David began on Monday morning with a presentation on Communication, Language and Literacy. On Tuesday it was my turn with Problem Solving and Supporting Children to Develop Thinking Skills. On Wednesday we made them do presentations to us. Working in pairs they had to describe an activity to do with pre-school children, say what age group it was suitable for and tell us what they thought children would learn from it and how it would support their development. This was interesting from many points of view. David and I learned quite a bit about making toys and equipment from local resources. Quite a number of them made props from clay. One pair made an archery set including a homemade bow and arrow that worked pretty well and targets that managed to teach colour, shape, tall and short and nos 1-4! There was a marvelous imaginary play set up for 2-3 year olds around playing house with some lovely little clay people and all sorts of other bits and pieces including a bicycle made from sticks and crown caps, and a car made from a match box. Crown caps in different colours featured a lot. My favourite piece was an abacus made with alternating green and red caps on a piece of string in a cardboard frame. There was another abacus made with homemade clay balls on a piece of string supported by a curved stick. I only had my little camera with me so the quality of my photos is not great but you can get the ideas. Many of the activities were rather formal and led from the front of the class. We have a way to go before our students will fully understand what a difference it makes to have UK staff ratios and therefore the ability to plan for individual children and enough staff available so that children have room to move around and for several different activities to be going on at the same time. We keep describing it, but until they actually see it for themselves I am not sure that it is going to sink in! On Thursday David tacked the 'observe, plan, do, review' cycle and on Friday I looked at Play and how children learn through play. David had them all writing a retrospective plan for the activities they presented the day before, which was interesting but slightly limited because without having any group of children to observe in the first place it was difficult for them to understand how the whole process starts. I got each group of four or five students to describe a group of children playing and then go through Tina Bruce's twelve features of play and say which of the features they could see in the play episode they had described and then say what the children were learning following on from each feature they identified. I've never taken that approach before and I was pleased by how well it worked. Yet again we learned new Chichewa games and activities. We had boys playing with homemade clay lorries and tanks, a game which was very like hopscotch but with a court of a different shape, a game with something in common with 'Piggy in the Middle' and another that was 'Keepy uppy' really, played in a circle. I guess across the world children invent the same games to amuse themselves over and over again. I worked out an assessment system with a maximum of 12 points for each presentation, and David and Lindy and I each assessed the presentations separately and then added the scores to give a maximum of 36 to each pair of students. There is a weakness here in that the work done was not always equally distributed between the partners, but we did our best! We each took a slightly different view, Lindy concentrated on what she thought the activity would be like for the children on the receiving end. David and I focused more on the student's awareness of what the children might be learning as they did the activity. I was a bit more generous with the points than David was, but there were not many presentations about which we did not broadly agree. We have been playing a lot of different games with the students because we want them to experience for themselves the process of learning through play. We have done table top activities such as painting and playdough but we are so short of resources until our container gets here that this has been a bit restricted. I managed to make playdough from nsima flour, I brought the food colouring and cream of tartar with me. It worked well! David and I come from quite different places as far as games are concerned and the result has been rather a rich mixture, with him providing a lot of high energy, competitive stuff and me drawing on my history of involvement with New Games UK and playing more cooperative and generally, but not always quieter games. We have played a few name games which have helped me to remember more of the student's names but I am still struggling with some of the more unfamiliar ones. After the session on Play I decided to play a drama game called 'The Line' where groups take it in turns to draw an imaginary line across the room and then mime what sort of line it is. I began by drawing a line from wall to wall at a height just above my head and miming hanging out the washing. This was quickly guessed and a whole succession of innovative ideas followed from the morning group who quickly caught on to the idea and mimed scenes including walking along the white line in the middle of the road to prove you are not drunk, a river, a particular type of Malawian trap for catching animals, a net used by fishermen on Lake Malawi and so on. In the afternoon the group is younger on average and more excitable, certainly more competitive, and the game quickly disintegrated into a shouting match about who may or may not have been cheating and which was the best team. How differently different groups of students approach the same session! We managed to calm them down through playing quieter games and talked to them about what happened and how we could all learn from it, so the play session was not wasted! In the afternoon we had the first rain to fall while we were teaching. It became quite impossible to hear ourselves against the rain drumming at top volume on the metal roof. I do hope it is not going to rain like that every afternoon now, as if it does the afternoon group will be at a considerable disadvantage. I tried to pass round the way to play the new game from person to person rather like Chinese Whispers, but they didn't really catch on, perhaps that is not a familiar game here.
This has been another busy weekend as far as lesson preparation is concerned. David is working on care of basic needs and professional partnerships this week and I have Child Protection and care of babies to think about. The final session will be an assessment. I have done loads of research and thinking about the Child Protection presentation because I am acutely aware that it must be appropriate for Malawi, and also because one of the afternoon students is a Child Protection Worker and therefore I have to get it right! I am used to thinking of four main categories of child abuse; physical, emotional, sexual and neglect, but the Malawian Early Childhood Development Basic Training Manual adds Child Labour, Child Trafficking, Harmful Cultural Practices and Stigma and Discrimination to that list. Fortunately this is only an introductory course so I have been able to keep things simple. We shall be looking at 'What are child rights?', 'What is child abuse? ', and keeping the appropriate action when a care giver suspects there may be child abuse to discussing the situation with the line manager and taking advice from the local Child Protection Worker who will act as an intermediary with the District Social Work Office, tribal chief or Police as appropriate. I hope it turns out OK! I have also written an exam this weekend and devised various forms etc to keep assessment records. I still have to do the working with babies session, but compared to Child Protection that should be a piece of cake so I am not too worried about that! I hope I don't live to eat my words!!
Yesterday I went into Blantyre and investigated a couple of fabric shops. I bought a couple of chitenges which are now brightening up my room. We finished up in the café that does the iced coffee, which was very nice and then wandered on to the food court for lunch. I had a chicken salad which was fresh and herby. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Eating out here is not very varied. Basically you can have beef, chicken, or chambo with chips, rice or nsima, sometimes there are vegetables. It is definitely not great for vegetarians! Despite my decision to eat meat while I am here I am not sure that I shall continue to do so when I come home. It's OK, but although I quite like the chicken I am not particularly enjoying the beef, although I must say Charles makes great gravy!! David came home early on Friday to find Charles and Stanley butchering a pig on the khonde. Jane says it was not a pretty sight, lots of fat everywhere. I think I am glad that I did not encounter the pig until it was turned into roast ribs for supper! Today has been a lazy day, finishing my presentation, making mango tartlets for pudding tonight, (Yes, mango again I'm afraid!) and writing the blog. I want to thank all of you who have been calling me on the phone. It really makes my day to talk to someone from home, and although I have arranged cheap calls from Malawi to England now it is still about five times more expensive than it is in the other direction. I really don't understand why that is, but there you are, it's a funny old world!
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