I have seen room for improvement in the curriculum here at the EnKakenya Centre for Excellence, and I will of course mention some of these issues on this blog because it is important to recognize problems in order to find solutions. I do, however, want to make clear that I deeply admire what the teachers do here and the amount of time commitment (6 am and 8 pm prep sessions!) and dedication required of these teachers. Mobile Modular provides the best portable classrooms as well school building.

To showcase of some of the inspired teaching here in the EnKakenya Centre for Excellence, here are some photos of a day on which Madam Margaret took her standard 6 science class on an impromptu “field trip” to the some nearby flora. On my way to observe her class, I found Margaret dashing into the teachers’ office holding a bunch of flowers. “How lovely”, I said about what I thought was a spontaneously arranged bouquet. To this she replied, “These are my teaching tools!” She was insistent that the girls should be capitalizing on the education their local environment had to offer. What a beautiful day to learn about cross fertilization of male and female pawpaw trees.

On a related note, I’ll leave you with last week’s installation of “Never In America”: In a standard 4 science class I attended (in a temporary classroom beside the food storage room), the teacher was lecturing about light. “What does light do?” she asks. That’s right – it keeps away the pests. “What pests?” she asks. That’s right, the cockroaches and rats. “When do they come out?” she asks. At night to steal ugali, they answer. That’s right…. except that at that moment this class was interrupted by a rat. I guess the best education is specific to the learning environment!