Hey there my name is Arlie. I am a 2-year-old female domestic short haired/mix. I'm a beautiful girl who is looking for a loving home. So come and visit me at the SPCA to see if I'm the right cat for you!
In last week's installment of our exclusive interview with William Kabbis, he spoke of conditions at the Mbaka Oromo in Kenya, where he is the Principal. In this second part we talked about his impressions of Lansing classrooms and how they contrast to those in his school. We spoke of his expectations before coming here and how they contrast to what he found when he got here. And we talked about his students' prospects after they graduate from Mbaka Oromo.
Lansing Star: I'd like to talk about your
trip here a little bit. Have you traveled
outside of Kenya before?
William Kabbis: The furthest I had gone was
Uganda. That was by bus.
LS: So there are a lot of
'firsts' on this trip. What are some of
the main things that have impressed you as you have visited here? Did you expect Lansing to be what it
actually is?
WK: No, I didn't expect Lansing
to be what it is. I imagined it was
developed up to the standards of other developed places I've seen in Kenya like
Nairobi, our capital city. I have been
to some of the institutions in Nairobi to observe what they look like and what
they do. I have also observed some
institutions in Kisumu City that are privately owned, and some privately
owned. But they are for a certain class
of people. The charges there cannot be
afforded by an ordinary citizen.
I thought that the kind of
sophistication would be of that class, but I was amazed when I came to
Lansing. First of all, peoples' homes
shocked me -- they way they are designed.
And the way they are not even fenced.
In Kenya people believe in fencing, because fencing boosts the security
of a homestead.
Here there is a lot of
honesty. People are not worried about
their property. Nobody feels he should
forcefully get what is not his. That's
a cultural difference.
LS: Well, some people do.
WK: Yes, but from what I have
seen -- it was a shock. The first day I
came Cindy and Harold (van Es) took me
to where they sell apples. What shocked
me when we went was that it was just a room with those apples piled there with
the price tags. They just went to that
house. There was nobody there. They picked a bag of apples and dropped some
money in a box there.
Such a thing can not happen
in Kenya.
People would not feel free
to leave their businesses so that people would come and do that. A few Kenyans would come and pick and pay
money. But many of them would wish to
pick those things and go without paying.
It was a big contrast to me.
Something that I must appreciate, the honesty that I see around here.
Another thing -- when I
went to the classrooms, they were of a standards even our universities cannot
match. The setup and the facilities
that I saw in (Lansing) classrooms.
There are computers. There are
reading materials. There is furniture
and everybody is taken care of. The
teacher is taken care of. The children
are taken care of. I happened to be in
some of the administrators' offices and they are taken care of.
I was amazed. The environment is so conducive (to
learning). The classrooms are well
defined. They are very clean. They are well maintained.
LS: I know that things like
that are out of your control. But have
there been things you have seen here that you could take to your school and
say, 'Let's try it this way?'
WK: I have seen a very high
standard of discipline among the pupils.
I saw cooperation among the children, where one child would ask the
other for a pencil.
I went to some classrooms
where they did art work. They are
really talking so that the other child could also get access to what the first
child is doing. The cooperation, the
spirit of sharing, I would also borrow it from here.
And they love. The teachers love the children very
much. They teach them as if they were
adults. The children are ready to talk
to them freely, and they are also ready to talk to the children freely.
This is something that is
very different, because in Kenya the system is that the teacher will do the
talking. The child is to do the
listening and implement what the talking has been about without raising
questions.
LS: Without asking questions!
WK: Yes. But here I have seen children ask their
teachers complicated questions.
LS: What you are describing as
the system in Kenya I think was the system here when my parents were in
school. I have heard them talking about
learning by rote, and memorizing.
WK: Exactly.
LS: A few years ago I went to
Mrs. Arsenault's science class. Her
class had learned about local birds and a class in your school had done the
same project. And they traded. I loved that. I think oiur kids had an opportunity to learn twice as much and I
think kids are more impressed when they learn from another kid than when they
learn it from an adult. So when your
kids sent their bird book with their drawings and what they learned about their
own birds I think that really made an impression on our kids.
William Kabbis
WK: In fact this time they will
send work with all the animals. We are
going to work on that with all the animals and their names.
LS: How did your kids respond
to that?
WK: It was also good. What they got from here, the correspondence
that they get from America is quite interesting. They get to know that things are not the same in the world. Things are different. The birds from America that these children
sent to Kenya are unique birds. They
are not found there. They also like to
know that the birds they know in Kenya are not the only birds in the
world. They have others elsewhere.
So they feel very proud
because they can boast of knowing certain birds that even their parents, as old
as they are, don't know. It's a really
good thing. As much as it benefits
children in the Lansing schools, it benefits us more. It's a program that benefits us in developing our minds. It's also a program that is based on
developing our physical facilities, our teaching and learning materials. So we embrace it greatly.
LS: I've been told that before
you got the new classrooms you sometimes had to spend time rebuilding the old
classrooms. I imaging having the new
classrooms that don't melt in the rain must be a great gift of time that can be
spent on studies.
Do I have that right? It's hard for me to imagine, living here,
what it must be like to have to stop and have children rebuilding their
classroom.
WK: Those classrooms will serve
us for many years. That's what Lansing
has given us. They solve most of our
problems.
LS: But the picture I get is
that you have a beautiful school that is empty. The idea of a library with no books...
WK: If we get the strength to
embark on those facilities I think it will be a great thing. In the classrooms we still lack cupboards
for the children to store their things.
They carry everything home. Some
of them don't have bags for carrying their books. They carry them in paper bags.
Some even tie them in their shirts, so it's quite cumbersome.
They say that all long
journeys begin with one step. I know as
time goes by we shall be able to have cupboards in those classrooms. We shall be able to have enough desks to sit
at. We shall be able to have enough
books. We shall be able to have shelves
in those classrooms.
Everything has its own
time. What we have started doing, and
what has been done is major. And it's
the most demanding and crucial part. So
it my hope we shall have these other things.
In time if we get them most of our problems will have been solved.
LS: When students do as well as
they are doing in your school, what does their future look like?
WK: Normally it is
brightened. After a child has excelled
in exams it is very easy to look for sponsorship for that child.
LS: To go to what we would call
high school?
WK: Yes.
LS: How many of your children
have gotten sponsors?
WK: Right now about 30 students
who have gone through that school have gotten sponsorships.
LS: That's a lot.
WK: Yes, spread down the line
40 have gotten sponsorships. They have
gotten sponsorships based on high achievement on national examinations. The van Es family is paying school fees for
one of the students from my school (who is now) in high school. That child is in form 3, the equivalent of grade
11 in America.
They are paying full fees,
and if it were not for their effort and sympathy for that child, that child
would be at home.
LS: Did they meet that child
when they visited you?
WK: Yes. They had a
chance to take photographs with that child.
That is something they could not fail to do. The child was very excited to meet them for the first time. Here is a case where people whom you have
not even met are taking care of your education. They are paying your school fees in a high school.
Hey there my name is Arlie. I am a 2-year-old female domestic short haired/mix. I'm a beautiful girl who is looking for a loving home. So come and visit me at the SPCA to see if I'm the right cat for you!
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