Deaf Kids Sign on for School in Tanzania
By M. Miles (m99miles@hotmail.com)
Doris Mbago leads me into the schoolroom where six small girls and boys are seated at a table with their teacher Subira Ally. Before I'm even introduced to Subira, two of the deaf boys have devised a sign name for me and are signing comments to each other about the elderly man with big beard. Doris, teacher at another school who is interpreting for me here, signs an explanation to Subira for this unscheduled visit - it's not an inspection, nor any sort of assessment; just a friendly visit from a foreign guest. Subira and I smile at each other across gaps of language and culture, and the lesson proceeds. It's 0815 by my watch, and the date on the big blackboard is 02-10-2001, written in the Brit order. (That's the 2nd of October, all you Americans...)
Subira is in her twenties, hair braided from the top down each side, wearing a brown and white shirt and a long grey skirt. Her first, basic teaching manoeuvre takes me straight back to primary school, yet there is a difference. We used to be told "Everyone quiet and fold your arms". Here it's enough to make these deaf kids fold their arms and they are silenced. Subira signs the letter 'a', mouths it, produces a high-pitched 'ah' sound, and all the children try to imitate as a group, then individually in turn. One girl goes to the front and receives a small stub of chalk. Stretching as high as she can, she inscribes 'a' at the bottom of the board.
We are in Mtoni, a poor suburban sprawl near a swamp to the south of Dar es Salaam. This large schoolroom with its open lattice windows is in a small compound of the local Catholic church. It is equipped with fans and strip lights, a polished concrete floor, several stacks of adult-sized metal chairs. Doris tells me that this and other buildings in the compound are used for a variety of educational purposes during the daytime, evenings and weekends.
Bah Beh Bee Boh Boo
Subira is now running through 'e', 'i', 'o' and 'u', giving the sign, mouth shape, sound, writing, then watching each child's attempt, encouraging them, correcting some mistakes. The smaller children perch uncomfortably on the big metal chairs. When it is their turn to write on the board, one or two find it easier to slip off the chair and duck under the table rather than push back chairs bigger than themselves. Now we are on to consonants and vowels, 'b' and 'a' separately, then 'ba' together. Hands up whoever would like to write the two letters together on the board.
Subira (aptly meaning 'Patience') is deaf and has no formal training as a teacher. She handles the children well, bringing them all into group action while differentiating the individual demands according to their capacities. These children are aged 5 to 10, except for one big girl who is older in years but has learning difficulties as well as impaired hearing. That one has only recently enrolled. 'Ba', 'Be', 'Bi', 'Bo', 'Bu'. Another small girl enters the classroom, late. She signs her apology, puts her bag in the corner and moves to sit down, but Subira tells her to greet the visitors first. She offers her hand with a respectful bob, then signs her greeting.
The girls all wear a simple blue dress, the boys blue shirts and shorts. I see no hearing aids. Ba (bah), Be (beh), Bi (bee), Bo (boh), Bu (boo). Two of the boys are fumbling around under the table, maybe checking for chewing gum? Doris points out to me that when the kids go to the front individually, trying to make the correct sounds, Subira cannot hear them but she rests her hand on their neck and shoulder to feel the vibration of the sound. A tiny girl goes up, gives the correct finger sign and makes a good bah. The next girl does not produce any sound, so Subira makes the sound and takes the girl's hand up to feel the throat vibration. Baaaah.
Soon we are on to 'Baba' - father - signed with chin and beard. 'Babu' - granddad - signed with hat on head and stick in hand. 'Bibi' - granny - woman breast sign and stick in hand. Another bigger girl enters the classroom, puts her bag in the corner, signs the greeting to us, exits. She belongs to the later class for the older deaf children, from 1130 to 1500. The present class runs from 0800 to 1100. Doris explains that bus drivers often will not pick up children because they pay less than adults; so kids who use the bus must leave home early, not knowing how long they might need to wait. Subira is now distributing plastic bags containing the children's exercise books, which they open. One child has no book, but receives paper. They get on with writing baba, babu, bibi. I walk round the table to look.
