Community School in Africa: Is There a Lesson for Papua, New Guinea? E
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DOCUMENT RESUME ED 111 082 EA 007 452 AUTHOR Weeks, Sheldon G. TITLE Community School in Africa: Is There a Lesson for Papua, New Guinea? E. R. U. Report 15. INSTITUTION Papua and New Guinea Univ., Port Moresby. Educational Research Unit. REPORT NO ERU-15 PUB DATE Feb 75 NOTE 33p. EDRS PRICE MF-$0.76 HC-$1.95 Plus Postage DESCRIPTORS *Community Development; *Community Schools; *Developing Nations; Elementary Secondary Education; Leadership Qualities; *Social Change; Teacher Education; Teacher Role' IDENTIFIERS Africa; New Guinea ABSTRACT Learning in community schools is not solely book learning but is practical and related to the environment.Some related assumptions are that the schoolcan be an instrument of social change and the community is the teaching laboratory.Case studies of some community schools in the United States, the Philippines, and Africa indicate that they succeed when the community is ready for change, the school isa terminal institution, and staff members are trained as both teachers and community developers. (MLF) *********************************************************************** * Documents acquired by ERIC include many informal unpublished * * materials not available from other sources. ERIC makesevery effort * * to obtain the best copy available. nevertheless, items of marginal * * reproducibility are often encountered and this affects the quality * * of the microfiche and hardcopy reproductions ERIC makes available * * via the ERIC Document Reproduction Service (EDRS). EDRS is not * * responsible for the uaality of the original document. Reproductions* * supplied by EDES ar, the best that can be made from the original. ********************************************************************* U.S DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, EDUCATION &WELFARE NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF EDUCATION THIS DOCUMENT HAS SEEN REPRO DUCED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED FROM THE PERSON OR ORGANIZATION ORIGIN ATING IT POINTS OF VIEW OR OPINIONS STATED DO NOT NECESSAPILY REPRE SENT OFFICIAL NATIONAL INSTITUTE 00 EDUCATION POSITION OR POLICY CORILNITY SCHOOLINAFRICA IsTHERE A LESSON FOR PAPUA NEW GUINEA ? E,RS REPORT 15 ( FEBRUARY, 1975 ) SHELDON G. WEEKS EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH UNIT LWIVERSITY OF PAPUA NEW GUINEA 2 "Without investigation there is no right to speak." Mao tse tung Introduction: The projected plan for educational development in Papua New Guinea calls for the creation of Community Schools. In the history of community schools in other countries one discerns a fluctuating pendulum, a twenty year cycle of interest. Attention has turned to community schools at the turn of the century, again in the 1930's, followed by a resurgence of interest in the 1950's and now again in the 1970's. Is there anything to be learned from the experiments with community schools in Africa that would be relevant to Papua New Guinea?The purpose of this paper is to examine what has happened in community education in Africa and see what lessons this has for Papua New Guinea. To do this we will need to consider what is a community school, and briefly examine what community school experiments were like in the United States in the 1930's and the Philippines in the 1950's. In many places Community Schools have not been successful. Why is this so?The social action or change advocacy role of schools can not be evaluated in isolation, one must consider the place of schools in the wider society. If the Community School has failed what has happened to its greater counter part, self- help and community development? 3 2- At a time when the Community Schoolis again an attractive educational alternative tomany people it is necessary to evaluate the significance of researchfindings for this approach to educational planning anddevelopment. Not all Community Schools are a failure at all times and in all places. What can be learned from the successes?Are there alternative ways that Community Schcols can beinstitutionalized and developed that overcome some of the factors thatappear to account for failure? These questions hopefully will beanswered in the concluding section. 1. What is a Community School? "In my scheme of education therecan be no subject or study whichcan not be correlated to craft or environment. A teacher who cannot correlate tis lesson to craftor environment is useless to the School." Mahatma Gandri The Community Schoolas an organized system of education and an approach to community development hasits origins in the United States. During the depressionyears of the 1930's, mainly in rural and depressed parts of theSouthern United States, educational experiments developedthat have since been termed "Community Schools." The literature concerning the community schools is fairly extensive, (See Bibliography) The majority of it dates during the late 1930's, lhough urban counter parts to the rural community school did developin the US most communities found other ways tocope with their problems of community improve- ment and did not evolve community schools.This