The foundamental Elements and Differences in School curriculum in Kenya.
INTRODUCTION
One of the most important services the school has been expected to provide in the industrial era is the management of the discrepancy between aspiration and denial, that is, the monitoring of vertical mobility within the larger society. As Waller pointed out as early as in 1932, this is accomplished by a 'sorting process' in which a few students are carried by the express elevators of prep school which do not stop below the college level, a few others drop out of school early and are allocated to the lowest status ranks in the occupational hierarchy, and the rest are sorted within and among schools. Applying the concept of Golfman, Clark referred to the process of sorting, students into the lower ranks as the cooling 'out function'. His analysis of junior colleges found an elaborates system for cooling out transfer students, who aspire to entry into a four-year college following a successful two-year stint at a junior college, into terminal students whose higher education will end after, if not before, the two-year junior college program.
The concept of 'cooling out' is appropriate here because the management of the aspiration and denial dilemma is analogous to the classic 'con game' is critical the whole scheme. The cooler's job is to befriend the mark and keep him or her from calling the authorities or in some other ways blowing the whistle on the con game. This is called cooling out the mark.Similarly, in school, those who are denied their isphlion, Must be skillfully handled so as to mollify them and adapt them to failure "Me the structural inevitability of their failure is concealed from them. Their disappointment is to ream through the provision of alternatives, counseling and consolation. Aliopve all, thisales successful have 'to be made to feel that their failure to attain higher Fa* mg personal failure and not the failure of the system: This reduces their inclinations to weight against the system that first raised their aspiration only to shut the door.
The problem with much recent reform that was challenged by John Goodlad, is that it takes for granted the continuation of schooling's current role-the provision of occupation skills. Gbodlad points out that reliance on standardized fast scores is perhaps `the most serious bar to understanding or improving our schools' because they tell little about the actual condition of schools. But of course the focus on such scores does make sense if they are seen as part of the ticket to the job market that school must provide.
Goodland’s critique of schooling raises issue of whether it is possible to have everything for everyone in the schools. It goes beyond this, however. In fact; several other educators argue that it is not desirable for schools to attempt to do all they have been charged with. The educative function of schools is squeezed out of school 'take over what has traditionally been the responsibility of families, churches and other institution changed with the wellbeing of youth.
Other educationist, Mortimer Alder and Ernest Boyer proposes a single program for high school students. The focus of this program is to meet what Boyer believes to be the four essential goals of public schools.
1) Developing in students the abilities to think critically and communicate effectively.
2) Developing in students an understanding of our shared cultural histories.
3) Preparing students for work and
4) Helping student fulfill social and civic obligations through community and social services.
Like Boyer and Alder, Goodlad argues that much of what schools currently do should be relegated back to the community at large. `Education',Goodlad suggests is too important and too all encompassing to be left only to the schools." Education, all three argue, should be interwoven into very fabric of the community-the home, church, civic clubs and work place. In order for schools to reassume a primarily educative function, the community must be willing to shoulder many of the tasks now carried out by schools.The important place given to the community in these proposals has not made them immune to criticism. Alders position has been attacked for its assumption that there exists a high status knowledge the mere exposure to which can elevate the quality of social life. And although Boyer and Goodlad argue that more of the school is functions should be taken over the by the community, they have been criticized for their seeming reluctance to specify the 'what 'and 'how of such a proposal.
THE STRATEGIC APPROACH OF THE MATTERS
In approaching the school, we moved very slowly to establish ourselves as unthreatening observer who would participate upon request in the life of the school but whose prime interest was in finding out about the school in all aspects. We believed in important to establish that we had not come to evaluate the quality of instruction or administration. In the time our data collection came to include:(1)observing and tape recording lessons;(2)interview all of the teacher and school board members and many of the students;(3)reading student workbooks;(4)analyzing documents such as statements of course objective, teacher —made tests and students homework, school board policy statements and minutes etc.(5)administering a questionnaire. We attend all school events, teacher's meetings, and school board meetings. We moved into the community through introductions provided by the chairman. There we met and interviewed the chief and her village committee. We attended village committee meetings, collected all available documents, and become part of the community life through participation in local church and community based organization activities. Data collection culminated with the administration of a questionnaire, which was followed up by in-depth interviews. These were the formal activities. But since I lived in Mukuru during most of the several years of fieldwork, I was informal participant as well. Because I did not bring my family, I was unable to learn about the community through their experiences.
MUKURU SCHOOLS AND THE COMMUNITY
Local control of their schools provides local communities with a substantial measure of freedom to teach what they wish. And who will gainsay the right of local communities to determine how and by whom their children will be educated.
Yet, adherence to the principle of local control can result in controversial educational policy. Through conformity to the will of the local community, schools may teach bigotry in place of tolerance or contempt for learning in place of the love of it. And that is then is well served? The community? The students? The nation? Consider the case of mukuru.
Industrials and service providers makes an island of Mukuru village.Here, in the heart of Kenya's industrial area, live 32600 people. Few of them are permanent workers. Some run stores, others do maintenance for the village, and still others teach school. Because there are several factories, the majority of working villagers commute daily to the places of work. Like Kenyan communities of all sorts, Mukuru supports a school system. There are few schools in the district: less than ten primary schools and less than five secondary schools in 2009, the system enrolled more than 5000 student and has fewer teachers. Compared to the student population.
These were the characteristics of Mukuru and its schools that had drawn my interest. Initially I had gone there to investigate the relation between school and community in an informal setting. The study of slum schooling has been relatively neglected in recent decades; and yet, with the continued growth of slum society, small-village life has increasingly become an endangered species. Of late, small villages located near places of work have attracted settlers from the cities underpaid workers from the discontents of urban life. Because Mukuru has not had housing to accommodate may underpaid workers, it has retained the features of ghetto life that I had come to study.
For five years, and with the help of six research assistants, I directed fieldwork in Mukuru, studying the secondary school and the community that supports them. We began with the school, interviewing teachers, school board members and students; attending classes, school-sponsored events, teachers, meetings, school board meetings; reading through school documents of all sorts from the school turned to the community, interviewing the village chairman and the village committee, whose meetings we also attended. We took part in local church and organizational activities. I myself lived in mukuru during most of the five years field work. Like any Mukuru I chopped, paid my rent power and water bills, and frequented the cybercafé there. Yet, though I lived and worked in the community steadily for several years, though I associated daily with Mukurus, they for
their part continued to regard me as a visitor. I remained a volunteer community health worker who had come to conduct research. Perhaps it was because they knew I did not plan to stay, perhaps because i had not brought my family. In any case, I was never viewed as a member of the community, not even as a sometimes resident. For mukuru's maintain a vital and exclusive sense of community, and that sense may be crucial to maintaining the community itself Hence, my study, which had started as a general inquiry into the relation between mukuru and its secondary schools, come to center on the role of the secondary school in maintaining mukuru's sense of community and conversely, on the interest of the community in maintaining mukuru's secondary schools.
