Visit to a Primary Elementary School

Friday (4/28) was our last full day in Nioro. We had the pleasure of visiting a private elementary school called Complexe Scolaire Adja Penda Ba. This elementary school’s founder is a Senegalese woman who lives in Washington, DC. We immediately saw differences between the public and private elementary schools in Nioro. The private school had much smaller class sizes and had more resources. Class size ranged from 10-25, which is a stark contrast from what we saw in the public school. We saw children wearing “uniforms” – which were green colored vests with the school name on the back. We saw colorful mural painted on the walls outside the school and inside the classrooms.

We also saw many toys, chalkboards, books and resources within classrooms. One thing that really stuck out was seating arrangements. The same bench desks that we have seen at every school were formed into groups in every classroom we saw. Teachers did not solely lecture. The lessons involved student response, pair share, group work and individual work. While the administrators were male, we noticed all of the teachers were women. We observed a third-grade problem-solving math lesson. The lesson was about a real world problem involving buying beans at the market and having a certain amount of money to buy a certain amount of food. The problem was complex and multi-step. The teacher was very methodical about breaking down the problem and asked kids what other questions they would have to solve in order to answer the final question. I really enjoyed being in her classroom and watching the students collaborate and learn together.

After our morning spent at the primary school, we returned to the high school to say our final farewells. We were fortunate to see a Senegalese lunch lady selling beignets and Café Touba right outside the school. For $0.25 USD, we purchased 4 beignets and a Café Touba. You can read about Café Touba by clicking here. After eating our snack, we met with the administrator who was kind enough to buy us wooden gifts as a memento of our time in Nioro. Our debrief conversation with him was refreshing and optimistic about the importance of creating global connections and teaching global citizenship.