4.1 The learning environment
4.2 Innovations at school level
4.3 Contextualising teaching and learning
4.4 Using agricultural experience as a medium for contextualisation
4.1.1 The rural context
Although all schools may suffer from constraints and problems such as those discussed above, the situation in many primary schools in rural areas is particularly difficult. Rural schools in developing countries suffer even more than their urban counterparts from the major afflictions of low completion rates and under-education of completers. This in turn results, as Lockheed (1993) notes, in an under-educated adult workforce; the rural-urban divide is not merely maintained, but increased.
There are examples of countries (Zimbabwe, Sri Lanka, Ghana, Colombia) where major reforms have been introduced in an attempt to increase provision of primary education in rural areas. These included curriculum reform, decentralisation of examinations, transfer of responsibility for some funding to community members, and changing concept of the teacher's role towards being a facilitator and even an entrepreneur. These changes may have served only to increase the gap between the effectiveness of rural primary schools and those in urban areas, however. Parents in rural areas may be very suspect of their children receiving an education packaged as "rural" which they perceive to be inferior to other aspects of the national education system, especially if it is thought to limit chances for future employment and educational progression. Socio-economic factors are also critical to the success of educational reform; regardless of changes in the curriculum which aim to relate learning more closely to the local environment, economic and social constraints in rural areas deter many of the poorest families from sending their children to school. More far-reaching structural changes in rural education may become necessary, such as adapting the school year of rural schools to fit more closely with the agricultural cycle, so that children who are expected to participate in agricultural activities will be able to do so without missing out on schooling.
The rural context is characterised by complexities and, in order to analyse the situation further, it is useful to look at three distinct environments; the home, the school and the community. This can be illustrated as shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1 Linking school, home and community environments
It may be noted from this diagram that the linkages between the different environments may vary in strength. The learner is the common factor between all the environments and hence has strong links with each. The linkages between the environments themselves may be comparatively weak, however. The means by which these linkages are strengthened will be discussed later in this paper. First it is important to consider each of the three environments separately.
4.1.2 The home environment
In rural areas, parental income levels are often low, and so financial contributions to schooling from non-government sources may be negligible. Children are frequently expected to assist with production-related tasks, and so are not allowed to attend school. Timing of the school day and of terms is often designed to fit more with an urban, industrialised system, expecting children to attend school during busy periods in the agricultural year. Large numbers of children in rural areas do not go beyond the primary cycle for socio-economic and geographical reasons and because of the urban focus of the education system. Thus there is a need for a system of education which would develop the learning potential of rural children and take care of rural needs in relation to resources and future changes (Ader, 1969). Parents in rural areas are likely to have received less formal education than their urban counterparts and may attach a lower value to schooling. Homes, and indeed schools in rural areas, are often ill-equipped to meet the needs of children to study; for example, with an absence of electricity. Children may come to school undernourished and in poor health, placing a greater stress on a single teacher who may have to deal with fifty-plus children ranging in age from four to fourteen years in one room which lacks the most basic facilities and resources (books, visual aids, etc.).
It has been suggested that, because of the gulf between an urbanised curriculum and the realities of rural life, children who live in rural areas of developing countries are "disadvantaged"2 in comparison with their urban counterparts. This is a contentious issue. According to this argument (Gulliford and Widlake, 1975), adverse environmental circumstances may deny children the security and emotional adjustment essential for consistent application to the tasks of learning in the formal primary school situation:
2 It is important to note that within the broad category of "children from rural areas", there will be children also who might individually be termed "disadvantaged", since their particular circumstances are even less conducive to enable them to perform effectively at school than their peers, either because of their immediate social situation, or because they have special educational needs. In many rural areas where the most basic resources are in short supply or absent altogether, their special needs are even less likely to be met.
"The environment of disadvantaged children may be rich in certain kinds of experience, but it is a reasonable generalisation that their horizons may be narrow, and they tend to be restricted in many kinds of experience which are often assumed in school work. Curricular activities which make the most of the immediate environment seem particularly valuable to them..."
Disadvantaged children, in these terms, are characterised by a limited background of language and experiences in their home environments, resulting in difficulty in fully comprehending the language and the concepts used by their teachers, in books and in other materials. This lack of "relevant" experience often results in pupils not being able to think about abstract ideas. Those who were not very successful are likely to be less eager to learn, and hence a vicious circle is formed.
The term "disadvantaged children" may now be seen as somewhat pejorative, since it could be used to make a broader, unjustifiable inference about the value of a rural environment and culture from which a child originates. Indeed, many rural development practitioners now emphasise the importance and value of rural peoples' knowledge, and the need for rural education and extension programmes to build on it as a foundation. Seshadri (1993) talks of "shedding aside the patronising attitude towards the disadvantaged", and instead "capitalising on the strengths of these classes".
The real issue to be addressed, therefore, is not the value of a rural upbringing, but the fact that the aims and processes associated with primary school education seem to be based on an acceptance of a certain range of knowledge, skills and attitudes, the acquisition of which is deemed as valuable and necessary for citizens of a "modern" society. Knowledge imparted within schools is seen by many as "superior" because it is part of a "superior" culture of civilisation (Bacchus, 1982).