The big slow girl beams up a warm, artless smile to get my attention. The next girl, slim and serious with neat braids, signs to her that she should concentrate on her work. Subira is checking some written homework in exercise books. Doris also looks at children's work. I reach the girl who is obviously the most advanced of the group, and check back through her book. Previous pages show the whole alphabet written in capitals and lower case. Subira has endorsed each page with her signature. Doris tells me that this class started only in March, and kids have been joining one by one ever since. Most of them started with no pre-reading or pre-writing skills, so they have been working on those. Among these deaf youngsters there is a wide range of current levels of achievement.
Something Practical for Deaf Kids
Six or seven formal deaf schools have been established across Tanzania since the start of deaf education in 1963 at Tabora in the Northwest region. Those schools cater for about 700 out of some 20,000 children with severe to profound hearing impairment in the country, and the predominant teaching method is oralism. The association of deaf people CHAVITA [1] has been campaigning for deaf rights and recognition of their sign language; but still very few deaf teachers teach deaf children in schools.
The present 'alternative' classes at Mtoni, and a similar little school that started earlier at Sinza, originate from the time when CCBRT workers [2] got to know a number of disabled people in the poorer communities of Dar es Salaam. Among them were some deaf children, for whom very little care or education was available. A deaf teacher, Catherine John, was engaged to teach them and later she was joined by Doris Mbago. Both these small schools are run by committees of parents of deaf children, using local resources in a low-cost way. Initial orientation of the teachers was provided by a Dutch educationist, Lut Labeeuw, and at present their salaries are met by CCBRT. The skills and experience of Catherine and Doris (which I witness and admire the following morning when visiting the Sinza school) have been the training ground for Subira before she started her work at Mtoni.
We have reached 0915 and the kids rise and go outside. One little girl, new to the class, stays at table and starts to sob. Subira comforts her: she has not been abandoned - the other kids are merely washing their hands outside, she can join them, then they will all come in and eat their snack. The little girl brightens up. The incident could happen to a new kid in any school - but it is a poignant example of how easily deaf kids can be left out, reading the wrong message from what they see around them. Now they are all back in again, receiving the little food bags they have brought from home and stacked in the corner. First they put hands together and one small child signs a prayer. Then the small pieces of fruit, bread, and water are quickly consumed.
I glance around the classroom and notice how quiet it is, despite the open design. There is no traffic noise, only birdsong can be heard from outside. The back wall has big pictures of elephant and giraffe. On either side of the blackboard there are Catholic devotional scenes, looking down on the Muslim teacher Subira. This is Tanzania, where the two big monotheisms have learnt to coexist peaceably. The only crusade here is to set these deaf kids free from centuries of prejudice, restriction and neglect.
Class is restarting, but one small boy finds that the seat of his chair is wet from spilt water. He shakes his satchel in anger. Subira drains off the water by tilting the seat. We suggest that he should have a dry seat, and switch the chairs around. He settles down, but seems to regret that the drama ended so quickly. I mention to Doris that the usual gender difference in behaviour seems as noticeable among these deaf kids as it is in a hearing class. She confirms that any two deaf boys give as much trouble as ten deaf girls.
Tactile Maths
The next lesson has a neat approach. Subira produces a bag of metal bottle caps and distributes them in fives, upside down, across the table. She demonstrates that each child should secure five caps using five fingers. Tactile arithmetic! Subira moves her five caps about on the table, while the kids fit their fingers onto five caps each. Then Subira writes a figure 1 on the board, and motions the kids to move one cap forward. Next a figure 3, move three caps forward, sign the number three. One child has only moved two forward, Subira shows by sign, by mouth, by caps and on the board, that two is 2, and 3 is three. Then it's on to 4 for four caps. One of the boys drops a cap under the table - I hear it, Subira doesn't hear it, but when the boy dives underneath she figures out what he's gone for. Now it's individual work showing that they can push forward 3 caps, and 2 caps. Then Subira demands 7 caps... The children signal that it can't be done until she distributes more caps. Soon the class is on to 3 + 1 = 4, and all the rest of it, signing, writing on the board, showing the correct number of metal caps.
