I'm just from a book fair at the Sarit Center. I wasn't too enthusiastic about going because I thought it would be boring and hardly anyone would attend. How wrong I was!
There was quite a flock of people wandering around and some actually buying books. Okay, a lot of them were parents with their kids looking to buy schoolbooks but some literary enthusiasts were present too (like yours truly). You know the kind, dreadlocked, wearing african print shirts, copper and bead jewelery, etc. It's like being artsy in Kenya makes you want to dress more 'ethnic' for some reason. Not that I mind though. Anything is better than a boring old suit I always say.
Come to think of it, my attire was also somewhat patriotic. I had on a t-shirt and cap labelled 'Kenya'. Great coincidence, hmm?
The most appealing stand for me was an e-learning one. A couple of guys there were showcasing a software application that contains lessons for the entire KCSE (Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education) syllabus! Complete with voice overs and flash videos. How cool it that?
It had me feeling like "Where was all this stuff when I was growing up? I'd never have gone to school!" What fun my life would have been. Anyhoo, water under the bridge.
I managed to get some good contacts the best of which was this guy that told me about a club for writers, journalists and the like. I've been searching for such for years! I left feeling quite pleased with myself for having gone to the fair. A Sunday well spent.
Showing posts with label education. Show all posts
Showing posts with label education. Show all posts
Sunday, 26 September 2010
Saturday, 13 October 2007
Creative writing
Writing is now my new hobby(cheers! whistles!). I have finally found a useful and inexpensive way to entertain myself during non-working hours. Yes, writing IS entertaining. Taxing on the brain too. All I need is to carry around a good biro and an A4 exercise book. Lovely!
Below I have posted the first product of my hobby. This one was born in a cafeteria downtown on Moi Ave. Enjoy.
Anti-Citizen City
----------------------
There's something wrong with Nairobi. Having lived here most of my life I would know. It pains me to see things this way so I'm taking pains to explain.
Cities continue to exist primarily due to the economic activity that takes place in them. Most companies worth their salt have at least one branch and/or headquarters in them. With the high concentration of people living and walking around it makes sense if you are selling merchandise or services to have a presence.
This said, I am appalled at the measures taken to ensure a thriving business environment. For starters there are fewer and fewer places where one can relax without spending money. The metal railings outside some buildings that were once sat on by tired pedestrians taking a breather are now covered in spikes. The message portrayed being "We have no room for idle bottoms here!" Just in case your backside is sturdier than most, there is a stone-faced askari hovering nearby to urge you to take your 'diab' and place it elsewhere.
"But there's Uhuru Park..." you say. True, and its pretty well spruced up nowadays by the way, but suppose you are exhausted on the opposite end of the CBD (like Moi avenue), it surely makes no sense trudging all the way just to take a rest; you'd probably die en-route. Jeevanjee Gardens? Let's not even go there. Literally. Unless you enjoy listening to preaching done at a volume that should be outlawed.
What's worse about this whole affair is that the Nairobi City Council is in on the racket too. The recent and almost rabid upgrade of the city, though commendable, has it's dark spots. Consider those large green cement flowerpots that have been installed in various places. They aren't an eyesore; it's just that they have a really unfriendly sign on them : "DO NOT SIT ON FLOWER POT." Hmmph! With all the taxes we pay willingly or otherwise, you would think we have a right to sit on a public flowerpot now and then.
---I've edited out the last part of this article because it seemed disjointed. Not sure what I'll put in there but for now that's the end. >11-09-10
Below I have posted the first product of my hobby. This one was born in a cafeteria downtown on Moi Ave. Enjoy.
Anti-Citizen City
----------------------
There's something wrong with Nairobi. Having lived here most of my life I would know. It pains me to see things this way so I'm taking pains to explain.
Cities continue to exist primarily due to the economic activity that takes place in them. Most companies worth their salt have at least one branch and/or headquarters in them. With the high concentration of people living and walking around it makes sense if you are selling merchandise or services to have a presence.
This said, I am appalled at the measures taken to ensure a thriving business environment. For starters there are fewer and fewer places where one can relax without spending money. The metal railings outside some buildings that were once sat on by tired pedestrians taking a breather are now covered in spikes. The message portrayed being "We have no room for idle bottoms here!" Just in case your backside is sturdier than most, there is a stone-faced askari hovering nearby to urge you to take your 'diab' and place it elsewhere.
