I’ve been thinking about pre-school for Grace for a while now. Pre-school in general has never been that big of a deal to me, namely because I taught kindergarten for a couple years and I know what I need to do to prepare her for it. But there’s one thing I can’t teach her: Swahili. And that is a very big deal to me.
My Swahili is pretty limited. I can get by on certain topics; my house worker and various store owners and fix-it men usually seem to know what I am talking about, even though I’m sure I’m butchering the language. The problem is that to become fluent in a language, you need to be immersed in it, and I’m not. HOPAC and all of our ministry is done in English. It’s also the official business language here, and all the secondary schools in Tanzania are taught in English. So anyone who is educated speaks English.
But it still is very much the heart language of Tanzanians. And since Grace is Tanzanian, living in Tanzania, it’s very important to us that she learn it. So, I’ve wanted to put her in a Tanzanian pre-school.
Problem is that most pre-schools around here are in English. Why? Because anyone who is able to afford pre-school wants his children to learn English, not Swahili.
So finally I found out about a Swahili pre-school. A Tanzanian pastor we know, who is the head cleaner at HOPAC, told me that there’s a little pre-school run in his church.
Today Grace and I went to check it out. I knew not to expect much, but well…. Hmmm.
The teacher is a beautiful young woman with a kind heart who obviously is doing this as a ministry. Each child pays 3000 shillings a month. You know how much that is? About $2.00. Per month. Per child.
The children sit in the concrete church building, about a dozen of them ranging in ages from 2-6. The teacher has a flip board up front with letters and pictures and numbers on it. She asks one student to stand. She has him repeat: a-askari, e-eroplane, o-oga, etc. She has him repeat it again. And again. And again. About 15 times. Then she moves on to the next child. All the other children just sit and wait.
And thus it goes. For four hours. The children never get up, never move out of their seats, never go out to play. Just keep repeating the teacher. Again and again and again.
Hmmm. But you know what? Grace liked it. She wasn’t as excited about it as Disneyland, but she liked it and wants to go back. So what do I do? I really want her to learn Swahili.
We’ll see. There’s a HOPAC teacher who has started working with the pre-school teacher and is trying to train her and give her ideas. We only have a month until our Home Assignment, so maybe we’ll try it this month and see how it goes.
Once again, as usual….just another reminder of how totally and completely and utterly blessed I am. The contrast between the opportunities afforded to my children, compared to these other precious little ones, did not escape my notice.
jibberish
I'm just impressed they can get a bunch of four-year-olds to sit still that long. That definitely wouldn't fly here in the States!
Amy Medina
Yeah, I used to be impressed too, Amanda. But I'm convinced it's actually not a healthy thing. Of course little children need self-control, but I think in the case of these kids, it's the total lack of stimulation that makes them sit still for so long. They are kind of like zombies sometimes. I think I will be picking Grace up early on the days I take her, because it's just too long! She did great yesterday, but I have a feeling after a few days of that, she'll have a harder time!
jibberish
We have the zombie kids here, too, but they're usually sitting in front of some sort of flashing screen. I do think four hours of sitting is a bit much for any healthy 4yo.
Tundra Mom
Hi Amy,
I know what you mean… we have the same issues here wanting our kids to have good opportunity to learn Mongolian. We tried to enroll wes two years ago. It was similar to what you are saying– not a lot of value to the time!
It was in a yurt(ger) and the morning consisted of eating, bread and drinking tea while sitting quietly. Followed by hand washing and teeth brushing. Then some play time and maybe a song. Then play outside time! They were mean to the children and I actually saw a teacher throw a two year old on the ground and mock them! Needless to say it lasted less than 3 days!
So… they just play outside with the neighborhood kids and learn what they can in that way! We'll see how that turns out. 🙂
Hang in there! You'll make the right choice. Maybe the young teacher will grow and change with training. That would be so great. It is good to see her heart is in the right place and she is kind-if not very interesting!;)