Day 7

Our day begun a bit later than yesterday, which we all needed. Today´s mission was to get to know the local Kenyan schoolsystem in a concrete way, that´s why we went to Canon Kituri secondary and high school by bus and participated in the students´ lessons. Lessons we visited were agriculture, mathematics, history, chemistry, geography and many others.

 

After the lessons we all discussed the differences between the way of teaching and we noticed a big difference between the Finnish and the Kenyan style. The most used tool that the Kenyan teachers used were repeating everything. They also made the class repeat the most important sentences outloud. A huge difference from the Finnish education style was the fact that the pupils here had to learn everything word by word, without understanding the big picture. This was a thing, which most of us saw as a bad pedagogic method. On the other hand some of the teachers took examples from the students´everyday life, which made learning a bit easier.

 

we saw a funny lizard on the schoolyard,and got a great picture of it.

   We all felt really welcome in the school, the teachers and students were really open to us. They answered questions, even the teachers were interested in getting to know us and our schools. The teachers also treated us as their own students, they asked us questions about the subjects.

After the lessons we had a football match against some of Canon Kituri´s own students. The match was a success, and after the occation we served soda as a happy ending to a wonderful day together. We took the bus home to Helsinki Universitys research center, where we had a well deserved meal, before which most of went to the showers. Our evening meeting consisted of discussions regarding the day, the teaching methods the Kenyans had and what our day would look like the next day.

Tiina and Tanja