Shortages

Our most recent course was a look at planning early years provision using themes. The reason why David and I chose this as a subject for a short course is because as part of the exam, back in July, we set a planning task which involved suggesting a theme suitable for a group of under-5s of a particular age and then planning activities designed to support the children to gain the skills required to meet the milestones of the Malawian ECD curriculum in each of the four domains (Physical, Mental and Cognitive, Social and Emotional, and Moral and Spiritual). The whole exercise was threatened because about 85% of the students had no understanding of what we meant by the word theme. In fact we had to make radical changes to the marking scheme in order to be able to assess what the students knew and make sensible use of the results to that paper! I guess this is how you learn, neither of us has much experience of setting exams. Anyway we realized that although we knew that very few of the students had actually worked in nurseries before we had not taken into account what you pick up when you are on a placement in an Early Years setting. In UK all Early Years courses include periods of practical work with children, so it just would not have happened at home that we would have missed the fact that our students lacked this basic knowledge, add to this the fact that English is their second language and you have the explanation for why the situation arose.

I had an easy time for this course as David volunteered to put together a presentation so I was just there in the background helping the small groups of students to think about what a theme might be, and later to put together lists of suitable themes for various teaching purposes. I know it is not fashionable at home to teach in this way, but we are not looking at it as an alternative to basing activities on observed needs of individual children, but rather as complementary to it. When they finally start in the Children's Centre in January our students will all be new and inexperienced together and they must set up play spaces that are attractive and stimulating for babies, toddlers and young children. As products of the Malawian education system and its rote learning approach they are not the best at using their initiative and so we know that they need systems to help them to get to the right place at least at first. It is to be hoped that as they gain experience and see more ways of doing things they will gain in confidence and be able to take a more creative and original approach to planning.

In the afternoon we lightened the atmosphere and I used a grid technique that I learned thirty years ago with New Games UK, to show the students how to make up new games for themselves to support particular desired learning outcomes and themes. We had a few good ideas, but again it was more of a struggle than I expected. Again I blame the Malawian education system, originality is definitely not encouraged and students are afraid to make suggestions for fear of being ridiculed, or castigated for being 'wrong'. 'You have failed…' is all too common a phrase in Malawi. I would like to use the same technique with the EYPS students at home. I think it would be a way of developing quite exciting new games and activities.

Two weekends have passed since I last wrote. There is little option to get out of Blantyre at the moment as the fuel crisis is ever-deepening! When there is a rumour of fuel at a particular garage queues develop rapidly in both directions. Men bearing bright yellow jerry cans converge on the garage from around every corner and jump off every minibus. Adam, the volunteer whose job includes keeping all the trucks and JCBs, concrete mixers etc that Torrent hires out to other businesses on the road, sends the vehicles with the biggest tanks to join the local queues, but also looks at the possibility of obtaining fuel from wherever he can. Thus we have been making our own entertainment. Sarah and I went into Blantyre on the minibus on Saturday morning, sat in the garden of the Mount Soche Hotel with bottles of pop and then met up with Rita and Lyndsey to go shopping. We ended up in Lambats, the fabric shop, where we each bought cheap, lightweight cotton to get dresses made by the tailoring project. Then it was back to the Soche where we met David, Ged and Marc for lunch and frittered away the afternoon in idle chat, Greens and Mzuzu coffee. On Saturday Sarah, Lyndsey and I put together a good spread and invited all the volunteers and several other friends for a barbeque at Mitsidi. Despite the colour of the swimming pool being a deep bottle green, similar in shade to the water of the fish ponds, most of the younger volunteers jumped in and ensured that those of us who remained on the edge got as wet as they did by repeated bombing into the water. A few locals must have heard the splashing and came to join in and a good time was had by all.

The weather has finally settled into a steady succession of still, hot days. I am so grateful for the new classroom in JPIILITA which is so much cooler than the tin roofed library at St James' Primary school where David and I were based this time last year. Marc, who is teaching in Standard 1 up there at the moment arrives in our room at the end of the teaching day almost literally melting after being cooped up in a concrete box with about 80 children in the heat of the day.

The hammerkops have been working hard. The nest is now at least a couple of feet tall. It is a shaggy mound of sticks, leaves and grasses, browned by the sun. The entrance hole is towards the trunk of the tree over half way down the side so that the nesting place is completely enclosed and protected from the wind and weather. During the barbeque we observed Mr and Mrs Hammerkop getting intimate on more than one occasion, so we are hoping for eggs very soon. Unfortunately though, I shall not be able to see them from my vantage point at the top of the garden as the nest is so completely enclosed.

The turn of the Children's Centre to lead the Monday morning assembly rolled around again this week. I was a little anxious about it as when I asked for student volunteers I did not get even one. However I am sympathetic to them at the moment as for some at least it is very difficult for them during the wait for the Children's Centre to open, so I decided not to press the point and tackle the assembly in another way. Unfortunately David is on holiday and Marc is thoroughly committed at the time of the assembly to his teaching of Standard 1 at St James', so that left me, Sarah and Lyndsey. During the Children's Centre meeting last week we put our heads together and with David's help came up with a programme. Sarah gallantly agreed to find and read an appropriate Bible passage and fixed on Mark 10 13-16, the 'Suffer the little children' passage. Father John leant her a 'Study Bible' and we all liked the commentary for that passage which seemed to have something to say that was relevant to the way we are planning to teach in the Children's Centre, so she read that too. Lyndsey offered to find a suitable secular reading or poem and with a stroke of genius came up with 'Anyway' a verse which can apparently be found on the wall of the orphanage in Calcutta where Mother Teresa worked. David suggested that we illustrate how we are trying to teach Moral and Social issues such as cooperation and teamwork through games and fun, and get a few volunteers to take part in 'The Balloon Game' during the assembly. We needed someone to lead a prayer and, as our line manager, Vince was happy to be drawn in to the proceedings. That left only the introductions and links for me to do. I made a Trojan effort, with the help of Paul, my Chichewa teacher, and Yohane, and did these in Chichewa, which proved to be a popular decision and earned lots of applause on the day! Father John Dimba rounded everything off with a passionate reflection in Chichewa. He is such a good speaker but although I understood not a word, I thoroughly enjoyed the address, full of expression and gesture, and also the response of the congregation as they showed their approval of his message. The poem went down extremely well and was picked up by the MD in what amounted to a second reflection tacked on to the end of the assembly. Put all together this produced one of the longest assemblies in living memory, which I would not normally consider to be a good thing, but the feedback so far has all been appreciative, so I think we got away with it!