THE HEADTEACHER AND SCHOOL BOARD
Head teacher Kioko*- welcomed me and my project to Mukuru, promised and delivered his full cooperation, and stipulated only that we do nothing to disturb the routine of the school. This condition on our work embodied concern of considerable importance to him and to the school board. A substantial part of a teacher's esteem depends on his capacity to maintain order. The school leadership recently was pleased to learn of the resignation of an otherwise good teacher who 'couldn't cut the mustard with the kids' (keep them quiet).
At the time my study began, Kioko* had been at Mukuru secondary school for fifteen years as a coach and industrial arts teacher. Though not of local origin, nor in fact of ghetto back-ground, he was most comfortable with the slum life. He had been content to confine his career to Mukuru despite job offers from larger school system. In their turn, Mukuru's and the school board were very pleased with him; he became a person of consequence in community life and accepted agents of community values in his capacity as educational leader. The school board, guardians of the community, trusted him on matters of fact and judgement, secure in the knowledge that he served their interests.
The seven-member board was presided over by a Mukuru-born factory worker. Five of the other six members also were Mukuru's and industrial workers not withstanding that most school district residents work in factories and live in town. In fact, over the fifteen years this school board has existed, the president has always been a factory worker and at least five of seven members have been Mukuru-born industrial worker. Because school board elections generally inspire a good turnout-about two thousand of the possible seven thousand eligible voters-the 'right' candidates continue to get elected. (The right candidates are those without the kind of 'axe to grind' that might disturb the status quo.)The credentials of the newest board member were his status as a native and the well known fact that he loves Mukuru and had a deep regard for its traditions. He replaced a man to demonstrated skills, a six —year veteran on the board who had lived in Mukuru only five years.
*Not real name.
Three years after my study began, the head teacher Kioko* died. This misfortune required the school board to undertake a task they had long-dreaded-selecting a new Head teacher. They assembled in special session one hot august week to interview five candidates. Afterwards as they sat together to make a choice, their destination emerged.
"Should we talk about Mwacha*to see why we don't want him?" "Yes, let's get the feeling of the board on him. Believe we have better men. Not quality-wise, though. He could handle the job and the P.R. [Public Relation].I don't think he's the type we're looking for" "I hate to say it, but his physical appearance is against him. You need to call a spade a spade".
"He is not stable like some of the others". "I'm afraid he'd be the built of behind-the back jokes." "He's carrying far too much weight. That is a strain on the heart." "She was tired. A man that size gets physically tired. We shouldn't kid ourselves. Image is very important. That size is against him." "The next is Chege*". "I was impressed, but I feel he is too big our community and school. His ideas are for the city, for bigger schools. We're not ready for all that." "I felt he would probably be anxious to start a lot of things I don't know if we're ready for. He's definitely for a non-grade system. He said he'd start slow but he wanted it pretty bad. Knocking down walls scares you just bit". "I was impressed. But then we had more men in. We learned more about these non-graded ideas. He would be a pusher I'm sure" "He had too many ideas to start off with. You need to see what a school has before jumping in." "I thought he might be a little slow with discipline problem."
*Not real name
"I saw a money signs clicking around his head when he talked. He may be too intelligent for this community. He may talk over the heads of the community."
"Another thing. He was emphatic about four week's vacation." "Salary-wise he asked for the most." "Well, this Chege*, he said he wanted to come to a small community. I think he may want to bring too many ideas from the city with him. He may be more than we want." "What did you say about Otieno*? These next three are a hard pick" "He gave a nice impression here, I believe, of getting along with the public and the kids. This impressed me more than anything". "To me he talked generalities." "He had a tremendous speaking voice. He is young". "His voice got very nasal at the end when he got relaxed". "He wouldn't stay". "He's on his way up". "He believes he'd be forceful individual."
"Take this other man. Wafula*.I had a feeling about him. He said, if you hired me and accepted it...... I don't think he's anxious for a job." "I can see why he was offered a job selling real estate. He's got the voice. He'd have your name on the line. I'm inclined to believe he'd talk himself out of most situations. Getting down to brass, tacks, he spoke in generalities. He admitted he didn't know about new things in education. We need more specific answers."
"More or less leaves us with Wambua* "He's the man to put on top" "I'd hate to pick any one of the top three over the others" "Both Wambua*and Wafula* said that they have no hours. They work by the job. Wambua*worked his way through college." "He was on the ground floor as far as salary goes". "And he's local." *Not real name.
After rejecting candidates for adverse physical appearance and for holding city and big school, Ideas. They selected Wambua*, who worked like an industrial worker; would settle for a `reseanable' salary, and was `local'- a designation that had never before been mentioned as a criterion for selecting their new head teacher, or anything else, for that matter. Perhaps it should have been self-evident that no one could be chosen head teacher of schools in Mukuru who did not appear 'local', the board's shorthand description of a sustainable candidate for their local dominated, traditional oriented school district.
TEACHERS AND THE SCHOOL EXPERIENCE
The central fact characterizing Mukuru's teachers is their small-village origin. Of the twenty four teachers in the secondary schools interviewed, six had fathers who were factory workers; but ten were born and raised in or round villages of under 10,000 three in villages of under 15,000, four in the villages under 20,000 and only one from the city. Indeed, the teacher not only grew up in villages; they generally studied at the smallest local colleges, and after graduation taught in schools very much like the ones they themselves had attended. From all indications they are at home in Mukuru, when asked about their ideal place to live75% indicated a preference for the villages of 10,000 or less.
To get some ideas of teacher views about education, we asked what changes the would like to see made. The generally confirmed their responses to the redress of particular grievances. A few wanted a new building others, pay rise, a chance to teach only their special subject, better discipline, more vocational courses, or less money spent on athletic programs. Most frequently they wished to eliminate poor teachers, the "dead weight" that had been in the system for too many years. There were no grand schemes; no innovation proposed by the group, 76.9 per cent of who had agreed that one of the most important thing in Mukuru was its good school system.
The apparent comfort of the teachers with the education they provided may be attributed to their own upbringing in communities much like Mukuru and their generally expressed satisfaction with small village life. The reasons for this satisfaction strikingly accord with those offered by Mukuru's adults and students-the security, absence of anonymity, open doors, friendliness and though overcrowded feeling of living in a slower-paced atmosphere. "We'll be here when we die, I'm sure" said Mrs. Majala*a local Mukurus."I can't imagine living anywhere else "concluded Mr. Mutiso* an old Mukurus.
*Not real name.
Some teachers held modest expectation about what the school could accomplish but acknowledged their hope of reaching at least one or two students in a serious way. None was truly doubtful about his own and his colleagues opportunity to do something of value. Mr Kipchumba*the biology teacher, noted that teachers. Tended to maintain a close relationship with students and parents. Because of the intimacy of this small, stable community, some teachers admitted to being less than objective in their judgment of student. One suggested than Mukuru teachers are "more lenient because we're more familiar with (student) and their families", meaning by this that the teachers are "not as strict academically as maybe we should be" Yet Mukuru would hardly have it otherwise. This schools are just about what the people want" Observed Mr. Ongeri*: They do what they are expected to do ".In this Mr. Mwamba* concurred. The Secondary School does better than average job of socializing the students for this community."
