Article Link: http://exchangepress.com/article/from-kings/5024157/
With updated education methods, Rwandan children have abundant opportunities to represent their country’s traditions—and begin to build a more promising future!
Just 24 years ago Rwanda was embroiled in a genocide. Today a few young children—some from the most vulnerable families in the country—are joyously thriving in high-quality preschools and early primary classes. These children are creatively using unit blocks, made in Rwanda, to cooperatively build block structures of cow houses and outdoor kitchens, as well as modern airports, the Kigali Convention Center, hotels, hospitals, Kigali City Tower, and much more.
How could Rwandans shift so quickly from civil war to peacefully working together to rebuild the country? The government’s policies, including those for health, nutrition, business, and education, are progressive. Rwanda has adopted a new, competency-based curriculum for preschool through secondary. Countless international aid organizations are promoting peacemaking, entrepreneurship, community development, and education in-country.
One of those international non-governmental organizations, TEACH Rwanda, is changing the face of early childhood education and teacher education in Rwanda.
Humble Beginnings
After a long teacher education career in the United States, Janet Brown retired. Within months, she was asked, as a volunteer, to start a preschool at a home for orphaned ...