4.1.3 The school environment
Curriculum
There has long been an ideological debate over the content and processes of education for rural children. Amongst some educationalists there is a belief in the existence of a body of academic knowledge which, although unrelated directly to the life experience of many people, should be learned by all:
"...the educational value placed upon abstractness...is a correct one, even though it also has a fetishistic element. It is also correct for schools to specialise in forms of thought which are not easily mastered through the informal culture. The critical thing is whether they present these forms as alternative or complementary to informal culture". (Chanan, 1976)
Cox and Jones (1983) suggested that there is a need to deliver the same basic skills to children the world over, since the ability to abstract and master the written word leads to the acquisition of the tools to exercise power, by mastering knowledge that is outside the scope of personal experience. Their view is that this conforms with what parents want for their children, i.e. the means of their children succeeding in finding well-paid employment. Coombes (1985) suggests that the "minimum essential learning needs" for children growing up in rural areas should include: positive attitudes, functional literacy and numeracy, a scientific outlook, and functional knowledge and skills for raising a family and operating a household, for earning a living, and for civic participation. This view would be supported by many. For example:
"The basic literacy and numeracy skills are of greater value than specific technical skills when students are unable to find work immediately after they finish training. Technical skills tend to deteriorate with disuse, and employers prefer literate and numerate recruits who can follow instructions and acquire new short-term skills quickly as new job opportunities arise....Primary and secondary school curricula must focus upon the basic skills of numeracy, literacy and scientific understanding". (Gray et al, 1992).
Often associated with this type of approach to learning is a curriculum which is undifferentiated. In this case there would not be any radical difference in curricula experienced by children grouped according to some perceived disadvantage; any difference should be in the methods of presentation and teaching. The argument for this is that differentiation can result in segregation, and thus some sort of social stigma could be attached to the children, besides prematurely (and probably unjustifiably) closing doors to further educational opportunities. This could also accentuate the urban-rural divide which is observed in many developing countries, thus exacerbating an already difficult situation.
Although this approach to primary school curriculum development and teaching is supported widely, an accusation has been levelled against it on the grounds that, in practice, such a curriculum tends to be geared to those children whose experience conforms more closely with a culture identified as "modern" and "superior". What makes matters worse is that the "superiority gap" is becoming accentuated, since the global influence of western media and marketing organisations increasingly interprets as "modern" a middle-class, urban dream-world, inconsistent with the reality of most rural communities. Curriculum design is often centralised and rigid, revealing an urban bias and middle-class, westernised values (Bennet, 1993), with no opportunity to relate learning to the situation from which rural children come. Children are not stimulated to learn, and rarely engage actively with the learning material. The learning material itself may be based on examples and situations which children in rural areas never come into contact with. Ekanayake (1990) believes that an irrelevant education breeds discontent and frustration and suggests that, in many instances, children who finish primary school seem to be less fit to be creative members of the community than if they had never been to school. He terms them "the schooled illiterates".
Pedagogy
Ekanayake (1990) has highlighted a number of deficiencies relating to the school environment in rural areas. He notes that interpretations of children's problems are influenced by socio-economic determinants of achievement and pedagogical traditionalism, whilst the teaching styles prevalent today are the products of these social determinants. Because of this, teachers are unable to comprehend the irrelevance of the content and methods as the main cause of failure, high drop-out rates, non-participation of students, etc. Often, problems with children in the classroom and their
intellectual progression are blamed on the home background and hence the parents. The teacher may be at fault, however, through not understanding the cultural background of the child. As Ekanayake states, many teachers, due to their lack of training in rural pedagogy, are unaware of the poor quality and nature of academic support that parents can give at home. Parents often remain outsiders of the school system, students are passive listeners in the classroom and teachers are passive executors of predetermined curricula. The adverse situations resulting from deprivations are further aggravated by the fact that teachers begin teaching not with what the children know or have experienced but with what they do not know and have not experienced. This is because teachers have been presented with traditional philosophies of education which conceptualise parents as an important part of the learning process, so that if one part fails, so does the whole educational process. This reinforces Ekanayake's view that teachers lack skills related to effective use of the rural environment, knowledge of local culture and appropriate attitudes, and the ability to use the children's experiences at home for teaching and learning. The importance of focusing on rurality as a policy becomes paramount, rather than as a matter to which lip-service is paid only.
Teachers in some rural schools are themselves from urban areas and have little or no understanding of the background of their pupils; they may be posted to a rural area against their will, have to travel a long distance to school and, as a result, may have very little commitment to their work. As a result of demotivation, the curriculum implemented may vary markedly from the original, time available for learning is likely to be reduced, and pedagogical practices are likely to be poor. The teaching styles adopted by some urban teachers may be alien to what rural children experience in their day-to-day activities because these elite styles presuppose cognitive frameworks based on middle-class cultures (Singh, 1988).
