Here's an entry from my SELI journal from twenty years ago—enjoy!
June 7, 1999 I’m teaching Second Language Methodology to ten teachers from five schools who are teaching, or have been assigned to teach, one of the indigenous languages in Sierra Leone. We start with a short dialog journal session (partners write in indigenous languages). The first session is theory, and then someone (either I or another participant or a video) teaches a lesson using one of the seven teaching methodologies we're focusing on for the 1st, 2nd or 3rd time, which we discuss. I try to elicit an underlying concept the methodology illustrates and add it to my display board, heading for ten underlying concepts of effective second-language classrooms. We end with a writing workshop, writing our personal experiences in English.
I was nervous about today. Our topic was democracy in schools/classrooms. However, because it's important for this topic to be a discussion, drawing out the points was essential. I asked three participants to present what they thought about democracy in schools, and then asked for class reactions. There was a great debate—more than once someone brought up that if a taxi driver drove badly in the street and you protested, he’d shout, “This is democracy!” at you.
When it seemed everyone was agreeing that character education destroys African cultural values, and that democracy is too much freedom for overcrowded classrooms where order requires respect, I pointed out that we had already gained consensus on the concepts on the display board. And that they actually describe a democratic classroom. I reminded them that some types of learning can take place in autocratic classrooms, but not second language learning. I was delighted that someone mentioned that maybe democracy should not just be everybody-do-what-you-want, but consists of both rights and responsibilities. I presented the 7th grade class constitution in ASCD’s book, Democratic Schools[1], emphasizing that students and teachers drew it up together.
Just last week Fourah Bay College students stormed and damaged the college principal's house in a protest over water and transport. The college closed and the principal is bringing charges against those he could identify. One of our class participants was attacked similarly a few years ago as matron of one of the FBC hostels. She still lectures there and has been firmly against a student project underway to draw up a student rights document. She said that after our discussion today she sees the value in it but it should be a negotiated rights/responsibilities document, co-constructed by students, lecturers, and administration. Hooray!
I had a chance at the end to tie in a handout about the inequality inherent in ability grouping in schools—how it predestines one for success or failure. We take it for granted that all class six students whose mark in the public exit exam falls below a threshold, end up in the less-than-best secondary schools. And that in most secondary schools, the best students are put in JSS 1A and the worst in 1E. Can teachers do anything about that? We used another handout from Democratic Schoolsabout teachers not giving up when things are hard to fight against.
Then came a TTTV video demonstrating the problem posing method in an ESL classroom—a perfect sequel. We evaluated the video lesson by sharing our ideas on how it was the same as, and different from, one of our class participants’ problem posing class last week. Excellent discussion. They were impressed at how the emotional impact of the "code" stimulated the students in the video to express personal opinions even though they struggled to come up with the language they needed to do it. There was a good discussion about how and when the two teachers brought in the elements of the problem posing method.
Then in the writing workshop, we had time for two author sharings (members of the class reading aloud pieces of writing they had drafted). The first wrote about a childhood experience, how she had once told on some students who cheated in school, and although she was right, she lost all her friends. Another told about a recent PTA meeting he attended as a parent which in his view was unusually successful because of the unifying of Sierra Leone cultures the invasion of Freetown in January had brought about. The question was asked: did we really need a rebel invasion to teach Sierra Leoneans they need to unite?
We ended by agreeing that both these pieces of writing were closely related to our lesson on democracy. What a class we had today!
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