Word of the day: Library

I just wrapped up a four-day workshop (as a participant) on using, fixing, and building science equipment from locally available resources. The workshop was created by RPCV Alan Olsen (Malaysia, Uganda) and involved fellow RPCV Carl Katsu (Morocco) and a very successful physics teacher, author of textbooks and training director for schoolnetuganda Daniel Kakinda. The workshop got off to a bit of a slow start but ended with some serious momentum as Kakinda showed many incredible things his group is doing with computer technology for classrooms here in uganda. He also provided cd's to each participating shool with tons of simulations for various physics, biology and chemistry labs, which will be great for schools such as ours where we don't have enough resources for the students to each conduct the labs on their own. Carl gave some great tips about good teaching practices and simple demonstrations for physics and biology. It was nice for me as he has 18 years of teaching experience in the US and offered a good example of what a "teacher" is supposed to do. Unlike many teachers here who simply stand in front of their classes and read notes verbatim for entire class periods and the students hurriedly try to copy them into their books.

During the workshop I took the chance to tour the library of Mbarara High School, where the workshop was being held. I got lots of good ideas to use in the construction of our library as well as some things that don't work so well.

Oh, btw.....if you haven't heard already - the road to building a full-fledged library at St. Adolf High School got a huuuge boost as the grant I wrote through peace corps got approved for $9,400!!!! This leaves us short by about $10,000, but with the incredible efforts of my mom back in the states and the parish's promise to foot the remaining costs, we should see the library up and running by February 2010!!

We're slated to begin construction on October 1st of this year, just as the rains begin - which should make things interesting, but my school's administration promises to push through this sligh hinderance. The library will provide enough space for about 100 students to sit at tables comfortably. We're also hoping to have a large collection of books donated through booksforafrica.org and the Rotary clubs of Fort Portal (here in Uganda) and back in NC. If all goes according to plan (which it won't, but we'll survive somehow) we should be able to leave a lasting resource for the students to use for many many years to come.

This will give my students the first access they have EVER had to ANY books in their entire lives. Think about that - imagine going to school and never touching or reading a book! Going to class everyday and listening to a teacher lecture, trying to write down everything he/she says or writes on the board. Then going home and wanting to improve your biology grade, but having nothing but those notes to look at - no google, no encyclopedias, no textbooks, no dictionary, no television documentaries, not even any posters or pictures to look at. Everything the teacher says has to be taken as complete truth, since there is no where to verify it. It's incredible these kids learn anything. And to be honest, they don't. Since all they have is this notebook full of lecture notes they go home and memorize every single word of it - it's the best thing they can do with only one (very limited) resource. They memorize it and hope it's the same information that is asked on the test. The problem with this is since they are only memorizing the info they can only regurgitate it in the exact way it was given. Ask for the information in a different way and they are completely lost. After about 5 years, they remember nothing, because they never applied it to anything but a test.

But, hopefully all that will change - at least for the 4 years these kids will be at St. Adolf. After getting their notes they can rush over to the library, grab a book and sit down and read the information in a different way, compare it to what they were given in class, ask questions to someone (or something) other than their teacher. If their curious about a certain topic they can read more about it on their own. We're also hoping to set up a few computers in the library and put different types of educational resources on them (britannica, wikipedia, learning games, cia factbook, maps, diagrams, you name it). We won't have internet in any foreseeable future, but we do have power, and therefore a computer is a free resource. We're hoping to take as much information as possible from the internet and other sources and put it directly onto the computers or a server so they can access it. If anyone has any software resources they think the kids would be interested in please let me know!

Otherwise, stay tuned for updates on our progress with this project.

That's it for now.

Love and miss you all, ------ And THANK YOU to all who have already contributed to the project. I'm hoping to put up a fundraising application in the near future to raise money for the books if we need it. Will let you know!

-Eric

Brutal Honesty...

Ok folks, time for some very american, in-your-face honesty: I am officially a lazy blogger.

Yep. Although I'm sure this is something you have all figured out now, I think it's time I admit it. I think there are a few reasons for this I would like to share with you all now to quell my guilt:

1) I have become used to Africa.
- this is a scary thought, but I think it can help to explain my terrible regularity with postings. I am now viewing things that happen here as normal. This leads to less surprise, and therefore less motivation to quickly share the strangeness with you all.

2) Twitter syndrome.
- even when strange things do happen, I can twitter them and then don't feel the need to ramble on in a posting about the event. Also, I feel like the punchline of a potential posting has been ruined as the tweet usually exposes the whole point of a posting.

3) Lack of internet.
- here's a softball but humor me. I am now using internet about 1 hour per week, and this is usually spent catching up on emails (or lately, catching up on phish tour news....sorry - i do have priorities).

4) I'm a lazy african.
- yes, all the excuses in the world could be placed here, but the fact of the matter is i'm lazy. Not that this is a new development, but it is now translating itself into more of my daily life here.

SOLUTIONS: As commendable as it is to admit you are wrong, it does nothing without posing some solutions. So here they are.

Stick with me, i will try to improve.
- As i type this i am watching my internet timer quickly tick down to under 5 mins and once again i have not posted any meaningful news from here. But i am going to try to update more, so just stick with me. In the meantime keep watching twitter for randomness in my daily life.

That's it for now!! Hope someone is still out there reading this.


Love to you all,
Eric.