Words Fail

Richard had the incredible privilege to visit a local Christian school today.  A good chunk of his job is training headmasters and lead teachers from other schools how to teach a Bible study we use and incorporate it into their curriculum as well as how to teach every subject (even math!) from a Biblical worldview.  In plain English, that means showing the students how every subject is true and useful and exciting because God made it that way.  Richard has been itching to visit the friends and contacts he has made through the training sessions and observe how their schools are doing with the implementation of the training and the free curriculum our group provides.

He came back with very encouraging news.  The school is doing well; the teachers like the curriculum and are teaching it correctly.  The students are learning and loving learning.  He took my camera with him, so here are some snapshots of his visit.

This is a typical classroom.

In this classroom was a boy totally enthralled with Richard's white skin who kept waving like he was trying to flag down a train and yelling, "Mazungu! Mazungu!" (essentially "White Person! White Person!") to get Richard's attention while the teacher was going over the letters of the alphabet.

In a class of 38 four year olds, one kid off topic is not something I'm willing to quibble over.

I love this picture.  The students rapt attention, the well-used chalkboard, the fantastic lighting of the fantastic teacher.  The lighting is thanks to a well-placed skylight.  Most building here have skylights, I think, because the electricity is so unreliable.  With good windows and skylights, who needs electricity?  No laptops, Promethean boards, keyboard labs, sound systems.  Just a chalkboard, desks, pencils and paper. 

Speaking of desks:

Words fail me. 

The longer I'm here, the more I realize that as wonderful as resources are, they don't make a classroom or a teacher or an active learner.  It makes me so thankful for the wonderful teachers I have had and have worked with.  And it makes me most thankful that the resource we are helping to provide is the one true, essential, life-giving thing - the Word of God.