It's a pleasure to see Subira keeping up a steady pace, going through the drill but with sufficient variation that those who have done it all before are still paying attention or correcting their novice neighbours. Sums are copied into exercise books, with help for those who are less able. The big girl with the vacant smile is practising to write a line of 2 2 2 2 2. Meanwhile Pauline Ndigirwa has joined us quietly on the observers' bench, a British speech and language therapist who works in another school for children with special needs in Mtoni and who is interested to see this new development. We stand up to see the work being done in exercise books. Little Zulfa shows me the numbers and some pictures coloured in on earlier pages.
Body Language
It's 1030, we all go out for physical exercise in the sandy back yard between two more buildings, with a few trees planted here and there. The small children are in a game running from point to point. Some have plastic sandals, others cheap trainers. Inevitably, one of them has a shoe that keeps coming off. Now they are jogging together in a line. Some older students waiting for the later school session are attentive spectators, signing to each other more fluently than the small kids do. We adult observers get caught up in a circle, where we link and swing arms, clap, then each take turns showing our personal sign-name. These are very physical and politically incorrect, whether the braided hair signs, the young woman breast signs, the elderly man sign, Pauline's big grin sign, the kid-who-limps sign, the funny-shaped-head sign.
The game gets complicated in the next stage, where each one takes a turn at showing the sign-name for each other member of the circle. The 10-year-old girls flash round very competently, as do Doris, Subira and Pauline. The smaller kids hesitate on some names, and are prompted visually by the rest of the circle. Only the foreign greybeard is too shy to wave his fingers about, and is excused on grounds of senility. But at the close of morning school the kids line up and each in turn signs the prayer, "Father in Heaven, thanks for a good school". By the time they're through, I've almost learnt this one.
The Moving Finger Writes
Later, after seeing the older class get started on a reading lesson, Pauline drives me to her husband's place of work, and unexpectedly we come upon a CHAVITA group meeting there in a hired room. They are working on a new project for poverty eradication, and have arranged some lectures on setting up and managing small businesses and income-generating activities, with two sign interpreters. Recognising Pauline, they stop for a few minutes and we meet the Chairperson Mrs Lupi Maswanya, the Vice Chair Nidrosy Mlawa, CEO Nicholaus Mpingwa and other officers. These are a solid committee of active deaf people, with some 15 branches in towns and cities across Tanzania. It is seventeen years since CHAVITA was first registered, and they have seen some progress in official recognition of the needs and the talents of deaf adults. But the government admits in a recent report to UNESCO, that young children with special needs "have received little attention" [3], and that much more needs to be done.
After coming from the little CCBRT-sponsored school, it's good to see CHAVITA members and to think that deaf kids may find some role models of educated deaf adults participating in the country's development. There are many possible ways forward for those kids, each attended by considerable difficulties. A few will go on to one of the formal deaf schools, a few may find a place in an ordinary school (as do some children with milder hearing impairment). Some may learn a trade within their family. The progress in formal services since the first deaf school opened at Tabora has been desperately slow; but each year has added something to the previous year. Whichever route opens for the kids we saw this morning, they can hardly fail to have gained some confidence and useful skills from Subira Ally and the supporters of the Mtoni school.
1. CHAVITA is the Kiswahili acronym for Chama Cha Viziwi Tanzania, the Tanzania Association of the Deaf.
2. CCBRT, Comprehensive Community Based Rehabilitation Tanzania, runs a variety of disability work with local community involvement and a rolling program of training, as well as the CCBRT Disability Hospital at Oyster Bay, Dar es Salaam.
3. EFA2000 Assessment: Country Reports. Tanzania (Mainland): Report: Part II: Analytic Section, 9.1. http://www2.unesco.org/wef/countryreports/tanzania/rapport_2_2_2.html.
Warm thanks to Augusto Zambaldo, manager with CCBRT, who arranged the visits and sustains the workers with his infectious enthusiasm.
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