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

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