Hey all,

Its been a little while. Work is still work. Its still hot. Recently, I started working with the Peer Health kids at the high school project, so I thought I’d talk a little about how that was going.
A couple of weeks ago, I introduced the idea of making health-related public service announcements. I wanted the group to break up into smaller groups, which would then choose a health topic, research it, write a service announcement, record it in the three major languages, and distribute these recordings around the country. (actually my PCV friend Tavi came up with this great idea, but unfortunately she has been too busy to work on it). The kids seemed excited about an outreach project, so we got started.
I began by bringing in examples of 30 second health announcements(which in itself was a difficult thing to find on the internet, things that are relevant to Gambians. We don‘t talk about depression here, or childhood obesity, so finding radio messages about other topics was a challenge), and we discussed the messages in each, and the idea of a target audience. They chose their topics, and I brought in all the info I could find for them to research from. (internet downloads, health textbooks from the 80’s, my PC health manual) Then we started researching. And it was on this third session working on this project that they finally “got” what it was we were doing.
30 SECONDS!?! That’s not possible!!! How can we say all this in 30 seconds?! Why can’t we do a one-hour radio show? (how honestly to reply? Because you guys don’t know enough about any particular topic to do a one hour show on it, that’s why. Too honest, whitney). What, you guys just got this? We listened to examples, I’ve repeated the premise of what we are doing over and over. Yes, 30 SECONDS. I tried to re-explain in terms of cooking--when you cook sauce you put many things into the pot, and lots of water, then you boil it all down for many hours until you have a sauce. It might be smaller than what you started with, but the flavor is stronger. I want you to boil this information down to its most important points and use that for your radio announcement. Or, advertising. I talked about radio commercials for a mobile phone company, Africell. They have short messages telling you why you should buy their product. We are advertising good health choices, and we need to catch people’s attention with short bits of important info.
They’re still fighting me. I know I’m asking them to do something outside of their experience. When Gambians get together to discuss topics, many people make speeches. One person will get up and be like “such and such is so important because blahblahblah…” for 20 minutes, often more. And then someone else will stand up and say “just to re-emphasize what my colleague has just said blahblahblah….” and he will repeat EXACTLY what was already said. It takes hours and everyone wants to hear his own voice, even if its just repeating what has already been said many times (I try not to get bitter when I attend these things. This cultural habit serves a function. Since so few people read, things are learned by repetition. Everyone repeats the message, so maybe it can be remembered. Its just that I watch people zoning out or playing with their phones, they are just as bored as I am and not listening). Also, kids at school are given information in books and lectures, and then just asked to memorize and regurgitate it at test time, whether or not they understand the words or not. So, to ask them to read info (which I do think this group is able to do), and decide for themselves what is most important , is a really really tall order in critical thinking for these kids.

And so, small small. Learning experiences all around.

As a post script to this article, but in no way as an afterthought, I wish to thank every teacher, parent, or mentor who ever encouraged me to think out of the box, come up with something new, and ask questions beginning with “How?” “Why?” or “What if?” rather than beating me for the impertinence of my question. I was allowed and encouraged to imagine the world that I wanted to create, knowing that imagining was the first step in making it possible. I am so much the better for it.
The US is not superior because we have flush toilets and fabric softener. It is certainly not true that no one works hard and we just sit all day counting our money. But as innovation in thought has been a core value of our philosophy from the beginning of our country’s history, this has contributed a great much to our success. Knowing that anyone’s next great idea could be just around the corner gives me hope for the world. Critical thinking skills are extremely important. These kids are not stupid, but they are a product of a really really outdated teaching method and their country’s development is suffering because of it.