On entering Secondary school, the children of Mukuru's factory workers are given a handbook. Like so many other. Documents cluttering the drawers of Mukuru and other school, this one containing a mixture of specific statement to guide the behavior of the students (for example, regulations that regulations that relates to the prom, punishments, and rewards and gift after complying with rules and regulations) and more general, usually unread, statements. The handbook's list of 'Report form for the students' suggests how Mukuru's educational leaders believe student should behave. The attention of student is directed to:
? Regular attendance.
? Punctuality in all matters.
? Careful preparation and learning of assignments.
? Orderly classrooms courtesy.
? A relaxed but business-like atmosphere.
? Acceptance of authority of teachers.
? Pride and concern of school property.
? Personal appearance.
? The desire to be a contributing member of the society.
These are norms that reflect an emphasis on social control. Clearly, the ideal students are one who would make life easy for teachers and administrators.
A further clue to the nature of a school is provided by its objectives. To be sure, statements of objectives often originate in requests from outsiders (the county officials visiting team, for example) and serve only ceremonial purposes. Teachers and students conduct in class tells more about the academic experience than do statements of objectives, but the latter may be valuable for suggesting not so much what really happens in schools as what ideals undergird the behavior of its educators.
*Not real name.
The Kenyan government in 2008 unveiled a long term strategy for Kenya's social and economic growth christened "Kenya vision 2030"The Kenya vision 2030 is new long term development blueprint for the country. It is motivated by collective aspiration for much better society than one we have date by the year 2030.The aim of vision 2030 is "globally competitive and prosperous country with a higher quality of life by 2030".Experts from the document that was submitted to the ministry of education by our researchers are included below.
(A).The instructional program.
Provide for such quality education that should help every student acquire to the fullest extent possible for his mastery of a good basic education and to open further channels of study to him as an adults...
Student Goals (Desired learner Outcomes)
1. Develop growth in their ability to think rationally, to express their thoughts clearly, and read listen with understanding.
2. Develop salable skills......
3. Develop the ability and desire to understand the rights and duties of a citizen of a democratic society, and to be diligent and competent in their performance of their obligations a member of a community and citizens of the state, the nation and the world.
4. Acquire good health habits.....
5. Develop a better understanding of the methods of science and man's environment
6. Develop areas of concern that includes responsibility, honesty, selfrespect, justice, courtesy and kindness. Discrimination between right and wrong, respect for authority and laws.
7. Provide opportunities to develop their capacities to appreciate beauty in literature, art, music, and nature.
8. To provide opportunities to learn to use leisure time well and budget wisely.......
When we compare Mukuru's version of vision 2030 with those prepared by other schools from neighboring slums school of approximately the same size, we find many similarities. A number of broad categories dominate the goals of all the slum schools:
(1)Basic skills,(2)Vocational training,(3)Consumerism,(4)Leisure time,(5)Democratic citizenship,(6)Health,(7)The arts,(8)Thinking ability,(9)Family,(10) Personal qualities. In addition to these shared categories, however, are several which Mukuru
omits from its lists, as either oversights or ideas to which Mukuru is not committed. For example, a number of school systems usually somewhat larger ones mentioned that they planned to enable each student to" "develop.....the ability to identify problems and to apply clear, critical, reflective thinking...... to reach their solutions", "develop
an awareness of the history, influence, and interrelationships of all cultures," be acquainted with the rights and responsibilities.....as a member of pluralist society", "develop intellectual curiosity and eagerness for lifelong learning". My impression is that in Mukuru these latter goals are not so much disapproved as they are unimportant; they do not occupy the foreground of concern.
In contrast, the provision of "good basic education" is of major concern. It is mentioned under the instruction program and voiced frequently by Mukuru's school board member and administrator’s .It is one of the three fundamental points that bear on the academic aspect of the school. The second is the development of 'salable skills', listed under the Kenya vision 2030, and the third is the provision of courses that will enable students to attend post secondary institutions.
The emphasis on the 'basics' is not readily observable in the classroom. It is used more as a slogan, a conventional way of affirming that the board and administration do not concern themselves with lofty intellectual goals, that they don't have presentations of sophistication and that they mean to keep down the cost of schooling-for money spent on the 'basics' is by definition money well spent.Mukuru's investment in the development of 'salable skills is evident in the variety of courses offered in home sciences, business education, industrial arts and auto mechanics.
Notwithstanding the curriculum-oriented meetings held in preparation for the officers from the Ministry of education visitations, Mukuru teachers neither plan nor coordinate the value orientation of their instructions. To be sure, they attempt cooperative planning when a subject has a sequential basis-English, for example. But there is no party line, no deliberate effort to endorse a particular view of religion, politics, patriotism or community. Perhaps no such efforts are necessary if the process of selecting teachers and administrator has already ensured that their suitability for services in Mukuru.In any case, the classroom behavior of Mukuru's teachers rather consistently displays the value orientation of the school board and community. But other sorts of aims that go unstated in Mukuru's official document also go unpursed in its classrooms. There, the discourse, while often provocative is not distinctly critical or reflective. Examinations tend to focus on recall. And traditional Kenyan attitudes towards God, Country and self-reliance are manifest and unchallenged as we see in many different classes.
English Lesson
This form four English class has been discussing 'Julius Ceaser' for some time. On introducing the play, the teacher had announced that there was much 'parallelism' between it and the events of the day, so that it is not surprising that she frequently digressed, by holding fast her students attention in the process
TEACHER: at the time she (Cleopatra) married caser it probably was political
Advantageous thing. See, it was at the time of the triumvirate. All right, I think I told you-this is clear off subject-but 1 told you about being in the audience listening to a talk the other night about this young woman's life in Tunisia. Well, she was telling us about the married situation. The bride and bridegroom in Tunisia never see each other. They don't even know who it is until the day of the wedding.
STUDENTS: oh.
TEACHER: Don't say 'OH'. This is a country custom. So how do we know that this
wasn't type of prearranged thing for political power for political solidity, see, in Rome? From where we're talking [pointing to a map] here's Rome. And right down here is Tunisia. We're talking about a country that is not native black. We are not talking about African nation. And it isn't African yet.....
STUDENTS: - How comes she (Cleopatra) was supposed to marry her brother? it say this brother was the one she was supposed to marry.
TE,40 f-tEle-. To solidify the kingdom so that they wouldn't have any outsiders. We
Still don't understand. We can't in 1973, in our Christianity understand how these people could do this. But what did I tell you yesterday? I don't condemn them for their barbaric attitude, for their un-Christian-like attitude, for their un-Christian-like acts. I condemn you for not living Christianity when you have chance to do so.I think it is more dangerous for us, in our nation, than it was for them...... well, let's go on; we are procrastinating. You people can get me off the subject... until all the facts are in; we're in a very precarious position in this nation right now. They tell me that it will be before the match that Mr. Uhuru will be confirmed or not confirmed as president of this republic.
sna) ENT: Do you think they should have done that?
T6- ACI-/-&-z OH, I tell you.... There is one thing that nobody will get me to do.
Nobody will ever get me to say that I am guilty of anything unless I'm guilty of it's with the philosophy that I have, I cannot believe that Mr.Uhuru is anything but not guilty regardless of what they say.
