Week 6: May 30 – June 5

Dear Friends and Family,

We will have quite the "day of rest" today, as have been invited to share in the Tanzanian branch of our family tree, Marieth & Festo Mlay's family, plus quite a group of extended family and friends, celebration of Deo Gratias Mlay's First Communion. Deo's Father (Festo's brother) died several years ago, so Deo & Jackie were adopted by Festo and Marieth.

Adding to the "rest" (pun intended) of the day, Bishop Laiser discovered that we are in TZ and has invited us for tomorrow's evening meal. In 2001, we told the Bishop "Sorry, we can't because we already have a commitment" and found that our commitment had been rescheduled by the time we landed. So this time, we just said "Thanks, we'd love to join you."

Since we will soon be in the midst of seminars, thought would summarize again why we came to TZ this year. In earlier emails/journals, you have received pictures and stories from off campus, but much has been happening on Mwangaza's grounds also.

Most of our first month on campus was invested in mentoring and being mentored by Mwangaza's Program Coordinators, John Kavishe and Salome Lally. We brought to them the research and best teaching practices of Sheltered Instruction Observational Protocol (SIOP). By sharing their professional experiences and providing opportunities for visiting secondary schools, they have brought us much closer to understanding the numerous challenges in Tanzania's educational environment, including poverty in families and shortages of teachers. Our focus this year: addressing the language gap for Form 1 students who enter high school, with limited English as their 2nd or 3rd language, and immediately take all classes and tests in English.

One of the most remarkable factors of this year has been the meeting of paths that were unknowingly parallel for several months on different continents. Dr. Shoonie, John and Salome had developed a 2.5 year Intervention plan for 5 Lutheran Secondary Schools in the Arusha region whose students had not scored well on 2009's National Exams. As Sharon and I began specific planning of timelines, goals, and objectives for our educational safari, our communications with Mwangaza leadership brought to light the similarities of our preparations and the Intervention already in action. With Global Missions approval of Mwangaza's Intervention Grant Proposal and the generosity of many of our family members and friends, 2 weeks of seminars, with texts and materials supplied for 60 teachers from 13 schools, will take place in June-July. By the time we landed at Kilimanjaro, our separate paths had become 2 side-by-side lanes of the same highway.

Entering June, our team is now very busy planning the 2 one-week seminars for secondary teachers, developing very interactive sessions in which we will model and demonstrate how learning can be enhanced through a methodology known as SIOP, teaching language through the teaching of the subject area content. Teachers can scaffold content, and the processes of learning it, just as fundis (Tanzanian craftsmen) scaffold a wall, and the process of building.

Once the student, or wall, is capable of standing on his/its own, the scaffolding may be removed. Unlike buildings, students have the advantage of being able to scaffold themselves, that is, learning how to learn. We will be demonstrating, to the seminar participants, methods to guide their students to turning the teachers' scaffolding into the students' personal learning strategies which can be generalized to different content areas and learning situations. A USA geography teacher, in a lesson about fresh water lakes, might require students to name the 5 Great Lakes. Many teachers have taught the mnemonic "HOMES" specifically to address this one question. If the teachers went one step beyond, and taught how to use mnemonics, then "METAL" might be applied to name the African countries on the Mediterranean Sea. After claiming this scaffold as a strategy, the students might develop a reminder of the "order of operations" in math, or likewise for the steps to classification of plants in biology, refugees from countries bordering Tanzania in history, etc....

Good professional development is never finished after one week, so we are working on the job description and budgetary requirement to provide a full-time "coach/coordinator" for the teams of seminar graduates once they return to their respective schools. We would love the opportunity to mentor a coach before our July 25th date for returning home. With regular visits, on-going encouragement and training from the Coach, plus the support and expertise of John and Salome, this years' seminar alumni could be well equipped to bring about significant changes in the learning, testing results, and lives of their students.

And IF such successful changes do occur at the Pilot Schools, then the end of the next 2.5 years, December 2012, could be the beginning of other schools asking "What about us?" Don't you just love it when folks ask questions?

Peace & Love,

Mike & Sharon

PS. Not trying to write a fund raising letter, so only read below if you are curious about the proposed costs:

Including salary, travel/visits to the schools, and materials, costs to employ a well qualified person to do a good job of "coaching" are about $24/day, $720/month, $21,600 for 2.5 years (to be in coordination with the timeline of the other Intervention Plan).