It has been a while since last time I
blogged…and I have just realized that my last post started with the same
wording and dated August 2013…well, last year I have been pretty busy with the
development of IBIS South Sudan Thematic Programme, which IBIS conceives as a strategic space for
developing programme activities and systematizes present and future lines of
action around a specific theme (Education in Emergency and Fragility in the
case of South Sudan) and this year I have been busy in the coordination of the
Education in Emergency (EiE) project which is responding to the crisis broken
out in South Sudan on December 2013…so I didn’t really want to stay in front of
my computer even after working hours and I stopped writing about my life in
South Sudan. However, recently I feel a bit lonely and I don’t really have much
to do when I am back home and I remembered that blogging was a good way to keep
me company and do something creative and productive so…I have decided to
re-start again and…let’s see how dedicated I will be..
I want to restart
writing today October 5th and use it as a way to celebrate World Teacher Day. I have never been aware of this date before but since
I am in South Sudan I am particularly keen on celebrations because I think they
offer an opportunity for reflections. Teachers are important people in the life
of each individual but we often tend to forget that and it seems like our
governments tend to forget it too. It is a fact that almost globally, teachers
are not very well paid and even their status in society is gradually
decreasing, probably because in our modern money-oriented world it doesn’t
matter what you do but how much money you get and a poor salary devalues
teachers before the eyes of everyone. However, teachers are for most of us the
first door to knowledge, the first to teach us how to read and write: a gift
which will accompany and enrich our life forever.
In South Sudan,
teachers have not been paid, due to the conflict, since December 15 2013 and
only those working for INGO are receiving a monthly incentive of 300-350 SSP
(around 80 USD). Nevertheless, it is amazing the good work they can do and how
restless they can be. They really feel that responsibility of educating the
future generations and this can mean a great deal to those children and youth
displaced by the war, idle in the (Internally Displaced People) IDP sites where they temporarily reside, who are
welcome to the Child-Friendly Learning Spaces (CFLS) constructed by IBIS as
well as by other education partners.
As part of the EiE
project, we train teachers in Life Skills and Psycho-Social Support in
Emergency and a session of the training focuses on the qualities that a good
teacher needs to have in a child-friendly learning environment. In order to do
so, we ask the trainees to first draw their favorite teacher on a piece of
paper and then discuss in groups what the qualities that made that teacher
special were.
Every time I facilitate this training I also think of my special
teachers, since they were actually two. One was an English teacher I had in
middle-school [in Italy the education system is divided in primary school (5
years), middle school (3 years) and high school (5 years)] called Mrs. Ignoti
(never knew the first name since we were used to call her that way). She was a
tiny woman from the “city”, sophisticated but down-to-earth at the same time, whom
I will be always grateful for having enhanced my self-esteem.
In middle school I
was not what you will call a brilliant student and, according to the Italian
grading system, I was always graded as sufficiente—average. I have been sufficiente
for 3 years and I had the feeling that no matter how much I would have worked
hard, I would have always remained a sufficiente student, since the
prejudice that all the teachers had for me was difficult to wipe out. But Mrs.
Ignoti came on board in the third year of middle school, unaware of my sufficiente
past, and gave me a buono—good—at the first English composition
she assigned, commending my writing skills in front of my classmates. Can you
imagine what this meant to somebody used to the anonymity of the back row? It
is thanks to her that I started to be passionate about foreign languages and
cultures and be more self-confident about my capacities and skills, regardless
of any grade.
In high school, I
met instead Mr. Pezzinga, a teacher in philosophy who looked like a boy with
grey hair who is probably a favorite teacher of many, since his former
students have created a Facebook page which counts 454 likes so far. What make
Mr. Pezzinga different were his teaching methodologies. He was not using, as
the others, what Freire would describe as the “banking system” but instead he
was provoking debate and discussion in class, using a learner-centered approach
which is the same we train our teachers at IBIS. He didn’t treat us as tabula
rasa but as individuals with an inner knowledge who could contribute
actively to the lesson in a Socratic dialogue of questions and answers, doubt
and reasoning.
It is to Mrs. Ignoti
and Mr. Pezzinga, to the teachers of South Sudan and to the teachers of the
world, that I wish a Happy World Teacher Day, to honor their too
often unpaid, forgotten, devalued but priceless work.
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