Assignment #4

An important lesson I would like to teach the children in the Philippines would be the importance of washing their hands before they eat or touch their hands to their mouths, especially after touching an animal or trash.

I would want to present 3 main points:

i. dirty hands make dirty insides
ii. dirty insides can make you very sick
iii. washing hands keeps everything clean

To use a new technology, to be interactive I would have each child color five "germs" on paper that could eventually be stuck to a felt board (or even a chalk board). Then I would pick a child in the class and label the board after them (the board would represent them). I would talk about how clean the board is, the person must have just bathed. Then I would say, "Mikey just played with a dog, and now he's giving Timmy a hug because he's excited to see him." Timmy would go up to the board and put a "germ" on "Mikey." Then so on and so forth with a day in the life of Mikey. By the end of the day he'll have had many germs on him, even ingesting a good amount because he never washed his hands. He'll get sick.

Then I would run through the story again (a little faster) and have Mikey wash his hands, keeping him a fair bit cleaner. And then even again with ALL the children washing their hands, showing how clean Mikey is at the end of the day.

I think a felt board would be a new technology for the kids, but the lesson is nice because it can go with any type of board.

The main drawback would be that the kids get too distracted decorating their germs and by the newness of the felt board that they would lose sight of the object of the lesson: washing their hands.

from experience I've noticed that interactive learning seems to excite the kids in the Philippines. I think that's because they mostly rely on a lecture system, so having the opportunity to participate is nice for them.

A nice technological improvement to a felt board would be an overhead projector with overheads. They are easy to clean and maintain and would be a bit better than a felt board.

Missionary Blogs

Hey all!

I was really excited to find this amazing site with tons of missionary blogs. They provide access to blogs of missionaries around the world, divided by region, country, and whether the missionaries have children or not. It was very cool.

I ended up on the page of the Pape family who are currently serving as missionaries in Manila, Philippines. They are a family of five (husband, wife, and three children).

I read their blog "Should I stay or should I go now...?" and I was blessed by it. I appreciated seeing missionaries who are "on the field" who are honest and actually talking about the struggles that they are going through in trying to seek Gad's will. I love that! I constantly struggle with God's will of where I am supposed to be, but then I know that I just need to trust God. It's actually been the "theme" of my summer plans.

The few sentences that I enjoyed the most were: "It is tempting to seek a more permanent position and the security of a salary, real insurance, and a retirement plan rather than trusting that God will lead the right people at the right time to provide what we need. But as we pursued this option, it was made pretty clear that this is not what we are supposed to do." I like this because this is how I feel. I don't need to be on a salary, I don't even want a salary! Will the poor people I'm helping have a salary? Will they be able to understand why I have one? I'd rather go and teach or have a job wherever I go so that I can help without alienating people.

You should go check out that blog website, see what's going on in the world.

Kenyan Education

I just read an article from an organization that I go on missions trips with about education in Kenya. The article talks about the poverty of Sub-Saharan Africa and the costs of schooling. They make the connection that poverty is having a direct effect on the education of Africans. They expand on the idea of education, pushing it beyond the idea of reading, writing, and arithmetic. They expand the definition to include bible teaching and healthcare; both of which are important in the third world setting. The organization, Global Outreach Developments International (G.O.D.), drew a statistic from a study done by Purdue University that says by 2015 African nations will make up 75% of all un-schooled children in the world. That's so intense! I don't want the people of Africa to go without schooling. They need an education so that they can have power and no longer be oppressed.

Here's the link for the article: http://godinternational.org/godintl/?p=244

It's great.

SMART Board Presentation

So I presented my SMART Board game in class on Tuesday. It went better than I thought it would. I decided to present games that would help with a lesson on lice. I used "Hair Force One" and "Jail Louse Rock" that can be found at http://www.headlice.org/kids/headgames/index.htm. They were popular with the class and got a lot of laughs. I do think that the games were helpful because they helped with louse identification, nit identification, and what happens if you do not get rid of the nits. However, these little lessons are not explicitly presented within the games so to use them effectively there need to be moments of silence in the classroom that might be difficult to obtain with smaller children.

If I was to teach a lesson on lice to children I would first give the lesson on lice. Show some pictures of what a louse and a nit looked like, and educate them. I would talk about how lice is spread and what they should do if they think they have lice. Then I would quiz them, and the three students that answer correctly and the quickest to come up and play the games on the SMART Board.

I would also teach the same lesson to teachers so that they could be better educated on lice. However, I wouldn't quiz them and pick the three best "students." I would just ask for volunteers.

I don't know what game or activity I would do in the Philippines to supplement this lesson. I think with adults in the Philippines I wouldn't need any because they struggle with lice and would be able to pay better attention than children because they would understand the importance of being lice-free.

Why Education (and educating) is Important to Me...

I think education became important to me when I first experienced and overseas schooling environment (overseas in the third world). It was awful. I was in Guatemala and I realized that the children there had to pay a lot of money for thewir education (even if it was a public one) and they were not being taught as much as they could be (whether it was a private or public education). It saddened me. It made me realize how powerful an education is. Most third world countries lack a proper educational system. Coincidence?

I also realized how important an education was when the kids I nany for would try to eat their food with their hands that the dog had just licked! That is completely unsanitary and disgusting, but they didn't see anything wrong with it. Why? Because they had not received that education yet. No one had told them that doing that could make them extremely sick. Why should it be any different for a grown person in Guatemala or the Philippines? If no one has ever told them what is good hygiene and what is poor hygiene, how can they be expected to know?

Since that revelation, I realized that I could not blame anyone, I could only act. So that is what I will do, I will act upon my convictions. I will become an educator and teach people about their health and their beliefs and their world. They have a right to know.

Links, links, and more links!

Here are some articles at a school I will attend after Northwest. This is what I desire for myself and my life:

http://godinternational.org/godintl/?p=228

http://godinternational.org/godintl/?p=226

Please read, and enjoy!

Technology in the Third World

You know, I really would like to see more technology in the third world. However, I envision a different technology than most others. I also see technology in a different light

Take for instance, the Philippines. I would love to see a new technology in the classrooms there: whiteboards. A whiteboard would be considered a new technology in the Philippines because they are currently using chalkboards. But then I think: What will happen to all the chalk boards? Would having whiteboards create new/more jobs? Would the loss of chalkboards eliminate jobs? Why are whiteboards better?

I do not have all the answers to these questions. But I do think that whiteboards would be a good addition. They are easier to maintain and there would be less dust in the classroom atmosphere. However, an in-depth study would be needed to determine if a whiteboard would truly be better than a chalkboard.

But that's the "Western" way of thinking: a whiteboard is better. Like I said previously, I really do not know if a whiteboard is better than a chalkboard, I just consider it to be a newer technology and therefore I want it. I want to use it because it's available to the world. But if it's not better, if it will cause more harm than anything else, what's the point?

Now, imagine this train of thought for each and every piece of technology that will be/could be introduced to the third world.

No wonder politicians look so tired.