Senior One Students Learn About Community Service

Preparing the Youth for leadership in the near future cannot just be talked about in class. The Cone of Learning or Learning Pyramid postulates that we remember only 10% of what we read,20% of what we hear,30% of what we see,50% of what we see and hear at the same time,70% of what we say and 90% of what we say and do.

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At Gayaza High School we want the students to become responsible leaders in future who care for the people within their communities, fully understand the challenges faced by the local man and have the capacity to find solutions to such challenges as they present themselves. Thus if we just talk about this issues to them and they do not see the reality, talk about what they think can be done and play apart in the solutions today then we shall have failed in our quest.

At the same time we would like the students to be able to learn their class work very well and excel at each subject. As the Mathematics department we believe in the pyramid of learning and we are aware that if the students do not learn their mathematics concepts well at the earliest level then they will not excel in the mathematical disciplines in future. We believe that the students need to be allowed to teach mathematics to their colleagues and grow peer teachers within our classes. We need to encourage group work as much as we can and allow the students to practice what they know and further their understanding more.

To put the two strategies together,that of community service and mastery of the mathematical concepts,we launched out a project that takes senior one students to a nearby community school to teach mathematics to pupils in primary six and seven. Over the last seven years this programme has delivered on its purpose and our senior one students continue to pass highly their class work in mathematics which gives them a good foundation going forward. The fact that our students are introduced to community service early enough has enabled the school to expand the out of class curriculum where several student clubs have been set up and continue to carry out community based projects.

Last Friday,4th March 2016 was the D-day for the senior one class 2016, who delivered their maiden lesson in our community school.

At the end of the lesson one of the students had this to say;

” My pupil could not run through the multiplication table with ease. I think the teachers need to teach the pupils the multiplication table and they need to fully understand the challenge the pupils are facing. I would like to be allowed to meet the teachers and we discuss this at length.”

To me this was the best learning moment i had ever heard from my students in the last seven years and it fulfills our dream of empowering the Youth to fully identify the challenges faced by the people in our communities and find the workable solutions.

One of the other challenges faced by the pupils in our community school is having no lunch while at school. Some come to school hungry and spend the whole day on an empty stomach. In the past we have provided a cup of  porridge once a week when we can and decided to learn farming such that we can grow enough food for ourselves as a school but also support the community school with some food.

Our senior one class has embarked on their farming project and we hope they will grow vegetables and reach the market as well as cook some food for the community pupils. We also look forward to opening up a vegetable garden within this community school and teach the pupils and the teachers about proper management of crops and marketing.

 

We hope to find some funding organisations that will help us fence off our garden and protect the students plots from possible human and animal destruction because it can be disappointing to grow and have nothing to harvest. With this new education we hope to prepare our students as great leaders who know how to support our communities into development.