All the Ways Children Learn

There is a library in a village community school two hours from Kabala in northern Sierra Leone where twice a week the Sentinel English Language Institute's Young Writers club meets. It is a setting where writing and reading happen throughout the week—a place where children learn—and it very much needed a new floor.

Just a few weeks ago, thanks to donations of money and time from friends and family, SELI made  half of this happen, and Dankawalie Secondary School's library now has a new floor. What astounded us was the other half of this effort: the perseverance and coordination of the community volunteers, who included both teachers and students. We were also delighted that some students took working with the tilers and masons as a learning project. DSS is trying to increase the variety of vocational opportunities it offers, and this was certainly one of them.

We witnessed another type of learning in Dankawalie when one evening after dark a group of much smaller children came to the house to ask our host, Kewulay Kamara, (who had come from NY to see how developments were going on at the school) if he would listen to them tell stories. He told them that it was too dark, but that they could do it the next night if during the day "tomorrow," or "sina," each one of them would bring firewood so there'd be a fire to see by.

 Here's how he told them, and as he improvised we all learned how poems can come to be.