Author: Joyous

Goducate believes that learning should not be confined to the classroom. Here in the literacy centers in Sabah, despite our limited resources, skills, and manpower, we try our best to organize extra-curricular activities and competitions, to encourage the children to be active learners, to give the teachers the chance to enhance their creativity, and to build harmonious relationships with the local community.

For our 2nd English Week Celebration each center was free to arrange itss own program of group and individual presentations, interpretative reading contests for intermediate level students, spelling contests for levels 2 and 3, and a poem contest for level 1. Some centers also included cultural and modern dances as their special intermission numbers. At every center, the whole community, especially the students’ parents and relatives, got involved.

The plan to draw all the winners from each literacy center to compete for the finals at the main center probably contributed to the enthusiasm and excitement. But first we gathered all the teachers together to let them understand that the event should teach students and parents healthy competition and good sportsmanship.

What really amazed me most was to see the transformation in a little pupil, who during class would be sitting on the floor very quietly. During the competition, wearing shoes for the first time, he stood confidently and performed his best in front of many people. When he received much applause while holding a trophy and wearing a medal, I’m sure that this kid realized that there is a world outside his own village that he could enter and succeed in. This realization should help him to dream more and even to dream big.

The world that lies ahead for this generation of children is likely to be more competitive than the one we are in today. The children being served by the Goducate literacy centers in Sabah are at a particular disadvantage because they do not have access to state education. We hope that the little that we can offer them will be able to give them a chance to compete in the outside world.

One of the most difficult things about doing work in far-flung and poor communities is getting enough workers to go out and stay the course. When Goducate was faced with a community of hundreds of thousands of people in Sabah with no access to state education, the thought of finding enough teachers to educate the children there was mind boggling. But we realised that the mothers who had had some education could be trained to teach the children literacy and numeracy. In the past 3 years we have opened 24 literacy centers staffed by nearly 60 teachers and assistant teachers. The teachers meet every every month and undergo periodic re-training and upgrading. Well over 1000 students have passed through those centers. Some have been able to find work outside, while some have stayed on as assistant teachers.

A literacy center that has been operating for the past 6 years in another part of Sabah, about 5 hours’ drive away from where we are operating, heard about how we trained mums to be teachers and invited us to share our system and our curriculum, to help them expand their work.

About 2 months ago, when I brought our team of our supervisor, two teachers, and our transport manager to help them, there were 10 trainees waiting for us. Some of them had been teachers in the Philippines. The rest, who were teenagers and mothers who had had some education, were very nervous because they thought that trainees had to be highly educated people. But when they learnt that two of our teachers were mums-turned-teachers, and one was a teenager who was a student-turned-teacher, they relaxed and were able to take part fully in the training, and to ask questions freely during the discussion time.

From the updates that we have received from that center, our system and our curriculum are being implemented by them smoothly.

After four months of teaching this year, the teachers in the Goducate literacy centers in Sabah gathered for a day specially organized for them. Teachers’ Day was held at a function room at the town’s Sports Complex. 60 teachers, including the assistant teachers and the livelihood trainers, attended. In the morning we had our meeting, our team-building exercise, the evaluation of the Comprehensive Exam Results, and the distribution of mid-year bonuses (based on students’ exam performance), and our monthly birthday celebration. In the afternoon, we relaxed in the swimming pool, and some of the assistant (teen) teachers played their newly mastered game, the frisbee.

The teachers had mixed feelings about their pupils’ exam results (352 out of 544 passed) but almost all of them were very satisfied with the evaluation, which was properly administered by the team of examiners. The evaluation indicates how the pupils mastered and applied the lessons they had learnt, and it helps us assess the effectiveness of our curriculum and how it ought to be modified for the rest of the school year.  Overall, the teachers were very proud of themselves, and they committed again to do their best next time.

That event was unusual in that it was also a family day since the teachers brought their own children along, in that it was an exposure trip for some who had not been to the sports complex or into a swimming pool, coming as they do from primitive villages. While we were having our session in the morning, the children were taught balloon art.

All the teachers enjoyed the short time they had casting off their roles as teachers to playing around like pupils. This beneficial and recharging activity for our teachers should give them the energy to drive extra miles in the world of teaching and learning.