STUDENTS: I think he is not too.
TEACHER: But I tell you this. Unless young people start standing up when you are
guilty of something-take your biter medicine, stomach it and puke it back up-until you learn you are responsible for that which you do, we are going to be in trouble in this nation. We have got to look to you people for the future leaders. You must learn to
Say, 'I made a mistake' and don't look at somebody else for your scape goat and your savior.
STUDENT: Isn't that what the western countries want to happen for us to destroy yourself?
TEACHER: Why, I think this has to be true. That's right. I honestly believe it. If they can just keep things stirred up, and get us suspicious and keep using everybody as scapegoat and a fall guy, then we are just playing into their hands. They are just going to show the world that the capitalistic world cannot rule itself.
BIOLOGY
Mr.Khalisa* opened his lesson by asking what the earth was like in the beginning. His students did not know so he under took a long presentation about the conditions on earth that led to the emergence of life. This is a delicate subject in Mukuru, one that Mr.Khalisa chara Cteristically approached with caution.
`A few years ago there were some scientists working in this theory that simulated the conditions at the time of the beginning, or what might have been present at the time of the beginning, or what might have been present at the time that life began on earth. They have a bunch of ammonia gas. Any of you ever smelled ammonia? Pretty pungent, right? Methane gas.Is a type of natural gas, or gas out of swamps or coal mines? They had that. They had a small amount of oxygen and they replicated the other conditions on earth.
And you know what? They did discover a new organism that was capable of living under those conditions. But this still doesn't take away possibilities that this was under the guidance of some super-being. May be this is the way that life evolved. The thing we don't know is: Was it always spinning around on its axis every twenty four hours a day and night? Or was there a time when it took, in the beginning of life or beginning of the earth, a year or 1,000 years to go round? The bible talks about the earth being made or the world being made in what? Seven days. What was the length of the days back then in the bible? I don't know. I don't think the bible ever says. Supposedly on earth, according to all the things that we can find, there were exceedingly cold periods. Fossils indicate that this pattern of rotation and this pattern of planning was not necessarily the same as it is today. Even if we go back to many years before the birth of Christ-This is such a short period of time in comparison with the age of the earth-we have really no way of discovering or judging how or rather under those directorship life originated. We have fossil remain. Maybe life didn't originate here.
*Not real name
Later in the end of term, Mukuru adults expressed disapproval of the state in the `vision 2030' that promoted the study of science of this kind. They believed it would encourage the teaching of evolution judging from Mr.Khalisa's* performance, their fears were groundless.
PARENTS AND STUDENTS EXPECTATIONS
In the absence of a formal survey of what Mukuru want schools to accomplish and whether they believe they get what they want, we must depend on several different indicators of the community adults 'agreement with the teachers' assessments of schooling in Mukuru. Data from 296 Mukuru adults, representing perhaps one-tenth the number of families in entire village school, show 66 percent believe Mukuru has a good school system(7 percent disagreed and 27 percent neither agreed nor disagreed).This fairly high figure, the paucity of complaints represented at a high board meetings or to the administrators, the dearth of responses(less than thirty)to the Head teacher's invitation to react to the new Mukuru version of vision 2030' the disbanding of the P.T.A some years ago-all suggest that the community is essentially satisfied with its school system. These facts do not indicate parental apathy so much as an absence of contentious issues. The parents clearly are interested in education.
I conclude, accordingly, that while Mukuru adults might be unhappy with a particular teacher, a losing football season, or some incident, they are basically content with what they perceive the school to be doing to Mukuru's youth, with the shape, though not necessarily with every details, of their children's education .Thus, when a teacher observed that the school gives the community what it wants, her judgment appears sound.
Teacher, as previously indicated, acknowledged that they were "not as strict academically as we should be". Students also acknowledged this fact but did not seem troubled by it. Both teacher and students implicitly concur in a level of academic expectation they find comfortable .Even capable students fail to perceive value in the more abstract aspects of education, and their speech often reflects a casual style that has its counterpart among the adult. With the expectation of Mwongeli*, who meant to maximize the academic possibilities of high school and get encouragement to do so from her father students disdain the need for a hard work, even if one hopes to achieve acceptable high grades-that is to make the B honor roll.Mugo*, now a university student, admits he could have worked harder, but he observes, "who wants to sit at a book for each.Class an hour a night? It's no fun. There are too many other things going on" Shiroh* imagines that the people who get As stay at home so much they don't learn to communicate with others rationalizing her own modest efforts with the thought that "there are more to life besides grades."Kibe* finished near the top of his class but regrets,
*Not real name
as he contemplates his questionable preparedness for college, that important to me," he concludes.
From the views of the students, it seems that the school experience. Offers more than students without college plans want, but no more than the college bound want to work for. Somewhere between these modest points Mukuru's teachers pitch their intellectual tents accommodating themselves to a level of aspiration that threatens few.
LOCAL CONTROL OF THE SCHOOLS
Community control of the school flourishes in Mukuru.The community's elected school board chooses a head teacher who selects the teacher and supervises the operation of the schools. If the board trusts him, as it trusted the head teacher Kioko*, then if often rubber-stamps his decisions, confident that he knows what the community wants. Nevertheless, though it defers to his expertise, the board also keeps an eye on his work. And this is evident, the officially constituted machinery of community control in Mukuru.
Yet, as we have seen, a great deal of the machinery is neither evident nor officially constituted. Such features of Mukuru Secondary Schools as the level of academic expectation that guides classroom practice and the relative importance of curricular and extracurricular activities are also determine by the local community,
Though not by deliberate choice. When we asked board members and administrators directly about their criteria for selecting teachers and instructional materials, they did not mention maintaining the community and its values. They said they preferred teachers who had both curricular and extracurricular strengths, liked children, and were good disciplinarians. Not until the school board met to select a head teacher did someone voice a criterion that explicitly reflected the community's ethos. He is local". They said of Wambua*.Judging from recent appointments to the teaching staff, the board liked to hire local people, though its members did not acknowledge that they gave preference to such persons. After the meeting at which Wambua*was chosen head teacher, one board member regretted that the ideal person happened to be a local.
Person for the job could not apply because he lacked that appropriate credentials. This ideal person happened to be a local man, now working elsewhere in the state.
Mukuru's educators do not decide the level of academic discourse in classrooms or the relative importance of academic and non academic matters. Rather, the prevalent academic standard are determined by state's hiring practices and are put into effects as those whom the board has hired interact with one another, the students, and the parents of the community. The result is an academic posture well suited to the concerns of a small slum community.