Is probably related to the advent of World War II and thegreat transformation of ea American Society that followed 1939. This does not mean the com- munities no longer have problemsor that schools are no longer community centered. The transition to a time of full employment 4 - 3 - and increased income, coupled with increasing urbanization and suburbanization, plus a spread of social services, has assisted in the decline of community schools, a demise of what was never a large movement. The Community Selool in America has a number of typical characteristics:1 First: The students and teachers use the resources of the community as the core of the curriculum, relating the major content of the curriculum to what is happening and can be studied in the community. Second: The school, is used, not only by the children, but by the adults of the community, serving as a community center, a place for adult education and recreation, a focal point for the community, Third: The teachers are full participating members of the community, with the children, and carry out projects of community development. These projects are part of the academic activities of the school, but they also bring together the children and the adults of the community to act on mutually agreed on community problems and improvement projects. The first and second aspects of the community school are often found to varying degrees in any good school. It is when all three are combined that we have a Communi -ty School. Though community schools have worked in urban areas most of them have been in rural communities: 5 4 The community school idea has worked bestin rural communities where theschool building makesa natural and needed community center, andwhere there is little competition from otherorganizations for the free time of children and adults. In such a community it iseasy for people to see the advantages of cooperation through the school. The local problems are apt to be concreteones, such as getting a local librarystarted or getting the services of a public health nurses;many of the problems are ones on which childrencan help directly.2 The little research thatwas done on community schools in the 30's demonstrated that children couldlearn from the shop, the land, and the community, without lossin formal subjects," as they compared favourably with control schoolsin reading, writing, math,history, geography, science and hygiene wherea conventional curriculaewas followed.3 A report on a community school inrural Georgia indicates the variety and level of activities that studentsand adults were involved in and tasksaccomplished.' A school was at thecenter of each undertaking. The first stepswere taken in each case by the children with their teachers and studentteachers. All of this was considered as part of thetraining of teachers for ruralschools. From these first steps grew school lunchprogrammes, cooperative harvesting machinery, cooperativecanneries, a cooperative mill, additional school rooms for adulteducation and craftsrooms for women. A market for milkwas developed in a town to help encourage dairy farming (thefirst such effort in the state). Curing houses forsweet potatoeswere built where as previously over 50% of the cropwas lost.A credit union was started by mill hands- astep which helped to free them fromursury and build cooperation and confindence- steps (ithat madepossible the formation of a union a fewyears later. But the reader may be wondering, if the Community School was so successful, even if temporarily during thedepression in the US, that was still in a "developed country" so what relevance does this have to lesser developed countries?We have examples from other countries, such as "basic education" under Gandhi in India, and in the Philippines in the early 1950's the Community School Movement became a national program, first at the primary level, then at the secondary, The Philippine Community School Movement had its beginning in a few communities and was assisted in their direction by Pedro Orata, a Filipino educator who had in the 30's worked at a community school on an Indian Reservation in the Unitcel States.6 In the early 1950's the Philippines was an under developed country, highly rural with a poor agrarian economy. In many parts of the islands the school was the pallgovernment agency in the area. The teachers in these isolated schools were viewed with respect by the people in the community who often turned to them for help and advice. The school buildings served as a reference point for the community both physically and psychologically. A degree of cooperation and reciprocity existed between the teacher and the community. The teacher, as the most educated person in the corAunity, would be consull:ed on many levels. In turn the parents would help build the school and keep it in repair. But a void existed between the interaction of the teacher and commurity and the actual content of the syllabus. The school remained a small, isolated, 'ivory tower' with a strong academic discipline based on rote learning, a bookish approch, content based on a "foreign" curriculum. 7 -6 Pedro Orata's first step out of thisempass was to introduce into the classroom community problemsfor the children to study.