Peace

Posted: July 20th, 2013 | Author: Michael Goldstein | | No Comments »

Creek follow up.  The fabulous Lillian Wamuyu explained to me that “a simple plank will be a day’s solution because at night the woods will be stolen and be used as fuel to cook.  Also now is dry season; during floods the simple solution, if not raised high enough, would not work.”  Of course being an outsider, one who has never worried about fuel for cooking, this had not occurred to me.

But even the act of making bad suggestions sometimes helps.  I noticed some emails back and forth as Lillian and others wise hands about how to address the issue.  That was often the case in my years at Match.  An outsider makes a suggestion. Perhaps his or her idea isn’t quite right one; they lack the institutional history and misunderstand 7 little nuanced issues that pertain.  But even the “wrong” suggestion can help a team of insiders look at the problem anew and come to a resolution.

Anyway, Lillian is an AIM.  Academy Improvement Manager.  It’s sort of like a regional superintendent in a large district — 22 school leaders report to her.  For this morning she has arranged for us to go back to Ongata Rongai.

We’re listening to panels of parents, kids, teachers, and academy managers.  We’re doing all we can to try to puncture the normal bubble — we don’t want them to tell us what they think we want to hear, and we have the double whammy of being Americans and from “headquarters.”

So, we asked, what do we bring to be hospitable?  Cokes and Fanta for adults; maybe a candy (singular) for each child.  Done.

Yesterday our team of 9 spent some time testing some individual students.  The mood was great — kids and teachers appreciated it.  Dibels (reading).  Open-ended KCPE writing (essay).  Questions about plants and African geography they’d been taught a year ago.  Fractions, decimals, percentages, volume, conversion kilometers to meters, etc.

Some 6th graders were probably on grade level for math in USA.  One kid was way above; others are as low as 2nd grade math level, though hard to tell for sure with language difficulty (i.e., what is math, what is can’t read/understand the problem or directions).

In terms of English reading fluency, similar range; some challenges with persistence in multi-syllabic words.  Just one kid was able to decode the word “enthusiastically.”

In terms of English reading comprehension, alas, that is a bit lower than fluency.

All in all, not hugely different from poor kids in a typical district school in Chicago, Central Falls Rhode Island, Boston.  A teacher, Moses, told me he believes the Bridge 2nd graders at his school, who have been there now for grades K, 1, and 2, have spectacular English fluency, and that the longer pupils stay at Bridge, the more their English advantage increases.  We shall see.  For now, Bridge schools are so new that the median Bridge pupil has probably been enrolled for (I’m guessing) 12 to 14 months.