4.1.4 Community environment
In order to relate schooling to the community environment, some efforts have been made to integrate "community" or "rural peoples'" knowledge into the curriculum. This certainly has been one of the aims of the community school movement, yet it has proved a minefield, since an assumption was made, generally, that school and community knowledge systems are compatible. This led to the development of the argument that, since reality is socially constructed, knowledge which represents an interpretation of that reality or is based on direct experience must be specific to the society in which it develops. Consequently, the basis of school knowledge should be community knowledge.
To achieve this, some countries have developed and implemented a "ruralised", vocationally-oriented, diversified curriculum. Here it is argued that, in addition to literacy, numeracy and scientific understanding, children should acquire skills in technical areas which will relate directly to future work opportunities, particularly in agriculture. This has meant in practice that the content and activities included in the ruralised curriculum are related explicitly to the experiences of children brought up in rural areas. There is here, typically, some kind of focus on local, rural, social and functional issues, including the learning of basic agricultural skills. In this sense, such a curriculum may be relevant in two major ways, firstly in that the curriculum (broadly speaking) is relevant to the life experiences of the learners, and secondly that the learners acquire knowledge, skills and attitudes which will prepare them for life and work in the community from which they come. Primary education of rural children is thus seen as having a vocational orientation. This type of curriculum may be quite rigid, but with a rural bias.
Agriculture has often been an important element of the curriculum in these community-oriented schools. Where agriculture has been included as an intrinsic part of the rural schools curriculum, it has been implemented either as a manual activity, added on to the school curriculum (for example Benin, Burundi, Congo, The Gambia, Seychelles, Uganda, Zambia, Colombia, Sri Lanka, to name but few), or as a distinct subject area in the curriculum (for example Botswana, Cote d'Ivoire, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Rwanda, Swaziland and Tanzania). Primary school agriculture (PSA) frequently forms an important aspect of this type of curriculum, and, indeed, a great deal has been written about it, particularly by Bergman (1983), Bude (1985), Eisemon (1989) and Riedmiller and Mades (1991), amongst others.
A number of factors have contributed to the failure of many of these efforts to provide community-oriented schooling, however. As Bacchus (1982) pointed out, the integration of school and community knowledge is beset by an innate conflict between the two knowledge systems. He noted also that
knowledge is not value-free, and is either used as an instrument of social control or domination, or as a tool for conscientizing pupils. This view is supported by Bude (1985):
"....the school can either contribute towards deepening or fostering the apprehension of the cultural environment by endorsing its values for the socialisation process and thus by integrating cultural manifestations into the learning contents, or it can ignore or even negate these values and activities and thus accelerate the loss of cultural identity on the part of its pupils".
Attempts to integrate school and community learning have sometimes led to accusations of creating a strong class bias, providing children with the skills and attitudes needed to fill pre-destined positions in the community and thus fixing their societal roles. Some schools were accused of destroying the best elements of communal life and introducing a new set of values unrelated to the old one. Problems arose also due to a lack of major commitment by policy makers and funders, lack of proper training for teachers, insufficiency of resources and a poor response on the part of the public, who prefer more prestigious academic programmes. Detractors of the ruralised, diversified curriculum (the World Bank in particular) believe that it leads to the creation of a dual system unwanted by parents and pupils, still failing the group of children who are most disadvantaged in society. Also, in most countries, a national curriculum is developed centrally; the inclusion of agriculture, for example, in a national curriculum might be to the disadvantage of urban children since it is likely to be outside their life experience.
Another enduring problem is that agriculture and other forms of technical skills training may indeed relate to the life experiences of rural children, but it is well documented that many community members, particularly parents, view primary education as a means of enabling their children to leave agriculture3 behind and to go to work in urban areas where they may earn money which can be brought home to the family. They do not want their children to be exposed to a "watered-down" version of the national curriculum which may prevent them gaining a fully-recognised qualification, thus impeding their chances in gaining employment or progressing to higher levels of the education system. Such a view could lead to parents withholding their children from primary school; hence there is a need to raise awareness that contextualisation can enhance the possibility for children to pursue and attain a wide range of goals in life.
3 It should be noted here, that it is difficult to separate the concepts of "agriculture" and "rural life". Agriculture is certainly a major feature of the lives of many rural dwellers, but not of all. It is also important to realise that "farming" is not always seen as an occupation, but as "part of life", the purpose of which is to provide food security for the farmer and his or her family.
Finally, there is the debate over whether vocational training in school, for example in agriculture, actually has any impact on levels of production in the community. White (1990) argues that acquisition of literacy and numeracy may be more effective than school agriculture in increasing agricultural production levels, and makes the case that school children should learn "about" agriculture, rather than "for" agriculture; the objective should be to promote "agricultural literacy", rather than to produce trained farmers. Eisemon (1989) notes that learning about modern farming techniques in school does not appear to create better farmers once they return to the community, partly because the adoption of innovative farming practices seems to depend more on the level of cognitive development in an individual, and also because much of the technological content of "modern" agriculture bears no relationship to traditional agricultural practices and knowledge. As Eisemon states:
"The content of agricultural instruction and its articulation with instruction in modern science is particularly important. Also important is connecting instruction in modern science and modern agriculture to indigenous knowledge systems, building upon the knowledge and skills students possess from social experience".
