6/18/98
ATHENS, Ohio -- Thirteen Ohio public school teachers will travel to Swaziland and South Africa as part of a curriculum development team under a grant received by the Ohio University National Resource Center for African Studies. The teachers, who are teaching about Africa in their classrooms, leave Columbus June 24 and return July 29.
The U.S. Department of Education Group Projects Abroad grant is funding the trip by kindergarten through 12th-grade teachers who have participated in workshops on teaching about Africa and African perspectives. The workshops were sponsored by the African resource center at Ohio University and Ohio State University the last three summers and the fall of 1997. The teachers will spend a month interacting with professional colleagues in the African countries, according to Ohio University Director of African Studies W.S. Howard, director of the project.
"A major theme of this project is the role of democracy in Africa's classrooms," said team leader Mary Anne Flournoy, Ohio Valley International Council and Outreach Coordinator for African studies. "This refers to a variety of processes, from more democratic management of classrooms and greater teacher control over the curriculum to the role of education in changing civic life in both countries."
Team members will spend two weeks observing and participating in the school communities, attending lectures on Swazi history, culture and education, and interacting with teacher education faculty at Ngwane Teacher Training College and William Pitcher Teacher Training College and staff of the National Curriculum Centre, many of whom are Ohio University graduates. The team also will visit six Ohio University undergraduate teacher education students doing teaching practice in Swaziland. The U.S. Information Agency will host a panel discussion on current issues in education in the United States and Swaziland as part of the program. In South Africa, the team will be hosted by the University of the Western Cape in Capetown and will focus on an urban experience.
The participants will search for African artifacts, photographs, documents, and other information for individual curriculum development projects that can be implemented in their Ohio classrooms. Interviews with teachers and parents, community members, members of different occupation groups and interviews with children will be developed into a teaching portfolio. A radio show and book based on the experience will be distributed nationally after the project is completed.
Participants include Lori Allison, Bexley High School; Chelsea Bodnarik, Bellefontaine Middle School; JoAnn Boruvka of Medina, Westfield Elementary School; Bruce M. Carter, Marion Franklin High School, Columbus; Naomi H. Cook, Steubenville City Schools; Joe Culley of Kent, Nordonia Hills City Schools; Michelle Culley of Kent, Canton McKinley Senior High School; Jacqueline Dukes of Shaker Heights, East Woods School, Hudson; Charlene Fields of Blacklick, Gahanna Lincoln High School; Vicki Knauff of Batavia, Clinton-Fayette-Highland County Educational Service District; Leslie Ann Lawrence of Athens, Federal Hocking Middle School; Lois Maughmer, Marion Franklin High School, Columbus; Jean Young of Rocky River, Parma City Schools.