I wish to review the events which I was involved in during the year 1972. In that year MASHAV decided to open a seminar for teachers of infant classes and kindergarten teachers at the University of Lagos, Nigeria, in the format of the seminars which it holds at the Golda Meir Mount Carmel International Training Center in Haifa.
Yona Amir, a retired inspector of kindergartens, was selected to run the seminar. Her duties included teaching courses in pedagogy, the theory of kindergartens, and actual practical work. I was selected as her assistant, as I had previously spent two years in Nigeria and was familiar with the region. My duties included musical and rhythm education, handwork, and social services to the participants. The duration of the course was six months. We worked with Professor Orison Burges, a Canadian representative in Lagos.
The University gave us a kindergarten class to work with. We were greatly astonished at what we found, since the system of education then in force followed the long obsolete pattern of Great Britain. In the kindergarten, children of ages 3 to 6, sat motionless in rows, to receive frontal lectures. In front of the class was a podium, the teacher's table, and a large blackboard.
We had to make a virtual revolution to change the mind set of the Nigerian Ministry of Education. We had to explain, to argue, and again to explain that three-year-olds were not able to sit still for five hours and listen to a teacher. The Ministry was very reluctant to accept our point of view, and there were many fierce arguments.
Finally our point of view was accepted. We were able to seat the children informally, in small informal groups for play and work in place of the rigid frontal approach and we transformed the scene into one of varied activity corners: a dolls' corner, a corner for building blocks, a fancy-dress corner, a library, a corner for games, a "hospital," a carpentry workshop, and a gardening center. The order of the day was free, informal, open, and spontaneous. The children wandered about freely, played, drew, built, looked at books, moulded clay, sewed and pasted.
Twice a day we all gathered together, and sat in a circle, with the children on small chairs (of sizes appropriate to their ages) - and not on benches as in the University. We all sat together and talked, breaking the taboo against speaking except in answer to a question, and against opening a conversation or a new topic of discussion.
With time, the children got used to sitting alongside us. We took them on our knees, stroked them, and encouraged them to tell us their experiences of the day, and of the events in their parents' homes. We built up a strong connection with the families of the children. They invited their parents and grandparents to visit the kindergarten, and to take part in the life of the kindergarten and of the seminar. We, for our part, joined in the communal life of the children.
Another educational innovation was to take the children on excursions out of the classroom. As they walked around, they gained experience and learned about the world outside. They became familiar with their surroundings, and learned about the natural history of the region. We aroused their natural curiosity, got them to listen to birdsong, and to see the colors of the various trees and their changes with the changing seasons, to look at the sky and note the appearance of the clouds at different times of the year. All this was achieved, not by book learning, but by direct experience and consciousness of the world around them.
Together with the participants, I filled the courtyard of the kindergarten with discarded junk. From these simple things we built equipment essentially from nothing. With my own hands, I made balls out of dried banana leaves. We made ropes out of agave leaves. We collected stones for games. Together with the participants, I made a lotto game from local seeds and fruits. All these activities were done together with the participants - we learned, looked around, gathered seeds, fruit, branches, and bits of cloth. I taught the participants how to make use of everything, and to create their own toys and games, and not to buy imported equipment.
In the field of music, I fought against the Dean's recommendation to order musical instruments from France or Switzerland. Instead, I took the participants to the market, where we wandered around, looked at the things on sale, and bought gourds of all sizes, bottles, corks, skins (for drums), etc., and with all our purchases, returned to the seminar.
We all sat together and worked: we sawed the gourds and built drums from them with skins, and sometimes without skins, and we decorated them. We made castanets from fruit, from sticks, from pickle jars partly filled with rice, etc. We painted all our instruments, and built an orchestra - but with no melodic instruments.
Although there was a piano, I did not make use of it, as it was not really suited to the folk culture of the region. The dance and movement sessions were based on their life, and scenes of their homes and farms. The melodic accompaniment was provided by their songs; they sang with excellent harmony, and accompanied the singing with their home-made instruments. The main lesson for the participants was that they did not need to buy equipment, but rather to create their own instruments out of materials that were locally available.
I suggested that the participants wear different clothes to class than their everyday ones. I bought cloth in the market, and in the evenings I sewed shirts and pants. These gave a new atmosphere to the class.
It was in this way that we worked, played, sang and danced - building from the essence of their lives, the country, gardening, agriculture, the growth of trees, prayers for rain, the motion of clouds, the sun, drizzle and rain. All aspects of domestic animal life found expression in free movement and song - with the participation of the entire group. This generated a sense of unity amongst the participants, and reinforced their connection with nature and their surroundings.
We also played with ideas of transportation: trains moving on rails, with an engine and many carriages - the dynamics of movement - trains approaching and receding. We invoked other forms of transportation: donkeys, motor cars, etc.
To tell the truth, I did not so much teach them to dance, but rather created the dances out of their own life and tradition. All our topics were taken from conversation with the participants - various occupations such as police, drivers, cobblers, watchmen of fields, of vineyards, and of orchards.
We learned to count, by dance and movement, using aids from everyday life, and built musical and rhythmical structures - thus, for example, we stood in a circle, transformto a row, and back to a circle. We learned the idea of opposites: scattering and reassembling as a group, leaders and led. We developed feelings of togetherness, and the identity of the group.
We made extensive use of ropes, sticks, gourds, buckets, cans and shawls. We found a use for everything, compatible with their experience and culture - and all with openness, warmth, joy and fullness of life, since the topics were familiar to them. The participants enjoyed expressing themselves, and appreciated one another. They found that they could express virtually everything in song and dance (since movement was their natural God-given talent) and could use this as a tool in education.
They learned that they could express fear of animals, of thieves, and of darkness; and on the positive side, comradeship, contact, assistance and support. They could express strength in their life, and transform it into movement, using their inborn bodily and spiritual talents.
This seminar gave me an opportunity to work with wonderful raw material - like an artist with paint and brushes. Thus our work with the participating girls was not only good for them, but gave me much satisfaction and joy. My good friend Yona Amir died in 1998 and Prof. Burges sadly passed away last year. Mrs. Wuya's letter brings back wonderful memories of that tome of working together.
Report Panama
by Ana Teresa Arosemena de Russo