These problems have led many community school movements to revise their strategies. Most now aim to meet community manpower needs and to be involved in activities directly aimed at improving community life, for example by providing services locally.
4.1.5 Links between school, home and community
Improved linkages between the school, parents and community and decentralisation of authority are important measures in moving towards a participatory environment required for improved learning.
Some countries have already made this move in their constitutions. In Indonesia, the 1989 Education Law states that education is the responsibility of the state, the community, and the family. In China, the 1985 "Decision on Reform of China's Educational Structure" granted decision making powers for administration of primary education to local authorities. UNESCO, 1994 (1).
Involving actively the community and parents in schooling, especially in rural areas where a large proportion of the adults will be illiterate, is an enormous task. It requires an enabling environment in which all members of the society - teachers, administrators, parents, educationalists - will work together in a participatory environment. Parental support is particularly important, as discussed at an EFA Summit of Nine High-Population Countries (UNESCO 1994 (1)):
"Women are the first and most important promoters of children's education. Their expectations and attitudes towards their children's schooling are an important factor in learning achievement. Research in several countries shows that schools which attain a high level of quality generally also enjoy a strong degree of parental support. Parents must feel that there are clear economic and social benefits in schooling their children, especially their girls".
Raising motivation and awareness in the community to the benefits of education, especially primary education, is a tremendous task. There is disillusionment with education when at the end of schooling, there is no job and no opportunities for progression to higher levels of the education system. Even within the community in which they live possibilities may be extremely limited, leading to the migration of many young, rural people to urban centres. Ram Niwas Mirdha (UNESCO, 1994 (1)) suggests that the purpose of education needs to be better defined:
"we should clearly say that it is not for jobs that we are giving education, but for providing you better tools for improving your situation - if you are a carpenter, you will be a better carpenter. If you are an agriculturalist, you will be a better agriculturalist with education".
Whether such an argument will improve public perception of education is open to question, however.
4.1.6 the role of the learner
There is no doubt that linking school, community and home is difficult, but there is one common factor to all three environments which is the most valuable resource of all - the learner. In the various approaches described above, which aim to improve teaching and learning, little emphasis has been laid, explicitly, on the role of the learner in the learning process. Child-centred learning approaches have been advocated strongly for many years; an innovation which has sought to draw on this idea and develop it as practical application is the "child-to-child" approach to learning.
The child-to-child approach to learning is an interesting concept, and one that has been incorporated into many projects world-wide (for numerous examples refer to Hawes, 1988). It is evident that the high aims put on the learning expectations of primary school children are not met, and that the children leave school without the basic learning skills they need for a productive and progressive life. This approach follows the basic principals behind our approach for contextualising learning, based on a subject known to many rural school children. The child-to-child approach rests on three basic assumptions:
· that primary education becomes more effective if it is linked to things that matter both to children and to their families and communities;· that education in school and education out of school should be linked as closely as possible so that learning becomes a part of life;
· that children have the will, the skill and the motivation to help educate each other and can be trusted to do so.
One particular study (Hawes, 1988), analyses the child-to-child approach in the context of health education but emphasises that "such approaches to health education may help to "unlock" better approaches to learning on a wider scale". In other words the approach could be used to integrate or contextualise the curriculum. Hawes cites an example from a workshop held in Nyeri, Kenya:
"child-to-child examined all the applications of mathematics to health and health to mathematics. They were legion. When we understand number, predict, estimate, measure, or solve problems we may do so in relation to imaginary cases (trains starting from different stations; A, B & C digging holes in the ground), or to real, important issues (population growth; budgets to feed a family; measurement of arm circumference). In the second case we do much more than teach interesting and relevant content at the same time as teaching learning skills. We also develop and reinforce the concepts and skills far more effectively because they are related to something both children and their teachers understand and value".
Child to child and child-centred learning approaches place the learner in a central role in the learning process. The learner becomes the core and focus of the entire learning process. The experience of the learner is drawn upon and used as a basis for the development of new learning. For young children, the home environment clearly is a crucial factor in their experience of life (whatever or wherever this "home environment" may be).
From this discussion, an important conclusion may be drawn. Although links between the school, home and community environments may be tenuous or absent altogether, the learner acts as a focal point for this tri-partite structure; it is the learner which can bring the three environments together.
Many of the problems discussed above, such as those associated with socio-economic factors, are difficult to resolve since they cannot be addressed easily through educational reform, but require action by a wide range of stakeholders, including the government, local communities, and perhaps, under certain conditions, schools. Schools, presumably, can do something about educational problems. They do not hold the key to ali educational solutions of course, since government will need to provide complementary support by creating enabling policy and by supplying resources, not only material, but also through the reform of teacher training, learning materials production and curriculum development. Since a lot of what goes on in rural schools appears to differ quite markedly from what is propounded by policy makers and centralised curriculum developers, however, so schools may well be able to play an increasingly important role in meeting the needs of the children who attend them. As stated by UNESCO (1994):
"The school of today must overcome these developmental problems both in terms of relevance to the community and in terms of establishing a curriculum which is both universal and yet specifically tailor-made for a particular situation".