*Not real name.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I have taught in three private schools in Nyeri County. Later, I was trained by Network of Aids researchers in Eastern and Southern Africa,(NARESA) in 2010.I'm a community Health Worker in Mukuru slum, Nairobi on voluntary basis. Other essays includes the simplified prevention of the mother to child transmission of Hiv,Daycare in the peripheries, community health and development in Viwandani, solving social problems with simulations and collaborative skills, problems with simulations and collaborative skills voice of lone ranger, relevant and popular education, Wanjiku and constitution, Mukuru Schools and the community and Gender stratification in our communities. I would appreciate and respond to the comments about the insights of these essays from community developers. I'm readily reached on e-mail
[email protected]
INTRODUCTION
One of the most important services the school has been expected to provide in the industrial era is the management of the discrepancy between aspiration and denial, that is, the monitoring of vertical mobility within the larger society. As Waller pointed out as early as in 1932, this is accomplished by a 'sorting process' in which a few students are carried by the express elevators of prep school which do not stop below the college level, a few others drop out of school early and are allocated to the lowest status ranks in the occupational hierarchy, and the rest are sorted within and among schools. Applying the concept of Golfman, Clark referred to the process of sorting, students into the lower ranks as the cooling 'out function'. His analysis of junior colleges found an elaborates system for cooling out transfer students, who aspire to entry into a four-year college following a successful two-year stint at a junior college, into terminal students whose higher education will end after, if not before, the two-year junior college program.
The concept of 'cooling out' is appropriate here because the management of the aspiration and denial dilemma is analogous to the classic 'con game' is critical the whole scheme. The cooler's job is to befriend the mark and keep him or her from calling the authorities or in some other ways blowing the whistle on the con game. This is called cooling out the mark.Similarly, in school, those who are denied their aspiration
, Must be skillfully handled so as to mollify them and adapt them to failure "Me the structural inevitability of their failure is concealed from them. Their disappointment is to ream through the provision of alternatives, counseling and consolation. Above all, this successful have 'to be made to feel that their failure to attain higher higher grades was personal failure and not the failure of the system: This reduces their inclinations to weight against the system that first raised their aspiration only to shut the door.
The problem with much recent reform that was challenged by John Goodlad, is that it takes for granted the continuation of schooling's current role-the provision of occupation skills. Goodlad points out that reliance on standardized fast scores is perhaps `the most serious bar to understanding or improving our schools' because they tell little about the actual condition of schools. But of course the focus on such scores does make sense if they are seen as part of the ticket to the job market that school must provide.
Goodland’s critique of schooling raises issue of whether it is possible to have everything for everyone in the schools. It goes beyond this, however. In fact; several other educators argue that it is not desirable for schools to attempt to do all they have been charged with. The educative function of schools is squeezed out of school 'take over what has traditionally been the responsibility of families, churches and other institution changed with the wellbeing of youth.
Other educationist, Mortimer Alder and Ernest Boyer proposes a single program for high school students. The focus of this program is to meet what Boyer believes to be the four essential goals of public schools.
1) Developing in students the abilities to think critically and communicate effectively.
2) Developing in students an understanding of our shared cultural histories.
3) Preparing students for work and
4) Helping student fulfill social and civic obligations through community and social services.
Like Boyer and Alder, Goodlad argues that much of what schools currently do should be relegated back to the community at large. `Education',Goodlad suggests is too important and too all encompassing to be left only to the schools." Education, all three argue, should be interwoven into very fabric of the community-the home, church, civic clubs and work place. In order for schools to reassume a primarily educative function, the community must be willing to shoulder many of the tasks now carried out by schools.The important place given to the community in these proposals has not made them immune to criticism. Alders position has been attacked for its assumption that there exists a high status knowledge the mere exposure to which can elevate the quality of social life. And although Boyer and Goodlad argue that more of the school is functions should be taken over the by the community, they have been criticized for their seeming reluctance to specify the 'what 'and 'how of such a proposal.
THE STRATEGIC APPROACH OF THE MATTERS
In approaching the school, we moved very slowly to establish ourselves as unthreatening observer who would participate upon request in the life of the school but whose prime interest was in finding out about the school in all aspects. We believed in important to establish that we had not come to evaluate the quality of instruction or administration. In the time our data collection came to include:(1)observing and tape recording lessons;(2)interview all of the teacher and school board members and many of the students;(3)reading student workbooks;(4)analyzing documents such as statements of course objective, teacher —made tests and students homework, school board policy statements and minutes etc.(5)administering a questionnaire. We attend all school events, teacher's meetings, and school board meetings. We moved into the community through introductions provided by the chairman. There we met and interviewed the chief and her village committee. We attended village committee meetings, collected all available documents, and become part of the community life through participation in local church and community based organization activities. Data collection culminated with the administration of a questionnaire, which was followed up by in-depth interviews. These were the formal activities. But since I lived in Mukuru during most of the several years of fieldwork, I was informal participant as well. Because I did not bring my family, I was unable to learn about the community through their experiences.
MUKURU SCHOOLS AND THE COMMUNITY
Local control of their schools provides local communities with a substantial measure of freedom to teach what they wish. And who will gainsay the right of local communities to determine how and by whom their children will be educated.
Yet, adherence to the principle of local control can result in controversial educational policy. Through conformity to the will of the local community, schools may teach bigotry in place of tolerance or contempt for learning in place of the love of it. And that is then is well served? The community? The students? The nation? Consider the case of mukuru.
Industrials and service providers makes an island of Mukuru village.Here, in the heart of Kenya's industrial area, live 32600 people. Few of them are permanent workers. Some run stores, others do maintenance for the village, and still others teach school. Because there are several factories, the majority of working villagers commute daily to the places of work. Like Kenyan communities of all sorts, Mukuru supports a school system. There are few schools in the district: less than ten primary schools and less than five secondary schools in 2009, the system enrolled more than 5000 student and has fewer teachers. Compared to the student population.
These were the characteristics of Mukuru and its schools that had drawn my interest. Initially I had gone there to investigate the relation between school and community in an informal setting. The study of slum schooling has been relatively neglected in recent decades; and yet, with the continued growth of slum society, small-village life has increasingly become an endangered species. Of late, small villages located near places of work have attracted settlers from the cities underpaid workers from the discontents of urban life. Because Mukuru has not had housing to accommodate may underpaid workers, it has retained the features of ghetto life that I had come to study.
For five years, and with the help of six research assistants, I directed fieldwork in Mukuru, studying the secondary school and the community that supports them. We began with the school, interviewing teachers, school board members and students; attending classes, school-sponsored events, teachers, meetings, school board meetings; reading through school documents of all sorts from the school turned to the community, interviewing the village chairman and the village committee, whose meetings we also attended. We took part in local church and organizational activities. I myself lived in mukuru during most of the five years field work. Like any Mukuru I chopped, paid my rent power and water bills, and frequented the cybercafé there. Yet, though I lived and worked in the community steadily for several years, though I associated daily with Mukurus, they for
their part continued to regard me as a visitor. I remained a volunteer community health worker who had come to conduct research. Perhaps it was because they knew I did not plan to stay, perhaps because i had not brought my family. In any case, I was never viewed as a member of the community, not even as a sometimes resident. For mukuru's maintain a vital and exclusive sense of community, and that sense may be crucial to maintaining the community itself Hence, my study, which had started as a general inquiry into the relation between mukuru and its secondary schools, come to center on the role of the secondary school in maintaining mukuru's sense of community and conversely, on the interest of the community in maintaining mukuru's secondary schools.
