseni school, which is also a new addition to the project. The entire school was busy, because it was a day of big tests in many schools, but our hosts did a great job making us feel welcome and comfortable and we left really pleased because everyone thought that under the circumstances we really achieved some noticable results in one day. We got to see the special education unit of the school and also visit their pre-primary. This was a good start and we are looking forward to going back next week.
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| Self made dolls for playing and learning in Iseni Pre Primary school. Thursday we spent some time on our day off at Isamilo Lodge. A great place, we highly recommend that to all visitors who come to Mwanza at any time. |
Now we are here at Mirongo school. The athmosphere could not possibly be any more friendly. The teachers and our main host, the academic teacher Edna Kidudo, are such a pleasure to work with. And we are highly impressed by the things that they have already done here since our previous visit. Our goal was to check the situation, discuss it some more and then make a plan about some short-term goals. But now that we are here, we have gotten to witness that a large number of things have already been done and they are in progress already! It is so very rewarding - especially because we know that there is so much that we have learned at Mirongo, too, and what we will bring home with us next week when we leave. We also had an opportunity to visit the Mirongo Secondary School, which was a valuable experience. Now we now better what is tp be expected for children after the primary school and we also got to discuss with teachers with teaching and councelling. Teachers and councellors were also very interested in the Finnish educational system. The only sad thing is, that this folow-up day is our last at Mirongo. But this co-operation, the project and these friendships will continue for sure.
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| Our team in Mirongo. Left Ira, Jasmine, Kaisa and Ilpo. |
Next week's schedule will consist of visits to 4 schools in 3 days and then conducting the evaluation day for all project schools next Thursday. On Friday we are scheduled to head for home. We'll see what happens. :-)
by: Ilpo Rantanen
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