In order to achieve this goal, the real challenge for a school is to strengthen and develop the links between the school, home and community. As discussed above, the learner can play a central role in this process, to the benefit of all. The "ideal situation" where learning environments are linked strongly, is illustrated in Figure 2.
Figure 2 Linking the learning environments
What can schools do in order to bring the learner into the heart of the learning process? In order to make learning more meaningful for rural children, it becomes necessary to create conditions where the curriculum and teaching and learning practices are influenced by the experience and environment of the pupils, enabling children to integrate their learning experiences inside and outside school. As Victor Ordoñez, Director of Basic Education Division in UNESCO (UNESCO, 1994) states,
"teachers must also learn to see the children as building blocks - To build on what he or she has learnt before coming to school. They will know how to milk a cow, count the chickens and pigs. Build on that. My message is quite simple: let us not think of the vehicle, or the progress of the vehicle, but its contents, what is taught and how".
One innovation which may bring the different aspects of the learning environment together is the contextualisation of learning. This is the concept at the heart of this research and must be defined more clearly.
4.3.1 Reaching a definition of contextualisation
Educationalists have for many years been thinking about how the way children learn in school can be related to their environment. Gulliford and Widlake (1975) quoted John Dewey saying that,
"Children are people. They grow into tomorrow only as they live today", and also "... when we say a child cannot understand, we frequently mean that he has not had sufficient experience of the right kind to be able to understand".
More recently, Bloom (1992) notes that children's:
"personal experiences, emotions, metaphors, interpretative frameworks, and so forth serve to create a complex system of processes that affect the nature of their personal knowledge and how it is constructed".
From this perspective, the educational development of a child is inseparable from the "being" which the child has become, brought about through a complex history of social interactions and related to the context in which the child has been raised. As children develop, they continue to construct their own being, and education as an experience can affect and contribute to this process. This "constructivist4" approach to the way in which children learn has challenged the Piagetian emphasis on individual cognitive development and is the subject of much recent research and writing (Wheatley, 1991, Ritchie and Russell, 1991, Ritchie, 1994).
4 Constructivism is an epistemology which focuses on the role of the learner in the personal construction of knowledge (von Glasersfeld 1987). Learning is viewed as an adaptive process where the learner's existing knowledge is modified in response to perturbations which arise from both personal and social interactions (Wheatley, 1991)
The argument as described by Bloom (1992) is that learning involves constructing meanings based on previous knowledge and experience, which can be semantic (formally acquired knowledge), but also episodic knowledge (personal experiences), interpretative frameworks, metaphors, emotions-values-aesthetics (EVAs) and the products of various mental processes (aspects of contexts of meaning). Contexts of meaning can involve traditional cognitive processes, such as categorising, associating and inferring, and elaborating and story telling; these are influenced by other aspects of contexts of meaning, such as the above. Bloom suggests that the components of contexts of meaning, particularly metaphors, interpretative frameworks, and EVAs, substantially influence knowledge development processes.
Metaphors and analogies are two means by which learning in school can be related to a child's own experience of life since they express abstract ideas by grounding them in concrete experiences (Black, 1977; Lakoff and Johnson, 1980). Metaphors act as comparative mechanisms that link different types of information. White (1988) lists nine basic types of metaphors, the two most common types being those that link actions and those that compare attributes. Metaphors link observed phenomena with familiar phenomena, and the associative-inferential process is therefore facilitated by the metaphor. In young children, metaphors are usually rooted in an anthropocentric and anthropomorphic framework, but they assist in the learning process. Metaphors which are constructed by the children themselves and are meaningful to them enrich conceptual understanding. These are powerful tools for facilitating, establishing, and extending those understandings. Solomon (1986) concludes that the allusions to past experiences provide "metaphorical illumination" found in everyday discourse, and this becomes a means of reasoning about the unfamiliar and about problematic phenomena.
The use of analogies, on the other hand, have been described by Flick (1991) as,
"a cognitive process, that is evidenced by linguistic structures..., that establishes an association with previous experience in some way that may be explicit or implicit", and that "Understanding is conferred on experience through a knowledge framework which functions as a cognitive mechanism for relating elements of the experience together".
White (1988) describes this knowledge framework as an interrelated complex of images and other sensory impressions, linguistic forms, kinaesthetic memories, as well as affective features of experiences. Gentner (1986) proposes that, through intuition, children couple the multifaceted knowledge frameworks of past experience with novel situations. One tool which can enhance this coupling is the creation of analogies, which have a explanatory-predictive purpose (while metaphors have a more expressive-aesthetic purpose). Duit (1991) states that, since learning is an active construction process and can only take place on the basis of previously acquired knowledge:
"Learning, therefore, fundamentally has to do with constructing similarities between the new and the already known. It is precisely this aspect that emphasises the significance of analogies in a constructivist learning approach".