THE HEADTEACHER AND SCHOOL BOARD
Head teacher Kioko*- welcomed me and my project to Mukuru, promised and delivered his full cooperation, and stipulated only that we do nothing to disturb the routine of the school. This condition on our work embodied concern of considerable importance to him and to the school board. A substantial part of a teacher's esteem depends on his capacity to maintain order. The school leadership recently was pleased to learn of the resignation of an otherwise good teacher who 'couldn't cut the mustard with the kids' (keep them quiet).
At the time my study began, Kioko* had been at Mukuru secondary school for fifteen years as a coach and industrial arts teacher. Though not of local origin, nor in fact of ghetto back-ground, he was most comfortable with the slum life. He had been content to confine his career to Mukuru despite job offers from larger school system. In their turn, Mukuru's and the school board were very pleased with him; he became a person of consequence in community life and accepted agents of community values in his capacity as educational leader. The school board, guardians of the community, trusted him on matters of fact and judgement, secure in the knowledge that he served their interests.
The seven-member board was presided over by a Mukuru-born factory worker. Five of the other six members also were Mukuru's and industrial workers not withstanding that most school district residents work in factories and live in town. In fact, over the fifteen years this school board has existed, the president has always been a factory worker and at least five of seven members have been Mukuru-born industrial worker. Because school board elections generally inspire a good turnout-about two thousand of the possible seven thousand eligible voters-the 'right' candidates continue to get elected. (The right candidates are those without the kind of 'axe to grind' that might disturb the status quo.)The credentials of the newest board member were his status as a native and the well known fact that he loves Mukuru and had a deep regard for its traditions. He replaced a man to demonstrated skills, a six —year veteran on the board who had lived in Mukuru only five years.
*Not real name.
Three years after my study began, the head teacher Kioko* died. This misfortune required the school board to undertake a task they had long-dreaded-selecting a new Head teacher. They assembled in special session one hot august week to interview five candidates. Afterwards as they sat together to make a choice, their destination emerged.
"Should we talk about Mwacha*to see why we don't want him?" "Yes, let's get the feeling of the board on him. Believe we have better men. Not quality-wise, though. He could handle the job and the P.R. [Public Relation].I don't think he's the type we're looking for" "I hate to say it, but his physical appearance is against him. You need to call a spade a spade".
"He is not stable like some of the others". "I'm afraid he'd be the built of behind-the back jokes." "He's carrying far too much weight. That is a strain on the heart." "She was tired. A man that size gets physically tired. We shouldn't kid ourselves. Image is very important. That size is against him." "The next is Chege*". "I was impressed, but I feel he is too big our community and school. His ideas are for the city, for bigger schools. We're not ready for all that." "I felt he would probably be anxious to start a lot of things I don't know if we're ready for. He's definitely for a non-grade system. He said he'd start slow but he wanted it pretty bad. Knocking down walls scares you just bit". "I was impressed. But then we had more men in. We learned more about these non-graded ideas. He would be a pusher I'm sure" "He had too many ideas to start off with. You need to see what a school has before jumping in." "I thought he might be a little slow with discipline problem."
*Not real name
"I saw a money signs clicking around his head when he talked. He may be too intelligent for this community. He may talk over the heads of the community."
"Another thing. He was emphatic about four week's vacation." "Salary-wise he asked for the most." "Well, this Chege*, he said he wanted to come to a small community. I think he may want to bring too many ideas from the city with him. He may be more than we want." "What did you say about Otieno*? These next three are a hard pick" "He gave a nice impression here, I believe, of getting along with the public and the kids. This impressed me more than anything". "To me he talked generalities." "He had a tremendous speaking voice. He is young". "His voice got very nasal at the end when he got relaxed". "He wouldn't stay". "He's on his way up". "He believes he'd be forceful individual."
"Take this other man. Wafula*.I had a feeling about him. He said, if you hired me and accepted it...... I don't think he's anxious for a job." "I can see why he was offered a job selling real estate. He's got the voice. He'd have your name on the line. I'm inclined to believe he'd talk himself out of most situations. Getting down to brass, tacks, he spoke in generalities. He admitted he didn't know about new things in education. We need more specific answers."
"More or less leaves us with Wambua* "He's the man to put on top" "I'd hate to pick any one of the top three over the others" "Both Wambua*and Wafula* said that they have no hours. They work by the job. Wambua*worked his way through college." "He was on the ground floor as far as salary goes". "And he's local." *Not real name.
After rejecting candidates for adverse physical appearance and for holding city and big school, Ideas. They selected Wambua*, who worked like an industrial worker; would settle for a `reseanable' salary, and was `local'- a designation that had never before been mentioned as a criterion for selecting their new head teacher, or anything else, for that matter. Perhaps it should have been self-evident that no one could be chosen head teacher of schools in Mukuru who did not appear 'local', the board's shorthand description of a sustainable candidate for their local dominated, traditional oriented school district.
TEACHERS AND THE SCHOOL EXPERIENCE
The central fact characterizing Mukuru's teachers is their small-village origin. Of the twenty four teachers in the secondary schools interviewed, six had fathers who were factory workers; but ten were born and raised in or round villages of under 10,000 three in villages of under 15,000, four in the villages under 20,000 and only one from the city. Indeed, the teacher not only grew up in villages; they generally studied at the smallest local colleges, and after graduation taught in schools very much like the ones they themselves had attended. From all indications they are at home in Mukuru, when asked about their ideal place to live75% indicated a preference for the villages of 10,000 or less.
To get some ideas of teacher views about education, we asked what changes they would like to see made. The generally confirmed their responses to the redress of particular grievances. A few wanted a new building others, pay rise, a chance to teach only their special subject, better discipline, more vocational courses, or less money spent on athletic programs. Most frequently they wished to eliminate poor teachers, the "dead weight" that had been in the system for too many years. There were no grand schemes; no innovation proposed by the group, 76.9 per cent of who had agreed that one of the most important thing in Mukuru was its good school system.
The apparent comfort of the teachers with the education they provided may be attributed to their own upbringing in communities much like Mukuru and their generally expressed satisfaction with small village life. The reasons for this satisfaction strikingly accord with those offered by Mukuru's adults and students-the security, absence of anonymity, open doors, friendliness and though overcrowded feeling of living in a slower-paced atmosphere. "We'll be here when we die, I'm sure" said Mrs. Majala*a local Mukurus."I can't imagine living anywhere else "concluded Mr. Mutiso* an old Mukurus.
*Not real name.
Some teachers held modest expectation about what the school could accomplish but acknowledged their hope of reaching at least one or two students in a serious way. None was truly doubtful about his own and his colleagues opportunity to do something of value. Mr Kipchumba*the biology teacher, noted that teachers. Tended to maintain a close relationship with students and parents. Because of the intimacy of this small, stable community, some teachers admitted to being less than objective in their judgment of student. One suggested than Mukuru teachers are "more lenient because we're more familiar with (student) and their families", meaning by this that the teachers are "not as strict academically as maybe we should be" Yet Mukuru would hardly have it otherwise. This schools are just about what the people want" Observed Mr. Ongeri*: They do what they are expected to do ".In this Mr. Mwamba* concurred. The Secondary School does better than average job of socializing the students for this community."
