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Vol. 38, No. 18 |
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1-8-2008 Education outreach brings hope to Haiti's struggling schools
Neither did her colleagues at Ohio State Mansfield, when she returned to recruit them for what has become the Haiti Empowerment Project: Building a Stronger Educational System through Collaborations. “I didn’t know anything about Haiti before I went down there, and I certainly didn’t know anything about their educational system,” says Bucci, an associate professor of mathematics education. “I just wanted to learn about teaching and learning in developing countries.” What she learned is that Haiti’s educational system is in trouble. Most teachers don’t have any formal training; many only have a sixth-grade education. Instruction is primarily by rote and recitation, with students parroting material back to the teacher. Huge classes — it’s not uncommon to have more than 60 students jammed into one classroom — and limited resources compound the problems. Data from the World Bank indicate that nearly half the population of Haiti is illiterate and most live in abject poverty, making living — and learning — conditions extremely unstable. The scope of the problems facing Haiti is staggering, said Bucci, and at first that overwhelmed her. “But then someone said to me, ‘If you choose to work down here, what you have to do is focus on that one thing you think you can help with, because if you broaden your lens and see all those other things, you won’t be able to do anything,’” she recalls. So she focused her lens, she said, and marshaled her resources. With the help of funding from OSU Mansfield and a 2007 Excellence in Engagement Grant, Bucci has been bringing faculty colleagues down to Haiti three times a year for 10-day stints to work with teachers and students in classrooms, focusing primarily on two schools: Benito Elementary School and Faith Elementary School. Faculty also teach intensive teacher training courses at partner universities in Haiti: Université Caraibe and Université Notre Dame d’Haiti, both in Port-au-Prince. There are three primary goals of the project, she says: Partnering with Haitian colleagues to bring educational reform; working toward a problem-solving-based pedagogy; and fostering professional relationships between all groups involved in reform, from universities to government ministries to non-governmental organizations. Collaboration has been crucial to the project’s success so far and has enabled Bucci and her team to bring professional development into rural schools throughout Haiti. Barbara Lehman, an education professor specializing in children’s literature, was part of a team that visited one of these rural schools in March 2007. A seasoned world traveler, she says she was still surprised at the primitive conditions she saw. “The school was very small but with a surprisingly large student body, probably at least 200 students, and it was open-air with a corrugated tin roof,” she explains. “The space was divided with partitions but there were no walls per se, so there were animals wandering in and out.” She notes that the instructional techniques employed by the teachers were vastly different from what normally happens in American schools. “There’s a lot of yelling: The teachers will yell something at the children and they’ll yell it right back,” she says. “It’s exhausting to watch.” It’s also exhausting, she says, to try and show these teachers new techniques and pedagogical concepts because all the communication has to be done through interpreters. The classes she and her Ohio State colleagues teach at the local universities, on topics ranging from applying for grants to developing critical thinking skills, are grueling for both faculty and students. And then there’s the challenge of making sure the teachers implement what they have been taught. For Cheryl Canada, director of the Mid-Ohio Writing Project at Ohio State Mansfield, the challenge is compelling. She has made six visits to Haiti since May of 2006, working with teachers in two small schools to help them incorporate children’s literature into their teaching of reading and writing. Not only is this a foreign idea for Haitian teachers, it’s a practical challenge: There are fewer than 450 children’s books available in the entire country — and only about 40 of those in the native Haitian Creole. Canada has gone so far as to purchase some of these books herself for the teachers, and she says she’s noticed some progress as they use the books with their students. “They’ve been able to use them to actively engage the students in drama, singing and physical movement,” she says. “I’ve yet to see any meaningful writing taking place, but I’m hopeful that it will emerge within the next school year.” She will be returning to Haiti in February for additional follow-up and plans to continue her collaboration with these teachers “indefinitely.” “It’s a life-changing experience both personally and professionally,” she says. “Professionally, the benefits eventually spread to our students here in the U.S.”
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