Flick (1991) warns that any new instruction in school must constantly ask the pupils to re-examine past experiences. The analogies that they intuitively make must be explicit to them so that they can construct on their acquired knowledge. Linking past experience with concept formation through instruction is not a matter of finding the right analogy upon which to base instructional design, but rather the provision of a stimulus to trigger off other relevant experiences. Specific analogies can be used as a useful instructional tool, but teachers should be sensitive also to the spontaneous or intuitive analogies created by students.
In summary, although everyday out-of-school experience contributes to the knowledge constructed by a child, additional experience must be provided within the school environment which will enable a child to understand complex, conceptual learning of skills in science, mathematics, languages, etc. In order to enhance a child's capacity to develop skills in these areas, however, it is essential to relate these subjects in some way to the child's own personal experience of life, and thus to integrate the entire learning experience. In order to meet the "essential learning needs" listed by Coombes, therefore, it becomes clear that the content of education programmes, the methods by which learning is facilitated, and the materials used to this end must all be pertinent to the experience and culture of the learners (Graham-Brown, 1991). In other words, learning should be contextualised.
A definition of contextualisation is reached, therefore for the purpose of this research.
|
Contextualisation of learning occurs when the content of the curriculum, and the methods and materials associated with it, are related directly to the experience and environment of the learner. |
4.3.2 Implications of contextualisation for teaching and learning
Implications for the Curriculum
As described earlier, the curriculum for rural primary schools in most developing countries is centralised and inflexible with an urban, western, middle-class bias. In these situations, decentralisation of the curriculum development process seems unlikely to happen in the near future.
There are different approaches to curriculum development, however. Some educationalists advocate the creation of integrated curricula. Such an approach to curriculum development is certainly
conducive to the use of contextualisation in schools, since there is much greater potential for teachers to develop the content themselves within certain topic areas. This means that they can relate learning much more closely to the local environment.
Bacchus (1982) defines integration as "the combination of the several components of an object, organisation or a system into a whole in order to render it entire or complete" (p.1). A curriculum developed on this basis may have a core, which is identified as essential learning for all primary pupils throughout a country, but the way in which this core is handled is not prescribed by central policy makers. In order to render the curriculum complete, additional, optional areas will be included, depending on the locality of the school and the background of the pupils and teachers.
There are strong arguments in favour of this approach. As Krogh (1990) states: "Most of the learning in our lives is along the lines of an integrated curriculum". Following this idea, Krogh suggests ways that integrated learning, which prevails in everyday life, could be incorporated in the school programme. The teacher can choose a theme, create a topic web which relates and links a range of sub-themes or topics, and then add or subtract activities as it becomes apparent that there is too much or too little emphasis in some areas. This flexible method of teaching is an extension to natural teaching which takes place outside the school. It can build on a child's experiences, covering the whole curriculum whilst developing skills in a meaningful context, as opposed to breaking learning down into categories by subject area, which is less natural, more forced, and less interesting or exciting. Through a learning web, academic, social and emotional needs can be met. This approach was supported strongly at a recent conference held in Ethiopia (PEAP, 1996):
"Children see the world holistically, that is they make meaning of their surroundings by making connections. Learning takes place through the introduction of new information which meets prior knowledge and experiences of the learners. Learners come to school with knowledge from their home, friends, environments, radio, etc. This knowledge is not necessarily broken up into maths, mother tongue, natural science, social studies, etc. They come with knowledge and experiences that have meaning to them. In helping children to learn new concepts and processes it is important to make connections to the knowledge and experience that they already have. These connections between new knowledge and their existing knowledge are best make in a holistic manner which is facilitated by the integration of fragmented subjects into one or two areas (such as is being done with natural science, social studies, agriculture, home economics and handicraft)".
Most primary school curricula in use at present are not topic-based, but are organised according to the study of separate, specific subject areas or disciplines, such as language, mathematics, science, history, etc. Contextualisation still allows teachers to relate the content, however rigid, to the local environment. There are elements of all subject areas which can be contextualised. In this way, a centrally produced curriculum can be "localised" because teachers adapt the way in which they deal with the prescribed content by using the experience of the learners as a basis for teaching and learning. This is one way of addressing the problem of rigid "relevant" basic education programmes produced on a national scale, as curriculum flexibility is encouraged at a local level. The process of contextualisation will, necessarily, involve a range of stakeholders, not only school, government and community representatives, but also the learners themselves as they contribute actively to the learning process. An important impact of contextualisation, therefore, is, in the words of Lubben et al (1995), "curriculum empowerment".
Contextualisation can achieve the difficult task of linking "school knowledge" and "home knowledge". The Report of the National Advisory Committee of India (1993), gives an example:
"one teacher who tried to make such a bridge in a lesson about letter-writing was asked by a class VI child: "madam, shall we write it the way we write at home or in the school way?"
The report continues to state:
"this kind of perception results in the confinement of classroom life to a narrow orbit. Classroom knowledge assumes total independence from the child's own experience and knowledge of the world. As a consequence of this de-coupling, children begin to compartmentalise knowledge into two categories: that which has currency in the school and classroom, and the other which has uses and relevance outside the school."
An aim of contextualisation is to put an end to this de-coupling by decompartmentalising knowledge, and allowing all those involved in the learning process to recognise that learning is in fact a common currency to all learning environments.