On entering Secondary school, the children of Mukuru's factory workers are given a handbook. Like so many other. Documents cluttering the drawers of Mukuru and other school, this one containing a mixture of specific statement to guide the behavior of the students (for example, regulations that regulations that relates to the prom, punishments, and rewards and gift after complying with rules and regulations) and more general, usually unread, statements. The handbook's list of 'Report form for the students' suggests how Mukuru's educational leaders believe student should behave. The attention of student is directed to:
? Regular attendance.
? Punctuality in all matters.
? Careful preparation and learning of assignments.
? Orderly classrooms courtesy.
? A relaxed but business-like atmosphere.
? Acceptance of authority of teachers.
? Pride and concern of school property.
? Personal appearance.
? The desire to be a contributing member of the society.
These are norms that reflect an emphasis on social control. Clearly, the ideal students are one who would make life easy for teachers and administrators.
A further clue to the nature of a school is provided by its objectives. To be sure, statements of objectives often originate in requests from outsiders (the county officials visiting team, for example) and serve only ceremonial purposes. Teachers and students conduct in class tells more about the academic experience than do statements of objectives, but the latter may be valuable for suggesting not so much what really happens in schools as what ideals undergird the behavior of its educators.
*Not real name.
The Kenyan government in 2008 unveiled a long term strategy for Kenya's social and economic growth christened "Kenya vision 2030"The Kenya vision 2030 is new long term development blueprint for the country. It is motivated by collective aspiration for much better society than one we have date by the year 2030.The aim of vision 2030 is "globally competitive and prosperous country with a higher quality of life by 2030".Experts from the document that was submitted to the ministry of education by our researchers are included below.
(A).The instructional program.
Provide for such quality education that should help every student acquire to the fullest extent possible for his mastery of a good basic education and to open further channels of study to him as an adults...
Student Goals (Desired learner Outcomes)
1 .Develop growth in their ability to think rationally, to express their thoughts clearly, and read listen with understanding.
2 .Develop salable skills......
3. Develop the ability and desire to understand the rights and duties of a citizen of a democratic society, and to be diligent and competent in their performance of their obligations a member of a community and citizens of the state, the nation and the world.
4. Acquire good health habits.....
5. Develop a better understanding of the methods of science and man's environment
6. Develop areas of concern that includes responsibility, honesty, selfrespect, justice, courtesy and kindness. Discrimination between right and wrong, respect for authority and laws.
7. Provide opportunities to develop their capacities to appreciate beauty in literature, art, music, and nature.
8. To provide opportunities to learn to use leisure time well and budget wisely.......
When we compare Mukuru's version of vision 2030 with those prepared by other schools from neighboring slums school of approximately the same size, we find many similarities. A number of broad categories dominate the goals of all the slum schools:
(1)Basic skills,(2)Vocational training,(3)Consumerism,(4)Leisure time,(5)Democratic citizenship,(6)Health,(7)The arts,(8)Thinking ability,(9)Family,(10) Personal qualities. In addition to these shared categories, however, are several which Mukuru
omits from its lists, as either oversights or ideas to which Mukuru is not committed. For example, a number of school systems usually somewhat larger ones mentioned that they planned to enable each student to" "develop.....the ability to identify problems and to apply clear, critical, reflective thinking...... to reach their solutions", "develop
an awareness of the history, influence, and interrelationships of all cultures," be acquainted with the rights and responsibilities.....as a member of pluralist society", "develop intellectual curiosity and eagerness for lifelong learning". My impression is that in Mukuru these latter goals are not so much disapproved as they are unimportant; they do not occupy the foreground of concern.
In contrast, the provision of "good basic education" is of major concern. It is mentioned under the instruction program and voiced frequently by Mukuru's school board member and administrator’s .It is one of the three fundamental points that bear on the academic aspect of the school. The second is the development of 'salable skills', listed under the Kenya vision 2030, and the third is the provision of courses that will enable students to attend post secondary institutions.
The emphasis on the 'basics' is not readily observable in the classroom. It is used more as a slogan, a conventional way of affirming that the board and administration do not concern themselves with lofty intellectual goals, that they don't have presentations of sophistication and that they mean to keep down the cost of schooling-for money spent on the 'basics' is by definition money well spent.Mukuru's investment in the development of 'salable skills is evident in the variety of courses offered in home sciences, business education, industrial arts and auto mechanics.
Notwithstanding the curriculum-oriented meetings held in preparation for the officers from the Ministry of education visitations, Mukuru teachers neither plan nor coordinate the value orientation of their instructions. To be sure, they attempt cooperative planning when a subject has a sequential basis-English, for example. But there is no party line, no deliberate effort to endorse a particular view of religion, politics, patriotism or community. Perhaps no such efforts are necessary if the process of selecting teachers and administrator has already ensured that their suitability for services in Mukuru.In any case, the classroom behavior of Mukuru's teachers rather consistently displays the value orientation of the school board and community. But other sorts of aims that go unstated in Mukuru's official document also go unpursed in its classrooms. There, the discourse, while often provocative is not distinctly critical or reflective. Examinations tend to focus on recall. And traditional Kenyan attitudes towards God, Country and self-reliance are manifest and unchallenged as we see in many different classes.
English Lesson
This form four English class has been discussing 'Julius Ceaser' for some time. On introducing the play, the teacher had announced that there was much 'parallelism' between it and the events of the day, so that it is not surprising that she frequently digressed, by holding fast her students attention in the process
Teacher: Aat the time she (Cleopatra) married caser it probably was political
Advantageous thing. See, it was at the time of the triumvirate. All right, I think I told you-this is clear off subject-but 1 told you about being in the audience listening to a talk the other night about this young woman's life in Tunisia. Well, she was telling us about the married situation. The bride and bridegroom in Tunisia never see each other. They don't even know who it is until the day of the wedding.
STUDENTS: oh.
Teacher: Don't say 'OH'. This is a country custom. So how do we know that this
wasn't type of prearranged thing for political power for political solidity, see, in Rome? From where we're talking [pointing to a map] here's Rome. And right down here is Tunisia. We're talking about a country that is not native black. We are not talking about African nation. And it isn't African yet.....
STUDENTS: - How comes she (Cleopatra) was supposed to marry her brother? it say this brother was the one she was supposed to marry.
Teacher-. To solidify the kingdom so that they wouldn't have any outsiders. We
Still don't understand. We can't in 1973, in our Christianity understand how these people could do this. But what did I tell you yesterday? I don't condemn them for their barbaric attitude, for their un-Christian-like attitude, for their un-Christian-like acts. I condemn you for not living Christianity when you have chance to do so.I think it is more dangerous for us, in our nation, than it was for them...... well, let's go on; we are procrastinating. You people can get me off the subject... until all the facts are in; we're in a very precarious position in this nation right now. They tell me that it will be before the match that Mr. Uhuru will be confirmed or not confirmed as president of this republic.
STUDENT: Do you think they should have done that?
Teacher:- OH, I tell you.... There is one thing that nobody will get me to do.
Nobody will ever get me to say that I am guilty of anything unless I'm guilty of it's with the philosophy that I have, I cannot believe that Mr.Uhuru is anything but not guilty regardless of what they say.
