Turning excrement into education

Beware goatI wrote a recent post about touch screen learning applications, so it’s a little humbling to watch this video.  The BBC has reported on classrooms in Kenya that have to move around frequently and use what little they have as learning resources, even goat droppings.

The Kenyan government has launched a mobile school program that allows children in nomadic herding tribes to be educated, despite not having a permanent place to live.  The children tend to the goats every day, but have a few hours where they learn in the classroom.  The classroom consists of not much more than a blackboard, some books, and the ingenious use of goat droppings to write out numbers and letters on the ground.  When the tribe moves on, the classroom moves with them.

It reminded me of when I was doing teacher training, and we were told not to worry too much about materials, because all we really needed to teach a class was a stick and some dirt to write in.  Just goes to show that we can use whatever resources are around us to help us learn more.

For the video and more information, click here.  The excitement of the children is pretty inspiring, to be honest. Go watch it!