Zuluhauna Primary School

6/17/13

            Today marked our first full day of research in Kikandwa! Sticking with our programming from the day before, we visited a couple primary schools in the morning as well as the general community in the afternoon. While it was an extremely draining day (Jim and I came back and knocked out for an hour before supper), it was also extremely informative. The experiences and information we gained was more helpful than I could have ever imagined we could gain in a single day.

            We began by walking down the road to Zuluhauna Primary School. It is located just down the road from the middle of town. Since it’s inception, it has aimed to provide quality education to orphans and abandoned children, but the follow-through has been difficult. Because they have prided themselves on independence from outside support, they have recently been struggling for funds. They have found it to be extremely difficult to rely on the little payment they receive, especially since most of the students are orphans.

            After some inquiry, we found that the school teaches about health under the subject of science. This begins at the Primary 1 level (the U.S. equivalent to the 1^st grade). When discussing health under the science subject, the talk about the “4 Fs,” which are Feces, Food, Flies, and Fingers. Here, they touch on things like washing clothes, brushing teeth, bathing, and the local diseases that come with poor practices.

            Throughout our visit, we took note of a main trend that to existed in the education at Zuluhauna. In all four of the classes, students exhibited learning through simple repetition. For instance, the teacher may say, “The teeth are used for chewing,” to which the students would promptly repeat. This may happen 2 or 3 times and the teacher would move on. After a few moments, the teacher would revisit the statement and see if the class could repeat the memorized line. While some may turn this repetition into a song of some sorts, we found it to be the main method of teaching in the school.

            However, this is where we also noted a potential pitfall of the instruction. We were very skeptical as to the follow through with the health topics they said they taught to the students. We soon visited a nearby well that the school draws water from for consumption. This is by no means a well in the American sense of the word. Instead, they were gathering the water from an unprotected well (basically a ditch), that contained stagnant water. Local animals often drink from the well and rest/defecate right beside it. To add to our sanitation concerns, we found that the school often does not boil the water because they do not have large enough containers to hold this clean water for everyone at any given moment…it’s simply not practical because of the lack of funds at the school.

            In retrospect, this contradiction in what they practice vs what they preach at the school could be a potential cause of a lack in retention of the information. According to Bloom’s Taxonomy, memorization and understanding are the two most basic forms of learning. This is what is allegedly occurring at Zuluhauna. Unfortunately this is also where it ends. The next step in the learning process is application. You can see how it is very difficult to achieve the level of application when the place you memorized and understood the information is also failing to apply that very same knowledge. This gap between understanding and application will certainly be an area of interest as we continue our research into the community.