Implications for Pedagogy
Contextualisation can be applied in many different areas of the curriculum, but there are a number of implications for pedagogical practice. The size of the teacher's exclusive territory will decrease, inevitably, with a subsequent increase in the amount of input children have into designing their environment. This may pose a threat to teachers who are familiar with a strongly hierarchical school environment, and prove equally uncomfortable for pupils, parents and policy makers. Teachers will also have to develop skills in understanding the environment from which the learners come from, as their pedagogical approaches should attempt, as Aghihotri et al (1994) suggest, to "work in harmony with the world of the child and the community by, for example, including drawing, pictures, songs, stories and riddles of and by the local people and by encouraging the child to relate the content of the text to the environment often involving activities that would necessitate observation and analysis of the environment".
Many other types of inputs will be also of great importance, for example, the preparation of special materials, such as workcards, worksheets, additional pictorial or taped material, guides on the use of audio-visual materials, materials information and reference books which are easy to read in a language of instruction familiar to the children, whilst introducing novel terms in a suitably paced way. Lubben et al (1995) note that "contextualised materials stimulate student participation and provide the opportunity of identifying student misconceptions". They point out also that girls, who may feel alienated from schooling, can relate more easily to contextualised materials, and hence become more motivated to study and produce a better academic performance as a result.
Bearing in mind the severe constraints facing rural primary schools and teachers, a major difficulty associated with contextualisation is that its success will depend largely on the skill, motivation and professionalism of teachers, as well as the availability of suitable resources. Many materials and texts available currently are, as stated by Aghihotri et al (1994) "very distant from the environment of the child, both in terms of content and language". This leads to indifference, alienation and non-participation of the learner in the learning process. Another problem is that the experience, culture and "knowledge" of people who live in rural areas varies from one locality to the next; even within a specific area the knowledge and experience of individuals differs markedly. There is no single knowledge or experience which can be used as the basis for the curriculum, therefore. Metaphors and analogies should, if they are to be effective, be derived actively by the child, based on his or her individual experience and, as Lubben et al (1995) note, on experiences they may have in the future or which they find contentious or relevant for other reasons (perhaps because it relates to experience of their peers or role models). The Department of Primary Education, Sri Lanka (NIE, 1994) supports the need for teachers to link their teaching to the external environment:
"Education is a continuous process and hence it has been emphasised that education should not be confined to any particular period of time and any particular place. Possibilities for supplementing the formal education process with non-formal education modalities to make education better related to day to day living and hence more meaningful to the learner must be explored".
There are implications, therefore, for teacher training, both in-service and pre-service, for more imaginative means of creating and distributing resources for teaching and learning, and also for time management, since the development of contextualised materials for teaching and learning will inevitably be a time-consuming activity. In this respect, it is important to be aware that many teachers carry a very heavy burden already; not only do they work under difficult conditions, often with large numbers of pupils, but they have to perform many activities relating to the social welfare of children in the school which go far beyond what is often thought to be the normal duties of a teacher. Ways of supporting teachers, both materially and psychologically, will have to be found which enable and encourage them to develop new strategies and approaches without becoming completely demoralised and exhausted in the process.
In order to contextualise teaching and learning, a teacher must identify aspects of the learners' experience which will provide a valuable resource of basic concepts, metaphors and analogies to which the content of the curriculum can be related.
In rural primary schools, most learners have direct, first-hand experience of agriculture, either as a result of their own activities, contributing to the family livelihood, or from observation of their immediate surroundings. An agricultural topic used as a medium for contextualising part of the curriculum could, therefore, provide an avenue through which children can have repeated experiences which help them to master cognitive, physical and social skills. Agriculture could be the basis of integrated projects incorporated in the school curriculum, with academic activities chosen for their locally relevant, experimental attributes. Even though the agricultural experience of individuals will differ, agriculture can still be used as a vehicle to make school learning more meaningful. Metaphors and analogies can be based on agricultural activities and experiences, and thus enhance the acquisition of literacy, numeracy and the skills of basic scientific reasoning within the confines of a subject-based curriculum.
Where the curriculum allows it, local agricultural practices can be used as a basis for "the development of an integrated life-centred curriculum with teaching devised according to "centres of interest" or "projects" where traditional subject boundaries are given up as artificial. During a period of several weeks, for example, all teaching would be centred around a given topic, with language, arithmetic and science skills being imparted in the process" (Riedmiller and Mades, 1991). Children can be encouraged to relate the learning process in school with the natural learning process which exists outside the classroom, and begin to provide the means by which the process of learning becomes continuous, in school and beyond. It could enable children to develop not only basic knowledge and skills, but also higher-order competencies, such as problem-solving and thinking skills, and broader competencies such as leadership skills, group skills and personal initiative (Black et al, 1993). This would be expected to enhance interest and thus motivation.
