Tanzanian Reflections (an excerpt from my President's report to Phi Delta Kappa membership) At the beginning of this calendar year I went to Tanzania as part of a CICan project to work with the faculty at a vocational college in Mwanza. It was my second trip this year to Mwanza, the first was back in April of 2017 when Jeanne Ratzlaff (NorQuest College) and I helped government officials and college staff in developing a curricula for a remedial/upgrading course. The focus on this second trip (January 2018) was on implementing the three week course as a pilot with the intention of eventually rolling out the course to all of the 26 state-sponsored vocational colleges in Tanzania. On this trip I was accompanied by Jackie Bender (Lakeland College) and we had a great time team-teaching with four of the staff from VETA Mwanza. We worked with twenty-six students, ranging in age from 18 – 29 (most were in their mid-twenties). The pilot program focused on four essential subjects: Math, English Communications, Engineering Science and Study Skills. It was an intense but very rewarding experience. The trip to Tanzania gave me an opportunity to step back and make a few observations about the differences between the educational approaches espoused in Canada and those that are favoured in Tanzania. In many ways, a community or country’s orientation to teaching is a reflection of their overall cultural orientation. Here are some of my observations and reflections when comparing Canada to Tanzania. Observations
Reflections In Canada there is less distance between the student and the teacher, especially at the college or university level. In my experiences as an instructor at the University of Alberta, King’s University and NorQuest College, the familiarity between instructors or professors and adult students is very obvious. You are not seen as Professor X or Doctor X but as Ted or Linda. It is quite the opposite in Tanzania where teachers and professors are highly respected and students would never think of addressing them by first names. Or, if they did, it would be as “Teacher Ted” and “Doctor Linda”. This element of respect for elders and superiors is not just something confined to the classroom in Tanzania. They would never think of their political leaders as “Justin” and “Rachel”, in fact, at every hotel, every government office and every office at the college hang two portraits; one of Julius Nyerere (the first president of Tanzania) and one of John Magufuli (the current president). I remember seeing the same kind of thing when I was in elementary school when we had pictures of Queen Elizabeth and Lester Pearson or John Diefenbaker in the classroom. And that shouldn’t come as a surprise. In the 1960’s Canada was not so multi-cultural and modern in its outlook. We were still very much attached to Britain (like Tanzania). But unlike Tanzania, we have moved on from many of our traditionally British attitudes. In Canada, the trend in education for the last thirty years is to promote engagement; asking teachers to make their lessons dynamic, interactive, practical, and varied in approach. The thought is that students will learn more when they are challenged visually, kinesthetically, emotionally, academically, individually, collaboratively, etc. In Tanzania, there is less emphasis on this, although that seems to be changing. In Canada there is also an emphasis on teaching students problem solving, critical thinking, and entrepreneurship. We are to be challenging our students to apply their knowledge and skills. In Tanzania the emphasis is more on conformity and “rightness”. All students should have the essentials and all should be able to give the correct answers when called upon. In Canada we stress student-centered teaching, which includes differentiating educational approaches, providing individualized feedback and working to ensure each child gets their needs met. In Tanzania the focus is more on delivering a set content. The teacher’s role is to show expertise and the student’s role is to show diligence in applying themselves in learning this content. When I was at the World Educational Research Association Annual Conference several years ago I met an educator from Syracuse University in New York State who lamented the fact that so many sessions about education pushed the idea that the teacher is the most important factor in the classroom. We have listened to people like Bob Marzano advocate for skillful technicians who know how to use “best practices” to promote accountability and engagement and ensure academic achievement. But my colleague from New York said that this is bunk. In his mind, the most important factor is the student. What kind of motivation does the student bring to their studies? Just how are they willing to apply themselves? And will they persevere when they encounter academic challenges? I know that my colleague would not advocate for boring lecture-like lessons or educators who fail to consider interactive instructional approaches, but he was concerned that we have put too much stress on the role of modern educators and have made them accountable for what is essentially the student’s responsibility. My friend from Syracuse asked, “In considering individual student needs and in being responsive, could North American educators actually be spending too much time catering to and enabling their learners?” Already there are rumbles in the teaching community that the changes resulting from differentiated instruction; formative assessment (early feedback, second chances, best evidence, etc.); and standards-based, competency assessments have led to “mark inflation” and a lack of rigor. Some might say that today’s students are no longer challenged to do the work to prove themselves to the teacher or to compete against the rest of the pack and that it is actually the teachers who are asked to do the heavy lifting as they work to respond to thirty students rather than one curricula. Now, of course, this is just one man’s perspective. And, as an educator who has been at the forefront of many of the changes to instructional practice here in Alberta that foster student-centered learning (through my work with AISI and in teacher education), I can mount any number of arguments against his position. The fact that so many of our students in Tanzania had difficulty in taking on student-centered, inquiry-type work shows how important it is to build move away from one-size-fits-all content centered approaches. At an AISI conference in 2012 I attended a session from Dr. Yong Zhao who explained that, while many educators in North America look with jealousy to the success that Asian students demonstrate on International assessments in Math and Science, these educators should appreciate what the North American model fosters. He pointed out that the real titans of change, emerge from North America. The “Steve Jobs” of the world, are not successful because they could memorize and reproduce, but because they had critical thinking skills and were not afraid to take calculated chances. So while we looked across the ocean for answers to our falling PISA scores, Asian educators were looking right back at our system to see what they could learn about problem solving and risk taking. Nevertheless, my colleague from Syracuse does raise an important issue. When I was in Mwanza, the students I encountered were hungry to learn. Even though the days were long (8:15 am to 5 pm) the students arrived early and stayed late. These students are quite different from the ones I have encountered in my teaching experiences both k-12 and at the colleges and universities. How do we continue to build learning experiences for our students that will challenge them to be self-motivated, inquiring, critical, skillful, and perseverant?” Lesson Learned While my colleagues and I went to Tanzania to provide some expertise and coaching, we also found ourselves learning many things. If you are interested, I’m sure I could share quite a few with you, if you pay for the beer! Here are three of our most important discoveries:
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AuthorJeff Kuntz Ph.D. ImagesExcept where indicated, images used in the blog posts are personal photos, images from NorQuest College or images from Pixabay. Pixabay is a vibrant community of creatives, sharing copyright free images, videos and music. https://pixabay.com/ Archives
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