STUDENTS: I think he is not too. .
Teacher: But I tell you this. Unless young people start standing up when you are
guilty of something-take your biter medicine, stomach it and puke it back up-until you learn you are responsible for that which you do, we are going to be in trouble in this nation. We have got to look to you people for the future leaders. You must learn to
Say, 'I made a mistake' and don't look at somebody else for your scape goat and your savior.
STUDENT: Isn't that what the western countries want to happen for us to destroy yourself?
Teacher: Why, I think this has to be true. That's right. I honestly believe it. If they can just keep things stirred up, and get us suspicious and keep using everybody as scapegoat and a fall guy, then we are just playing into their hands. They are just going to show the world that the capitalistic world cannot rule itself.
BIOLOGY
Mr.Khalisa* opened his lesson by asking what the earth was like in the beginning. His students did not know so he under took a long presentation about the conditions on earth that led to the emergence of life. This is a delicate subject in Mukuru, one that Mr.Khalisa chara Cteristically approached with caution.
`A few years ago there were some scientists working in this theory that simulated the conditions at the time of the beginning, or what might have been present at the time of the beginning, or what might have been present at the time that life began on earth. They have a bunch of ammonia gas. Any of you ever smelled ammonia? Pretty pungent, right? Methane gas.Is a type of natural gas, or gas out of swamps or coal mines? They had that. They had a small amount of oxygen and they replicated the other conditions on earth.
And you know what? They did discover a new organism that was capable of living under those conditions. But this still doesn't take away possibilities that this was under the guidance of some super-being. May be this is the way that life evolved. The thing we don't know is: Was it always spinning around on its axis every twenty four hours a day and night? Or was there a time when it took, in the beginning of life or beginning of the earth, a year or 1,000 years to go round? The bible talks about the earth being made or the world being made in what? Seven days. What was the length of the days back then in the bible? I don't know. I don't think the bible ever says. Supposedly on earth, according to all the things that we can find, there were exceedingly cold periods. Fossils indicate that this pattern of rotation and this pattern of planning was not necessarily the same as it is today. Even if we go back to many years before the birth of Christ-This is such a short period of time in comparison with the age of the earth-we have really no way of discovering or judging how or rather under those directorship life originated. We have fossil remain. Maybe life didn't originate here.
*Not real name
Later in the end of term, Mukuru adults expressed disapproval of the state in the `vision 2030' that promoted the study of science of this kind. They believed it would encourage the teaching of evolution judging from Mr.Khalisa's* performance, their fears were groundless.
PARENTS AND STUDENTS EXPECTATIONS
In the absence of a formal survey of what Mukuru want schools to accomplish and whether they believe they get what they want, we must depend on several different indicators of the community adults 'agreement with the teachers' assessments of schooling in Mukuru. Data from 296 Mukuru adults, representing perhaps one-tenth the number of families in entire village school, show 66 percent believe Mukuru has a good school system(7 percent disagreed and 27 percent neither agreed nor disagreed).This fairly high figure, the paucity of complaints represented at a high board meetings or to the administrators, the dearth of responses(less than thirty)to the Head teacher's invitation to react to the new Mukuru version of vision 2030' the disbanding of the P.T.A some years ago-all suggest that the community is essentially satisfied with its school system. These facts do not indicate parental apathy so much as an absence of contentious issues. The parents clearly are interested in education.
I conclude, accordingly, that while Mukuru adults might be unhappy with a particular teacher, a losing football season, or some incident, they are basically content with what they perceive the school to be doing to Mukuru's youth, with the shape, though not necessarily with every details, of their children's education .Thus, when a teacher observed that the school gives the community what it wants, her judgment appears sound.
Teacher, as previously indicated, acknowledged that they were "not as strict academically as we should be". Students also acknowledged this fact but did not seem troubled by it. Both teacher and students implicitly concur in a level of academic expectation they find comfortable .Even capable students fail to perceive value in the more abstract aspects of education, and their speech often reflects a casual style that has its counterpart among the adult. With the expectation of Mwongeli*, who meant to maximize the academic possibilities of high school and get encouragement to do so from her father students disdain the need for a hard work, even if one hopes to achieve acceptable high grades-that is to make the B honor roll.Mugo*, now a university student, admits he could have worked harder, but he observes, "who wants to sit at a book for each.Class an hour a night? It's no fun. There are too many other things going on" Shiroh* imagines that the people who get As stay at home so much they don't learn to communicate with others rationalizing her own modest efforts with the thought that "there are more to life besides grades."Kibe* finished near the top of his class but regrets,
*Not real name
as he contemplates his questionable preparedness for college, that important to me," he concludes.
From the views of the students, it seems that the school experience. Offers more than students without college plans want, but no more than the college bound want to work for. Somewhere between these modest points Mukuru's teachers pitch their intellectual tents accommodating themselves to a level of aspiration that threatens few.
LOCAL CONTROL OF THE SCHOOLS
Community control of the school flourishes in Mukuru.The community's elected school board chooses a head teacher who selects the teacher and supervises the operation of the schools. If the board trusts him, as it trusted the head teacher Kioko*, then if often rubber-stamps his decisions, confident that he knows what the community wants. Nevertheless, though it defers to his expertise, the board also keeps an eye on his work. And this is evident, the officially constituted machinery of community control in Mukuru.
Yet, as we have seen, a great deal of the machinery is neither evident nor officially constituted. Such features of Mukuru Secondary Schools as the level of academic expectation that guides classroom practice and the relative importance of curricular and extracurricular activities are also determine by the local community,
Though not by deliberate choice, When we asked board members and administrators directly about their criteria for selecting teachers and instructional materials, they did not mention maintaining the community and its values. They said they preferred teachers who had both curricular and extracurricular strengths, liked children, and were good disciplinarians. Not until the school board met to select a head teacher did someone voice a criterion that explicitly reflected the community's ethos. He is local". They said of Wambua*.Judging from recent appointments to the teaching staff, the board liked to hire local people, though its members did not acknowledge that they gave preference to such persons. After the meeting at which Wambua*was chosen head teacher, one board member regretted that the ideal person happened to be a local.
Person for the job could not apply because he lacked that appropriate credentials. This ideal person happened to be a local man, now working elsewhere in the state.
Mukuru's educators do not decide the level of academic discourse in classrooms or the relative importance of academic and non academic matters. Rather, the prevalent academic standard are determined by state's hiring practices and are put into effects as those whom the board has hired interact with one another, the students, and the parents of the community. The result is an academic posture well suited to the concerns of a small slum community.
*Not real name.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I have taught in three private schools in Nyeri County. Later, I was trained by Network of Aids researchers in Eastern and Southern Africa,(NARESA) in 2010.I'm a community Health Worker in Mukuru slum, Nairobi on voluntary basis. Other essays includes the simplified prevention of the mother to child transmission of Hiv,Daycare in the peripheries, community health and development in Viwandani, solving social problems with simulations and collaborative skills, problems with simulations and collaborative skills voice of lone ranger, relevant and popular education, Wanjiku and constitution, Mukuru Schools and the community and Gender stratification in our communities. .
tweeter@munduipaul1