Grandmothers: A Learning Institution - Basic Education and Policy ...

More documents

Recommendations

Info

of different age groups in society, and traditionalknowledge and life skills mastered bydifferent community members.Participatory assessment tools could beused by teachers and older children to collectdata from community members. Usingsimple questions and observation tools,children could learn about the knowledgeand skills involved in traditional crafts, suchas basket-making, and economic activities,such as rice growing. Likewise, simplequestionnaires could be developed forchildren to interview elder communitymembers and record their knowledgeabout community history, farming, or thetraditional pharmacopoeia. Both theprocess of data collection and its incorporationinto the curriculum would helpbridge the gap between “modern” and“traditional” elements in school programs.• Generate criteria for inter-generationalsensitivity.Inter-generational educational programsare those that explicitly aim to strengthenlinks between the younger and older generations.Just as education programs haveindicators for assessing the gender-sensitivityof curriculum and other aspects of educationalprograms, criteria should be developedto assess the “inter-generational sensitivity”of basic education programs. Suchindicators would help determine theextent to which basic education programsincorporate the roles, values, and knowledgeof the elder generation into the curriculum,whether positive images of eldersare presented, and whether grandparentsare brought into educational activities asresource persons. As with criteria toassess “gender sensitivity,” criteria to assess“intergenerational sensitivity” could beused both during the program designphase and during the program evaluationphase in order to assess this importantdimension.INTEGRATE TRADITIONALKNOWLEDGE AND SKILLS INSCHOOL CURRICULA.• Interview grandmothers concerningtheir roles in education.In the past, educators have not consultedgrandmothers in basic education programs.It is recommended that basic educationprogram planners each interview at least 5grandmothers in different socio-culturalcontexts and listen to them talk abouttheir role in and commitment to promotingchildren’s development and education.This may strengthen understandingbetween education sector staff and thesesenior women while helping to identifypossibilities for collaboration.• When revising curricula or developingteaching materials, pictures ofgrandmothers, quotes from grandmothers,and characters in storiesshould be included.Inclusion of grandparents in visual andwritten educational materials giveincreased recognition, by both children andteachers, of grandparents’ commitment andcontributions to promoting the well-beingof children and families. Educational materialsproduced for use with communitygroups and in the mass media, shouldreflect the important roles that grandparentsplay in society and portray them in apositive light. This can strengthen school46 UNITED STATES AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT
community ties by increasing teachers’ andchildren’s appreciation of the knowledgeand experience of the grandparents and byincreasing grandparents’ support forschools.• Use components of “Service-Learning” and constructivistapproaches to collect data fromgrandmothers and incorporate theminto the curriculum. 8The Service-Learning concept, taken in itsbroadest sense, provides many opportunitiesto use traditional knowledge stored inthe memories of village elders as a basisfor children to develop strong identities.Children can reach out to grandmothersand community members through variousteacher-led activities. Children then areguided to construct a history or incorporateinto the curriculum the various ideasthey have processed or learned. Service-Learning has been adopted in many internationaleducation projects and can helpchildren to grow up to be citizens who areengaged in their society, and who are moretolerant, compassionate, and understandingof others.The following are recommendationsfor using Service-Learning ideas toobtain and develop information fromGrandmothers:– Who am I? Assign children to askfamily members, including grandmothers,to answer the child’s question:“Who am I?”This is an activity to help childrendefine their own identity, in the family,and in the community. A preliminarystep would be to have classroomteachers and students construct a setof questions related to the family, theethnic group, the neighborhood, theoccupations of the parents andgrandparents, and the primary productsof the village. Classroom activitiesbased on this information canhelp reinforce the children’s identityand give them more positive feelingsabout their community.– Living History.Assign children to interview elders intheir family or neighborhood, includinggrandmothers, on a topic relatedto the history of the neighborhoodor village.Teachers can make this apart of the history curriculum.Theteacher might change the topic slightlyeach year and, for example, includeexperiences of men and women duringa war, during a famine, beforeindependence, or when learning tookplace before there were schools. Thechildren could then come back tothe classroom, share their findings,write them up, and organize theminto a small booklet that could beshared in the community.The childrencould also develop skits toshow what they have learned abouttheir village history.– Making curriculum relevant.Research on education programs indeveloping countries has suggestedthat when curriculum is not relevantto children’s lives, it becomes a factorin children’s decreased attendanceand increased drop-out rates.Curriculum that engages childrenshould include elements of the locallanguage, history, cultural values and8 The National Service-Learning Clearinghouse defines service-learning as a “teaching and learning strategy that integratesmeaningful community service with instruction and reflection to enrich the learning experience, teach civic responsibility,and strengthen communities.”The core concept of service-learning is that it “combines service objectives with learningobjectives with the intent that the activity change both the recipient and the provider.This is accomplished by combiningservice tasks with structured opportunities that link the task to self-reflection, self-discovery, and the acquisition and comprehensionof values, skills, and knowledge content.”GRANDMOTHERS:THE LEARNING INSTITUTION47
Page 1 and 2:
GRANDMOTHERS:A LEARNING INSTITUTION
Page 3:
GRANDMOTHERS:A LEARNING INSTITUTION
Page 11 and 12:
EXECUTIVE SUMMARYSociety itself fai
Page 13 and 14: Education, the Bernard Van LeerFoun
Page 15 and 16: SEVERAL FACTORS CONTRIBUTE TO THELI
Page 17: - Who am I? Assign children to askf
Page 20 and 21: in educational activities on home t
Page 22 and 23: “A grandmother’s understandingo
Page 24 and 25: “Culture tells peoplehow to view
Page 26 and 27: attention given to grandmothers’
Page 28 and 29: social work, including family syste
Page 30 and 31: mation from Azerbaijan (McNulty 200
Page 32 and 33: “The status of eldersin tradition
Page 34 and 35: “As women, thegrandmothers haveli
Page 36 and 37: members often consult the moreexper
Page 38 and 39: “Social capital is a community’
Page 40 and 41: In a collaborative effort between
Page 42 and 43: in-laws and the additional free tim
Page 44 and 45: "Involving grandmothersin community
Page 50 and 51: CULTURALLY-ADAPTED EDUCATIONMATERIA
Page 52 and 53: strated the power of participatory
Page 54 and 55: effects of the new ideas, their con
Page 57 and 58: V. GRANDMOTHERS: A LEARNING INSTITU
Page 59 and 60: Many health and development workers
Page 61 and 62: VI. RECOMMENDATIONS FORBASIC EDUCAT
Page 63: parents themselves did not go to sc
Page 67 and 68: of millions. On the other hand, som
Page 69: teachers, teacher abuse of children
Page 73 and 74: APPENDIX B:ANNOTATEDREFERENCES ON T
Page 75 and 76: acceptable for younger women to mak
Page 77 and 78: showed that men are not directly in
Page 79 and 80: ecause they had more time to devote
Page 81 and 82: matrilineal or patrilineal areas
Page 83 and 84: diet, work, fetal development, sexu
Page 85 and 86: in the family and social networks.
Page 87 and 88: elated, for example, to early child
Page 89 and 90: REFERENCESAdams, A. M., S. Madhavan
Page 91 and 92: BASICS and LINKAGES. 1998. Influenc
Page 93 and 94: Childhood Education and Development
Page 95 and 96: Krishna, A. and N. Uphoff. June 199
Page 97 and 98: Sear, R., R. Mace, and I. A. McGreg
Page 99 and 100: ABOUT THE AUTHORThis review was pre
show all

Grandmothers: A Learning Institution - Basic Education and Policy ...

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?