"But there's Uhuru Park..." you say. True, and its pretty well spruced up nowadays by the way, but suppose you are exhausted on the opposite end of the CBD (like Moi avenue), it surely makes no sense trudging all the way just to take a rest; you'd probably die en-route. Jeevanjee Gardens? Let's not even go there. Literally. Unless you enjoy listening to preaching done at a volume that should be outlawed.
What's worse about this whole affair is that the Nairobi City Council is in on the racket too. The recent and almost rabid upgrade of the city, though commendable, has it's dark spots. Consider those large green cement flowerpots that have been installed in various places. They aren't an eyesore; it's just that they have a really unfriendly sign on them : "DO NOT SIT ON FLOWER POT." Hmmph! With all the taxes we pay willingly or otherwise, you would think we have a right to sit on a public flowerpot now and then.
---I've edited out the last part of this article because it seemed disjointed. Not sure what I'll put in there but for now that's the end. >11-09-10
Friday, 31 August 2007
learning free
In further pursuit of freedom, I have ended up deep in literature about homeschooling/unschooling. Men such as John Holt, John Taylor Gatto and Ivan Illich have been my "enlighten-ers" in this. But my journey to educational freedom didn't start with them.
I encountered homeschooling several years ago when I discovered one of my college professors from the States, who was in Kenya for a year, didn't send his kids to school. That seemed odd for a prof who made his living from pedagogy. His kids seemed pretty smart and happy regardless. They also had lots of time to go walkabout on campus and socialise and that to me wasn't such a bad thing. Hmm.
Later, after campus...
My interest piqued when I was introduced to a Kenyan family that homeschooled. I met the daughter in that family and was completely blown away by her demeanor. She acted like a tiny grown up; such fluent and unabashed speech! (she was four at the time, btw.) If more of us had been brought up that way, who knows what we'd have achieved by now.
Needless to say, I am obsessed by natural, non-institutional methods of learning. One of the reasons being that my own formal education was miserable from somewhere in mid-primary all the way to Uni. A part of my high school I enjoyed because it was a slightly more liberal place than what I had encountered prior.
Right now I am reading excerpts from a book by John Holt, an education reformer from the sixties and seventies who decided that reforming schools wasn't the answer to creating better learning environments. Abolishing formal schools ALTOGETHER is the only remedy since they weren't in the first place created to be places where children could achieve their full potential in whatever they desired. Schools were invented to teach people their place, to grade and pigeon-hole them so as to make them easier to control. Encouraging the spread of school is the worst thing that we could do. Read the chilling quote below from "Instead of Education:Ways to Help People Do Things Better" by John Holt:
I encountered homeschooling several years ago when I discovered one of my college professors from the States, who was in Kenya for a year, didn't send his kids to school. That seemed odd for a prof who made his living from pedagogy. His kids seemed pretty smart and happy regardless. They also had lots of time to go walkabout on campus and socialise and that to me wasn't such a bad thing. Hmm.
Later, after campus...
My interest piqued when I was introduced to a Kenyan family that homeschooled. I met the daughter in that family and was completely blown away by her demeanor. She acted like a tiny grown up; such fluent and unabashed speech! (she was four at the time, btw.) If more of us had been brought up that way, who knows what we'd have achieved by now.
Needless to say, I am obsessed by natural, non-institutional methods of learning. One of the reasons being that my own formal education was miserable from somewhere in mid-primary all the way to Uni. A part of my high school I enjoyed because it was a slightly more liberal place than what I had encountered prior.
Right now I am reading excerpts from a book by John Holt, an education reformer from the sixties and seventies who decided that reforming schools wasn't the answer to creating better learning environments. Abolishing formal schools ALTOGETHER is the only remedy since they weren't in the first place created to be places where children could achieve their full potential in whatever they desired. Schools were invented to teach people their place, to grade and pigeon-hole them so as to make them easier to control. Encouraging the spread of school is the worst thing that we could do. Read the chilling quote below from "Instead of Education:Ways to Help People Do Things Better" by John Holt:
"A global schoolhouse would be a world, which we seem to be moving toward, in which one group of people would have the right through our entire lives to subject the rest of us to various sorts of tests, and if we did not measure up, to require us to submit to various kinds of treatment, i.e. education, therapy, etc., until we did. A worse nightmare is hard to imagine."
Shiver me timbers.
My children (if I ever have any) shall be homeschooled, no contest.
My children (if I ever have any) shall be homeschooled, no contest.
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