First Diploma achieved!

I am learning a lot about my students from reading their reflective diaries. I am also learning a lot about how to teach, or more accurately how not to teach students the reflective process! I think we in the UK are probably encouraged as we grow up to think about what we are doing and be self-critical without feeling that we have failed. Simply we search for ways of doing things better next time without actually feeling that we were a terrible failure this time! As I understand it in Chichewa there is no way of saying that something was not perfect, without saying it was a failure. David and I discovered very early on that our students were very ready to describe children as having failed at something. This is not terminology we would ever use in Early Years' settings at home and we were very uncomfortable with it. When I think about it, I still am uncomfortable, but I have got used to hearing it and I do not always challenge it every time in the way that I used to do. I really think that the culture has a different way of looking at success and failure and that I haven't fully understood it yet. I think that constantly being told that one has failed cannot be good for confidence however, and without self-confidence it is difficult to be effectively self-critical. Students do not seem to have difficulty in describing things that have gone wrong, but even more than in our own culture here in Malawi it seems to be necessary to find someone to blame for what has happened. We have tried to encourage students to use the headings; observation, feelings, evaluation, analysis, conclusions, action plan to think about events that happen at work in the CC and work out as a result of what has happened, how to improve outcomes for the children next time, or how to be a better practitioner in a similar situation next time it should happen. When I have done this with students in England the feelings described are often detailed. Words like angry, frustrated, sympathetic, compassionate, proud, excited, disappointed and isolated are used. Here in Malawi it is an unusual student who ever says anything beyond 'I felt happy' or occasionally 'I felt sad'. This means it is harder to move on to analyzing why they felt as they did and then it is much more difficult to evaluate what is going on and then work out what could be done to improve things this time and do it differently, and better next time. I have read several diaries where students have had very negative reactions to what has happened, can say that they felt bad but can only analyse this in terms of what some other bugger should have done differently. Taking responsibility for putting things right or doing them differently themselves seems to be an alien concept!

Yesterday was a red-letter day for me because the first of our students completed the necessary number of tasks (recently reduced you will remember) to achieve the Beehive Diploma in Child Care and Early Years Education. There are three or four more who are not far behind her. This has made me feel really good. I was beginning to feel that no one would ever get there and we would return to England without seeing anyone complete the course.

David, Kirren and I are assessing practical tasks at every possible moment at the moment. I can see now that I was a bit over ambitious in expecting us to be able to keep up a pace of assessing six tasks a day each. Although I have on one or two memorable days managed to do ten, it is a huge amount of work and to do it conscientiously and give the students high quality feedback takes at least an hour per task. It is only Wednesday and David has already done 19 this week. I am trailing him at 14 because I have been at the dentist again. I now have a shiny white crown. Let's hope it stays in place and I have no more trouble with teeth for a very long time! We continue to see quite a lot of mediocre activities, which do offer the children learning opportunities, but are not particularly interesting or original, but we see more than a few which are really good. I had a student today who was supposed to show me that he knew how to make an accurate assessment of the risks involved in an activity with children and put measures in place to make it safe. Generally speaking I have been disappointed in these activities as it seems to me students have made a lot of fuss about pointing out very minor risks. Not today however. The children in the 4-5s class love riding tricycles. Even in England most children do, but I do not think we have a single child in this class who has a trike of his or her own. When we introduced them they all had to learn to pedal, not that it took them long! They love to go really fast but when we ride indoors particularly we have to slow them down to prevent crashes and spills. Moses devised a way to have a sort of mini tricycle grand prix in the Eagles Room this afternoon and it really was great fun. There were only 8 children in today. He marked out a track with beech wood blocks around the central pillar in the classroom, brought in extra Care Givers to stand in front of danger points such as the floor-level windows and the pillar itself and then got the children to race four at a time round and round the track. They were all going in the same direction and there was just about room for safe overtaking. The four children not riding were encouraged to cheer for their friends and we really kicked up a cacophony! I was heartened to note that every child was cheered on by somebody. It was quite difficult to keep track of who were the winners as children kept lapping each other, but everyone got the chance to ride at speed. The spectators were jumping up and down, applauding and shouting and the competitors were pedaling fit to bust. Everyone had a go in both roles, and the safety measures really worked, no crashes and no accidents!

I could have cried with pride yesterday afternoon as I observed Tamara lead an activity designed to demonstrate fostering creativity in babies. She had set up no less than seven separate child initiated activities on the balcony. Then she simply said to the children when lunch was over, 'Let's go and look at what there is to do on the balcony.' There was a tray of charcoal from a rocket stove. There was a small tub of flour presented with plastic cups and plates. There was a tray of runny red paint with sponges, thicker blue paint with cars and corn cobs in it, pots of paint with brushes, a variety of shapes and colours of paper, little clay animals to be painted, a sand tray with little pots and pans, and a tub of water containing little toys, bits of orange peel and ice blocks. The babies played for ages. Tamara, who is 8 months pregnant and could be forgiven for taking things easy, spent the whole time crouched in a flat footed squat to be on the same level as the children, watching them quietly, responding to their questions and comments, keeping an eye out for their safety and offering help if requested. The whole thing was a delight to see.

I even saw a hand-washing activity that warmed my heart yesterday. The hygiene task is one that I will revise if we ever do run the course through another time. David and I are utterly tired of seeing children be taught how to wash their hands properly. On this occasion however Anastasia decided to do the job in the garden. She began by encouraging the children to make sand castles with a fairly grubby mixture of sand and mud. She didn't mention washing until one of the children held out her hands and asked to go and wash. Then she showed the children a whole routine involving rinsing off the mud over the grass and then washing thoroughly with soap at the outdoor sink. She had even brought down individual flannels for the children to dry themselves thoroughly. Excellent.