Ethiopia
Teachers Discover Computers and PASPORT Technology in Ethiopia
By Chris Wilde
The following success story comes from Ethiopia, and it tells how teachers with virtually no computer experience were entranced by PASCO's Xplorer and sensors.
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia -- They were 17
amazing days. Invited to Addis Ababa,
Ethiopia, by an Ethiopian
biologist, Dr. Getachew Tikubet,
Chris Wilde and
Christian Grunder from
Central
Catholic High
School
in Modesto, Calif., taught the first of a
five-summer
series in teacher training institutes.
The Ethiopian
Science
Teacher
Training Institute (ESTTI) is a
grass-roots project of
teachers reaching out to
teachers to
help them strengthen
their
teaching and prepare to become
master
teacher trainers.
We discovered
that only
one-third of Ethiopian high school
teachers graduated from
university, and those graduates had no
teacher
preparation classes at
all. The other two-thirds of
high school teachers have
just graduated
from high
school and
are immediately hired to teach -- you
guessed it
-- high
school! They get no university preparation and no
pedagogical
training. Combine that with a six-period
teaching load with 70
to 90
students
per period and
poverty-level wages in an
already very poor
country and it is
not
surprising that
Ethiopia is hemorrhaging
teachers!
We were able to introduce them to concepts such as learning
styles,
cooperative learning and engaging students by
introducing fun
into the
classroom. We were asked to tantalize
them with some high-tech
applications that
free them
from the classroom, as well as
teaching
with cheap materials
from the
local markets (my
husband was the
"go-fer"
and scrounger extraordinaire!)
Although most of the teachers
had zero computer experience,
they were entranced
by
the PASPORT
Xplorer, the temperature
and pH probes, as well as
the voltage
probe.
Since we were
teaching in an
integrated Biofarm setting, the teachers
quickly
discovered what interesting questions they could
answer with
these few
probes in the greenhouse, the biogas
digester and the compost
piles. The Biofarm
is a
demonstration
farm used to teach sustainable
agriculture
practices, methane
production with simple biogas digesters,
soil conservation and
enhancement with
the digested
sludge, and the use
of
indigenous plants for medicinal
purposes and
pesticide-free insect
control.
It was
wonderful to watch the light bulbs
go
on as the
teachers began to have genuine fun in an academic context.
You
could
see the gears turning as they visualized their own
students doing things
like the egg drop competition we did.
(Directions: Take 30 or so
drinking
straws, a roll of
electrical tape, and one raw egg. Design and
build a container
to allow your raw egg to survive the highest possible
drop.)
It was a huge step
for these 27 teachers to go from notes in
chalk on the board as their sole
teaching technique
to a
diversity of
engaging activities.
At the end of the institute, we asked the teachers what they wanted in the
next summer institute. Computer training was high on the list, as well
as work
on their English communication skills and classroom
management.
My goal for next
summer is twofold: 1) to
get 40
laptops (gasp!) for
the training, and 2) to
bring a total of 6
teachers.
While we
were
there, a representative from
Kenya asked us (begged us) to
come to
Nairobi and replicate
the program,
eventually
folding the two programs
into the East
African Educational
Initiative. Although I have been
selected
as training
director for ESTTI, for
right now, Ethiopia's
beauty,
her gracious and beautiful people, and her great
needs
have
captured me. Who can say no to such an adventure of the heart?