Oral Lit Thriving

Mbugua wa Mungai (Daily Nation, 20^th April 2013) is spot-on: Oral Literature is very much alive and thriving. And true, some teachers make Oral Literature seem a dead subject, just as some make it quite interesting to study and perform - when they approach it as oral artists. The Teacher-Oral-Artist tells stories, poses riddles, puns, employs tongue twisters, gladly (but with requisite sensitivity) participates in student mchongoano, sings and recites when teaching oral literature, language skills, life skills and when giving guidance and counseling - literally in all their interactions with their students. It works; I have been doing it all my teaching life.

It is not only in the teaching of Literature, the entire system has gone to the dogs - literally

Reading Prof. Igara Kabaji’s grouse against Literature teachers (Saturday Nation 9^th Feb 2013) had me stifling a yawn despite my agreeing with him in toto. Were it not for my firm belief in Amazing Grace, I would wear sackcloth for the rest of my earthly abode in shame for having to answer to that now ignoble title of teacher. I struggled to understand his righteous indignation at his discovery - he writes and sells the literature guide books he so vehemently condemns! When you prop a wrong system, especially so, a system you have pecuniary interest in, what do you expect? More interestingly, he sits on the Board of Governors of a school that has perfected the very robotic teaching that he supposes to condemn and I did not hear him say anything closely resembling what he wrote in the time I taught there; in fact, the board he sits on cheers that school administration for doing everything they can to get “good” results!

Well, let the good professor be thus informed: the rot that gives the teaching of Literature the nose-plugging perfume he decries is symptomatic of a cancer that went into metastasis long before the medical attendants had any clue what was going on. If anybody thinks that the education system as currently constituted will help us address anything that is of value to this country and the direction it is going to take they are dreaming and had better wake up and smell the coffee. Except for kindergarten kids who long for the day they will join in on the “fun” of going to school, everybody else in our country seems to go to school for what they can get on the job market. It is worth remembering it is in very few cases that the kindergarten kid’s enthusiasm lasts till the end of the day. A typical response the form ones in all the schools I have taught at will always give when I ask why they are in school: for my future. The result of “someni vijana, … mtapata kazi nzuri sana”? Admittedly, the colonial education system was meant to produce a literate (mark the word, literate - able to read and write) not an educated labour force for the colonial enterprise. That is where the down pour hit us. We never moved from that goal as a country in spite of (no pun intended) the many “delusional” documents and pipe dreams we have authored. That people like the good professor suddenly collide with epiphany after many years as education providers is indicative of that exact same cancer. Hah!

Cliché but true: realization and acknowledgement is the first step to healing. If more noses on people at Prof. Kabaji’s level are assaulted by the stench of our rotten education system maybe, just maybe, something to address the life-threatening condition will be done. Again, I ask, when by his own confession the evidence of the problem walks into the professor’s class every semester, did it have to take a chance encounter - at a bar of all the places - for the professor to see the problem he helps create (in writing guide books) and maintain (in using the ill-gotten gains to keep teachers at bar lounges and not in their study)? Is that not telling of the hypocrisy of our educators and academics? Every teacher, every Kenyan, at all levels of life should not wait for some Moses or pied piper to rid us of our task masters. A personal commitment to making a difference is what will get us out of this mess. All Kenyans, Literature Teachers included, should style up.

The teaching function must be addressed too. How do we recruit our teachers? Who bothers to assess those who apply to train as teachers? GIGO mean anything? Garbage teacher-trainee or school manager in, garbage teaching & school management out. Frankly, it is high time the B. Ed program was scraped. A BA and a later professional teaching certificate is the way to go. Continous and rigorous professional training (something along the lines of SMASSE but more stringent) and meaningful supervision must be instituted. How do we motivate our teachers? I am not talking about the crumbs off the table that pass for pay increases. Inclusion is the best motivation for it yields that coveted component - ownership. That we run a mafia-like and closed system right from curriculum development, learning resource production, school management and student and teacher reward guarantees eternal embrace with mediocrity.

I have said it many times before and will still do, values-based living is this nation’s hope. Integrity, honesty, honour, hard work, meritocracy and justice, are values in short supply, not just in teaching but in all spheres of life in Kenya. Kenyan ethos celebrates the exact opposite of these noble values. And that does not happen on the pages of newspapers or in classrooms but in homes. The Japanese work ethic or British etiquette and decorum is not taught in class; it is embraced from the cradle to the grave. It is time every Kenyan lived for something other than the protuberances in our middle. Then we will teach and live, not just Literature, but life itself, right. We may then finally dump the pretence that passes for education that we do in our should-be learning institutions.