Posts by Miriam Mason
What is the best gift you would recommend for your students this holiday season?
All across the western world, children are excited about the coming of Santa, about the different promises of gifts and goodies due at Christmas. The deeper message of Christmas, being one of self-giving, comes with a significant contradiction and clash with the materialistic preoccupations of most at this time. New Year too offers the opportunity…
Read MoreHow do you as teachers support children who are confused or frightened by events going on in their world?
When it’s ‘all going crazy’ out there, what are we to do, as educators? We have to provide an alternative rhetoric, other ways of seeing and doing things. To quote the American First Lady, ‘When they go low, we go high!’ When the rhetoric around us is full of hatred and vitriol, scorn and derision,…
Read MoreHow do we better engender a healthy, happy, and productive school environment where both teachers and students can flourish?
The EducAid vision: A dignified and democratic Sierra Leone where poverty is eliminated by educated citizens! It is difficult to create a productive school environment without a clear vision so, for us in EducAid, this is our starting point; we are ready to be as radical as we need to be in order to achieve…
Read MoreHow can we maximise the value of art and music in education and how can it be blended with more traditional subjects?
“The greatest scientists are artists as well.” – Albert Einstein One of the most difficult battles in education in Sierra Leone is to get parents and students to understand the vital importance of art and the creative subjects within the curriculum. In the Sierra Leonean context I would say that it is hard to…
Read MoreHow do you help students accept and work well with people of different beliefs, cultures, languages, socio-economic statuses, education backgrounds, and learning styles?
Sierra Leone is composed of 17 major tribal groups, all speaking different languages. Muslims make up the majority of the population, but Christians account for approximately 30% of the population. There are not so many foreigners from other African countries: a few Liberians and the occasional Guinean who have ended up in Sierra Leone, but…
Read MoreWhat are the important skills, behaviours, and attitudes that students need to become contributing global citizens?
If by contributing global citizen we mean someone who sees themselves as having a part to play in deciding how the world works, we must surely be talking about moving on from the very individualistic approaches that our largely capitalist and materialistic world currently encourages. If the state of humanity is more important to us…
Read MoreHow do we inspire the best and brightest to become educators?
The short answer: By engaging them in a new paradigm! In a world that defines success in $$$ signs, cars, houses and material possessions, none of the best or brightest will want to pursue teaching as it is never going to be among the highly remunerated jobs. If we can enable our youngsters to realise…
Read MoreHow do we do a better job of cultivating young readers?
In an increasingly screen-filled western world, we have seen the obvious love of books dying off for some decades among the younger generations. My own father claimed to have seen a massive rise in average reading ages among the children he was teaching since the arrival of the television in the average British living room. …
Read MoreGlobal Teacher Blog: what are the best example you have seen of teachers using social media to enhance learning?
Sadly, on the face of it, the answer has to be ‘none in Sierra Leone’! But this is not due to a lack of will on the part of the educators! Surely there is no clearer place where the big divide is seen than…
Read MoreGlobal Teacher Blog: Closing the gender gap with the Women’s Project
In every way, girls and women are on the back foot in Sierra Leone. Education is no exception. Girls are told that they are ‘only girls’ and that their ‘heads haven’t come for books’ etc. from day one and it is only the lucky few that get taught to rethink or who dare to challenge…
Read MoreSweet Salone……..Lurching from one crisis to another
Wilkinson Road flooded with cars swimming through the flood waters. Credit: M & R Ropiecki Extraordinary scenes in Freetown for the last few days. Sierra Leone is back in the news again! For a good reason this time? Sadly not! We had gone off the international media radar for many years, when the film Blood…
Read MoreRearrangement of the school year after Ebola
Let’s keep focused! Multiple, multiple changes to the academic year have had extraordinary knock on consequences for Sierra Leone’s children. To start with, during the whole Ebola crisis, students missed 8 months of schooling. This, in a country where academic standards tend to be horrendously low and education is itself already in crisis and has…
Read MoreLucy Howling – Mellor Rose Queen 2015-16
Hello, I’m Lucy! This year I am Mellor Rose-Queen. The tradition of crowning a young girl as Rose Queen developed in the farming communities of Northern England as part of the celebration of and thanksgiving for the growth of the food crops. Today, in Mellor, this tradition continues but the role of the Rose Queen and her team…
Read MoreThe Thoughtful Sierra Leonean
EducAid is working on the production of educational radio programmes for distribution across the country while the ebola State of Emergency keeps schools shut and children away from their studies. If we have learned nothing else during this latest crisis, we have learned that the lack of basic education has left the population so terribly…
Read MorePhoto Exhibition –
Please do come along and bring everyone you can. It will be a great event. Beautiful photographs and inspiring speakers, followed by drinks and a grand auction. Thursday, 23rd October 2014 6:30pm for 7pm St Michael’s Church, Chester Square London SW1 9HH £20 recommended donation on entry or online: https://mydonate.bt.com/events/educaid/186452 We look forward to seeing you.…
Read MoreEducation on the move with EducAid!
So….since the declaration of the State of Emergency, there is a complete ban of all gatherings of more than five people except for going to church, or the mosque or ebola sensitisation meetings. One of the most significant consequences of this, is that schools and colleges cannot open. Even summer school classes were cancelled throughout…
Read MoreDispelling Ebola Myths
Jungle trek across 4 flooded rivers, up hill and down dale to reach some of our more rural communities. And what an emotional roller-coaster this one is. I can go from desperate sadness to frustrated anger to laughter to pride to fear in a matter of minutes. Hearing the confusion and panic as people ask…
Read MoreGreat news from Augustine Bundor (EducAid’s first Dr to be)
Augustine in his lab coat in class. Augustine has just got in touch to say that he has received his end of 4th year results from the College of Medical and Allied Health Sciences (COMAHS). He is promoted to his 5th year studies with a credit in medicine! Augustine came to EducAid, having left school…
Read MoreEducAid Position Statement on Recent Cases of Ebola Hemorrhagic Fever in Guinea and Sierra Leone
Ebola hemorrhagic fever (Ebola HF) is a Viral Haemorrhagic Fever. It is a severe, often fatal disease in humans and nonhuman primates (such as monkeys, gorillas, and chimpanzees). President Ernest Bai Koroma has declared a state of emergency in response to the current outbreak of Ebola HF in West Africa. It is essential that all…
Read MoreIssa Fowai – Civil Engineer
This is surely why we do what we do. When we have hard times, it is great to remember some of the highlights and Issa’s successes and attitude have to be among the best of those: Dear Miriam,I have finally got my Degree today. I’m a Civil Engineer now. A feeling I can’t express in…
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