Ready or Not?

Like every school, we have our star students and our kids who need a little extra help. In Kenya, homeschooling is generally not allowed/frowned upon so the children go to school at 3 years old regardless of their readiness. In fact, the news that M was homeschooled generally elicits gasps from teachers at my school who can’t believe that a parent would ever want to do such a thing.

The blanket school attendance of 3-year-olds is somewhat suspect, however, since some of our 4-year-old children are blatantly not ready for school (I help in the middle of the 3 progressive sections of kindergarten – ages 3, 4, and 5). Some of the children in our class are beginning to read 2 and 3-letter words and to do simple addition while others don’t even reliably know the numbers from 1-7.

All instruction is given from the blackboard as children sit at small tables. I would guess that they hear about 50% of what Mary says and spend the other 50% of the time poking their neighbor. Nonetheless after the board instruction, their books are passed out and they “quietly” do their book work for the rest of the hour-long lesson. This system works well if the child is ready for school and generally engaged in his or her work. It seriously breaks down if you have a hyperactive or distractible child.

Martin is one of our weaker students (that's him with me reviewing the number chart). When class began in January (school runs Jan-Nov here with two 1-month breaks), he was on par with his classmates and knew the numbers 1-3. Most of the class can now count to 60. Martin couldn’t count past 4 reliably until 2 weeks ago and he still can’t count past 7 on a regular basis. I’m not a doctor but I’m pretty sure he’s got ADHD. I’ve never seen him make visual contact with the blackboard for longer than 3 seconds while Mary is teaching.

When Mary is alone, she really cannot work with any student individually for more than a minute or two before the next student needs her. Martin’s lack of attention span and inability to do work without someone hovering over him left him falling further and further behind.

He’s become my special project. You see, the teachers had decided that Martin was being lazy and purposefully defiant. I’m not a rocket scientist but I could tell he had ADHD and that he clearly has some issues in his home life (I gripped his arm once to get him to try and look at me and he started screaming like I’d shot him – NOT normal).

I admit, he’s completely maddening sometimes, but he actually is improving with one-on-one attention that I am able to give him while Mary juggles all of the other children. While I think attention disorders are grossly overdiagnosed in the US, Mary had no idea that a child could have a clinical inability to pay attention. To be clear, she’s a fantastic teacher, easily the most conscientious teacher in the school and the only teacher I have not seen use corporal punishment. She just thought he was being defiant and she had 20 other 4-year-olds to teach to count to 60 - a very real challenge.

The real downside of forcing kids this young to sit at desks and write for 4 hours per day is that kids that aren’t ready for that get left far behind. Academic achievement is absolutely crucial to getting ahead in Kenya. The teachers focus on the best students and push them ahead, unlike in America where schools are often accused of teaching to the weakest students. If the option is to try to bring a weak and extremely distracted student up to grade level or help a stellar student work ahead, they help the strongest student. We actually have a big problem of children copying from each other because they don’t want to seem like they don’t know. Here is how I’ve taken to administering dictation to two of our “cheaters”:



Mary and I have been brainstorming how to help Martin and she’s been incredibly open to suggestions from me even though I have no teaching experience. I’ve been working with him one-on-one every day and taking him outside the classroom when he gets too distracted. We’ve also just let him sleep several times when it’s clear that he didn’t get sleep the previous night. Our goal is to get him more focused and interested in learning so that when he repeats the class next year he’ll be able to keep up with his class. (he’s going to fail the standardized tests, that’s a given. Yes, they test 4-year-olds in Kenya)

In an effort to do this, I suggested to Mary that we make some visual aids to help Martin and some of the weaker children. One of the clearest issues holding some of the kids back is that they simply memorize the right words but don’t have any understanding of its meaning. So “four” is simply what comes after “three” but if I ask you to bring me four pencils, you can’t do it. Others can count by memory but cannot write the numbers because they have not connected the sounds. Mary was all for trying this approach so I headed to Nakumatt to get some supplies (Nakumatt = Kenyan Walmart).

Mary and I spent about 4 afternoons creating the number and letter cards without accompanying pictures and then “laminating” them with clear packing tape. M even got in on arts and crafts time when he stopped by one afternoon. He colored a xylophone and a zipper since we were nearing the end of the alphabet.

Our results are below:






The great thing about these aids is that we’ve actually been able to use them with all the children, not just the weaker ones. For example, the weaker ones use the cards to count while the stronger children use them to add; the weaker ones use the alphabet cards to practice their letters while the stronger ones start to spell (I'll post videos tomorrow). Plus, we’ve gotten the kids out of their desks and learning in a group which (in my admittedly American opinion) is superior when you’re four. Mary doesn’t have the money to buy these type of supplies on her own (notecards, colored pencils, and packing tape) but she loved the idea and is so excited with the results. I feel really fortunate to be teaching with someone so open to suggestions (and also the only teacher who doesn’t tell me to hit the kids when they do something ‘wrong’). Even though school is over for this year, Mary and I have already discussed how we can improve these aids and use them right from the beginning next year.