I always enjoy the time I spend in classrooms here at
Maranyundo. Today, Teacher Esther’s first period class was learning to read
dialogue. Teacher Esther gives her S1 students a lot of opportunities to speak
in English. She also gives them opportunities to read and answer thoughtful
questions about the themes and ideas in short narratives. The students today
read a dialogue about holidays (vacations) and she took the opportunity to have
the students share their favorite holiday memories after they had read the dialogue
in the text.
The student responses were so interesting. Some students had had holidays in
places like Dubai or a family expedition to explore a desert. Some students had visited
relatives in nearby villages, celebrated birthdays or weddings with their community. The range
of backgrounds that the students of MGS represent is evidence of what the Benebikira’s
believe is the mission of educating all children. As Sister Juvenal said in one
of our Marnaynundo videos, “rich and poor,
we are the same.”
Teacher Esther received each story of a vacation with family
and friends with enthusiasm and sincere interest. The students listened
respectfully to one another. She created a class culture in which students were
able to feel included in this place that respects the background of each of the
students.
When I experience a lesson like this, I am reminded of one
of one of my favorite quotes about schools that Debbie Meier wrote in a chapter
called Community.
“For many,
school is the first community in which ‘public judgments’ are made about their
place, value, and competence by both peers and those in authority…Workplaces,
neighborhoods, and even states and nations are modeled in some ways from our
experiences in these earliest communities…[School] is where we learn how public
life is lived, where we fit (or don’t) in the pecking order, and how decisions
are made, power exerted.”
It is one of the aspects of schooling that I
believe we always must remember. Schools and the classrooms n which we
encounter not only ideas and lessons about the stuff of the world, but also
about who we are and how our ideas and questions are valued. Bringing girls
together from many different districts of Rwanda and many different backgrounds is
a special opportunity for the girls to learn about themselves and one another.
Their teachers are very aware of the fact that these girls will play a role in
the future of Rwanda.
This is a lesson I always re-learn and remember
when I am at Maranyundo. The classrooms in which we educate our youth are
powerful places in the lives of both teachers and their students. “School is
where we learn how public life is lived.” And we all have a stake in how
schools and classrooms shape our nations, our futures, our globe.
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