The strike is supposedly over, so tomorrow classes will resume and I will (presumably) find out what I’ll be doing here. Despite what you may think from all my video game playing, I’ve been busy. Last week I visited a fellow volunteer just across the Likoni Ferry and helped teach a computer class. It was a vocational college, so the teachers there were not on strike. My “help” consisted of walking around in case any of the groups had questions about the assignment, but I think I got more out of it than they did. It was fascinating: English comprehension, both written and spoken, was terrible across the board. There are no Deaf first graders either, these are Hearing twenty-somethings. A few students appeared to never actually understand the assignment, which was to write a short story about a monkey and to include pictures.
In any case, it really got me thinking about Deaf Education. Is the goal to raise the students to the level of their Hearing peers, which is to say, terrible (by my own personal educational standards)? My own goals are loftier than that, but what to do about it?!?!?
By the way, the aforementioned assignment is not completely random. I saw at least twenty monkeys (well, if you count the baboons, too) while I walked around the campus. Can you spot this one in the tree?
This weekend about twenty volunteers convened in Mombasa for a beach and bar party. Some volunteers came on bus rides that took over eight hours, but my commute was much shorter… about fifteen minutes. I swam in the Indian Ocean for the first time, and I must say, it was amazing. I believe my comment at the time was something to the effect of, “I think God peed here.” That is to say, it was quite warm. I won’t embarrass anyone by posting pictures revealing our equatorial farmer tans, so here’s a nice wide shot from where we set down our bags to swim:
I must say that I’m happy that classes are resuming, because I’ve been researching my brain into oblivion. I’ve been filling up mostly on the following topics:
- Late first language learning and intervention efficacy
- Deaf education (and late sign language acquisition)
- Language assessment techniques for both of the above
- Computer games with coincidental educational qualities
- Educational software
I am overwhelmed by the size of the challenge ahead and my reading didn’t help… it just made the hurdle look higher. I look forward to having some more immediate challenges, so I can focus on accomplishing something tangible. Such small tasks have already begun: On Friday and today I spent a little time in the library installing software, which, by the way, is awful– Remember when that used to take a looooong time? And when Windows programs would crash and you’d have to reboot? Those days are back for me. Anyhow, on both days kids came in and tried to use the machines. Their excitement level is high: on one machine the Windows 3.1 painting program was a hit for the older kids, and on the other machine the younger kids just right-clicked on the Microsoft Network icon on the desktop for an hour, completely enthralled. Not the best use of time, surely, but a good sign that they’ll use whatever I put on there.
Well, enough research and video game playing for me. Tomorrow the real work begins… I just wish Orange hadn’t discovered the bug that was giving me free Internet… now I have to pay to download stuff again!