Coverdale (1972) suggested how a simple study of maize could be used as a theme for learning, whatever the structure of the curriculum. Measuring plots could involve mathematics, development of powers of observation and communication and the use of language. The history of the maize plant could be considered, as could geography in terms of where maize grows in other countries. This approach to learning aims to provide general education in an agricultural setting, since in rural schools, "there is a very strong case for a rural bias to be applied to the whole basic syllabus in order to give it a coherent pattern of meaning and relevance" (Coverdale, 1972). Agriculture provides an ideal basis for this "rural bias", because of its familiarity to the majority of rural school children. At home, many pupils will be involved in daily agricultural practices such as feeding and herding livestock, watering, digging and weeding. Agricultural seasons may also affect the pupils' school attendance record. This familiarity with agriculture may provide a basis for contextualising learning over a range of subjects, including reading and writing, mathematics, science, geography, social studies and home economics, as illustrated in Figure 3.
In order to adopt this approach, teachers would need to have an understanding of local agricultural conditions and also to have the capacity to learn from the local environment and from their pupils. As mentioned earlier, this has implications for teacher training and support. It would be necessary, also, for teachers to be able to produce learning materials which draw on agriculture as the context for the learning. Some school text books have been produced recently which encourage teachers to use agricultural illustrations for mathematics, science and languages; some examples are given in
The Department of Primary Education, Sri Lanka (NIE, 1994) advocate strongly the use of agricultural experience as a medium for contextualisation:
"The success of the teaching-learning process depends heavily on the motivation of both the learner and the teacher. It has been identified that information regarding food habits and types of food of the community can be used in introducing innovative strategies in education. Outdoor activities using agricultural plots in the school and the home can also make learning more meaningful and hence attractive. These plots could be used for introducing concepts in mathematics, language and social studies, etc....Since agriculture is the main occupation of the parents in the Sinhala Medium areas, every attempt must be made to help them to learn better practices. Well maintained agricultural plots in the school could be used in teaching not only agriculture but also concepts in science, mathematics, nutrition, social studies, etc. These plots could also serve as demonstration plots for the community. In addition these could be used as nurseries to provide seeds and plants of improved varieties to farmers."
The use of agriculture in this way could have considerable advantages. It will appeal to parents and employers if it is proven that such an approach enables young people to cope more effectively with the subject matter in school. At present, passive, written examinations are the arbiters of success in most national education systems and this situation is unlikely to change in the near future. Although decentralisation of examination procedures is often discussed, many national policy makers still feel unwilling to introduce continuous assessment procedures which place new demands and responsibilities on teachers. It will be crucial, therefore, that parents and pupils feet that a new, innovative strategy introduced in schools will not reduce the chances of success in examinations; the aim of a strategy such as contextualisation is in fact to increase this chance of success, since by understanding abstract concepts better, pupils should perform better in examinations. Also, pupils who have left school should find that they are able to apply what they have learned in their local communities, and school pupils themselves will gain satisfaction from their own personal development. These skills will be useful, too, to those children who do succeed in progressing to higher levels of education. As Ravi & Rao (1994) state:
"The local environment with which the children are familiar, and upon which the teacher and the children can draw for information and materials has to be seen as an area for study which is worthwhile".
Figure 3 Agriculture as a basis for contextualised teaching and learning
Figure 4 Examples of text-book material which draw on agricultural practice and experience
4. Ondimu and Nyangau are digging a shamba. Ondimu starts at the lop and digs the top 3/8 of the shamba. Nyangau starts at the bottom and digs the bottom 3/10. What is the total fraction dug?
5 Omolo dug 1/4 of his shamba on Monday and 3/5 on Tuesday. What total fraction of the shamba did he dig in the two days?
5. Otugah planted 139 rows of pineapples in his shamba. Each row contained 75 pineapples. How many pineapples were there in the shamba?
E Talk maths: A dialogue
A: Look at Mr. Kombo's cows.
B: In 1988 he had five cows. Today he has eight cows.
A: By how many have his cows increased?
B: They have increased by three cows.
|
|
1988 |
Today |
|
Cows |
(5) |
(8) |
|
Hens |
12 |
20 |
|
Sheep |
25 |
36 |
|
Goats |
10 |
16 |
|
Pigs |
8 |
12 |
F Write a letter like this to a friend.
PO Box 347.
Isiolo, 12/2/88
Dear Meja,
I have done two important jobs today.
I have milked the cows and I have planted the onions. Please write me a letter about your day.
With best wishes.
Tom
These words will help you: clean, water, hoe, mend, iron, cook. wash, dust, herd. weed, pick, brush
page eight (8)
date.............
CLASS WORK 8
A VISIT TO A FARM
Yesterday Ashok and Anita went to their uncle's farm. There they saw a cow, a cat, a then), a goat, a dog and a hen. They also saw a lamb, a kid, a calf, some chicks, some kittens and some puppies.
Now complete each sentence by writing the correct name in each black space. You can choose your words from the box,
1. Young cows arc called calves.
2. Young dogs are called................................
3. Young cats are called................................
4.......................................are young goats.
5.......................................are young sheep.
6.......................................are young hens,
7. The babies of cats arc called..........................
8. The babies of cows are called..........................
|
puppies |
calves |
kittens |
|
lads |
lambs |
chicks |
