Individuality and Imagination
Posted
by
Kelly
on 02 Jul 2009
This week we hear reports that it is warmer back home in the UK than out here in Zambia!! We are not impressed!! But despite the cold(ish) conditions we are continuing to have great fun teaching our groups of kids at the schools, although jumpers are being kept on and the mats are being set up away from the shade - not normal practice!!
This week we have made cockatoos, after reading Quentin Blake’s book, done self portraits and become fashion designers inspired by reading “Yuk.” As well as reading we are encouraging the children to get involved in art projects, drama, story writing, costume making and poetry. Most of them have never before considered rhyming words and have certainly not written their own poems, one of the groups of 15 and 16 year olds came up with….
Yesterday I baked a cake,
Yesterday I saw a snake,
Yesterday I found a rake,
And threw them all into the lake.
The grins on their faces when they realise they have created something themselves is fantastic. It is commonplace in our education system to write our own stories but here it is almost unheard of. We have realised that just as important as reading with the children is inspiring their individuality and stimulating their imaginations. In their classrooms they are only required to listen and copy and are very seldom asked for their own opinions. We are trying to encourage individual thoughts and writing their own stories or poems is a great way of doing this.
One little boy from grade 3, aged 11, asked me last week “Can you teach me something?” I said “Shall we read a book?” He said, “But madam, I can’t read.” So we went through a book about colours, drew a rainbow and labelled the colours. It is interesting to see that when some of the children copy what you have written, they don’t just copy your words, they make an exact copy of your handwriting which is just what this boy did.
Another interesting fact is that glitter is officially king with Zambian children!! Whether they are girls or boys, 5 or 15, if glitter is brought out in a session, they don’t just want to decorate their drawings but also their hair, face, clothes and us!! So dorn’t forget – beware of using glitter!! The children at cowboy cliffs even made up a song about it!
This week our volunteer librarian, Marjorie, has left us after 8 weeks on the bus. But before she left she re-categorised our entire collection, organised a donation of over 300 books to Livingstone public library, initiated the town’s first labelling party (including label protectors!!) AND set the foundations for world “quadrilation”!!! (It starts with a bag system!!)
Another sunset cruise, with excellent hippo spotting and a bike ride through the non touristy areas of Livingstone are some of the activities we have been up to outside school. Another favourite pastime is wandering through the local markets and picking up home grown produce, huge watermelons are number one on our list at the moment!!