Escaping Preconceived Notions

Abstract

I recently returned from fieldwork in West Africa where I collected data for my dissertation, a case study of one non-governmental organization's (NGO) educational programs. While I was there, I also volunteered for the NGO by contributing to program planning and instructional design activities. In addition, because I have a mathematics background, I was asked to teach a short basic mathematics lesson for some women working in a particularly rural location. In this essay, I share what I learned about creating student-centered adult education programs with those who wish to teach adults internationally or in similar contexts. Although I did not have research activities to conduct at the particular site, I visited the town as part of my effort to familiarize myself with all the NGO's programs. Because I knew my schedule would be flexible while there, I agreed to teach the mathematics lesson during the visit. Prior to traveling, I repeatedly heard from other Westerners (NGO employees and volunteers) how little the women knew and how desperately they needed my expertise, thus implying a sense of helplessness. Based on perceptions of flawed local education systems, I was cautioned to expect docile students trained simply to memorize. I accepted the assessment and prepared for learners with little or no formal schooling, low literacy levels, and weak fluency in the official language (an artifact of European colonization; most locals grow up speaking indigenous languages). I mentally steeled myself for a demanding experience, anticipating, at best, passivity, and at worst, apathy, both counterproductive to my preferred student-centered teaching practices. On arrival at the NGO's facility, the manager introduced me and my travel companions, other volunteers, to the women workers. When she announced I would lead a mathematics lesson, several women started to giggle. Although I understood the laughter was related to the announcement about my visit's purpose, the conversation was conducted in a local ethnic dialect I could not follow. Later, I had a short conversation with the manager and asked her to explain the laughter. She said the women were excited for the lesson because they had asked for it a few months prior. Some women were unable to understand the calculations on their pay stubs and were pleasantly surprised to see the NGO had responded to their request. This was exciting news. I was not forcing content on unwilling participants--they had specifically requested it! I began the lesson by presenting an addition example and describing the process. The assistant manager acted as interpreter. As she repeated my words in the local dialect and the four women responded, I quickly learned they would not be quiet or passive, as I had feared. Unfortunately, the translation operated in only one direction; the participants' enthusiastic comments were not translated back to me. Surprisingly, the women used the official language's words for numbers so, although most discussion was a mystery, I was able to understand verbalized computations. The lesson was almost immediately out of my control, in the way educators hope a class will be when learners take ownership of their experience. The women were lively, engaged, and eager to learn. Instead of relying on my explanations, the women justified solutions to each other, and the translator shared her own knowledge. I simply provided exercises and judged correct answers. When the women had all correctly finished a problem, the translator would suggest to me, another, please, and we would negotiate whether it was time to increase the difficulty level or switch from addition to subtraction. To me, the most surprising and impressive aspect of the experience was the women's collaboration and support of one another. Each would finish her work and then turn to help the others who were still thinking, without ever giving the answer away. Every woman was required to obtain the answer for herself. …