The use of local materials during class activities is also encouraged. For pre-mathematics lessons, children pick stones and sticks from outside and use them for counting and other numeracy lessons. In my view, this is an important way of teaching children how they can engage with everyday materials to learn and thus bridging the gap between the classroom and the community. During my observations, I saw a number of children engage in counting activities during break time with the use of stones and sticks in the playground. This illustrates the bridging of the gap between the classroom and the outside as children were able to continue their class lessons in the playground.
With regard to local knowledge and the way of life, the children view the school as teaching the same values that they are taught in the community. They note that the values of respecting adults, sharing, living together is consistent with what their parents and guardians teach them. In my view this is what Woodhead and Moss (2007) refer to this as a home-to-school continuity. However, my research shows that children employ their agency and interpret the meaning of these values in their everyday activities. As a case in point, I note one child who says that though he is encouraged to share his food with friends at school, he chooses who to share with and usually it is “those who also share their food with me”. This shows that rather than passively receiving cultural values at home and school, children make meaning of the values they are taught and interpret them in their everyday lives.
Clearly, the children in my study view the school as a more formal environment than the community but also note that the values are the same as what they are taught at home with a few exceptions. As a result of the formality of the school environment, the children expressed learning ‘good manners’ as part of some new values they learn. One participant gave an example of learning to excuse oneself or seek permission before leaving the classroom as one of the good manners they had learnt in school which was not taught at home.
At school, when you want to go to the toilet, we have to tell the Teacher. We say; ‘please Teacher may I leave the room’ [laughing] before I started coming to school, I didn’t know how to say that. When I say it now, my father says, “good girl!”
Apart from encouraging the values taught at home, the children note that the school also teaches what they refer to as ‘good manners.’
M: so what are good manners?
C2: not insulting, not fighting, sharing, respect, M: are you taught about good manners at home? Unanimously: yes we are….
C3: my grandmother teaches me all the time. She tells me, “don’t insult, and don’t fight” she is always telling me and my sister.
C4: me too. My parents, especially my mother tells me not to insult and to share what I have with my friends and my sister
C5: but you used to be stingy when you started school until Teacher told you to start sharing your food with your friends
C4: I was only stingy because some people don’t share their food here at school but my mother always tells me to share my food with everyone
The above excerpt shows how children understand the values that the schools instil as a continuation of the values of the family and how they are expected to uphold them in school and at home. Interestingly, the exempt also shows how children express their agency by negotiating how and when to express these values. The children note that the school environment accords them the opportunity to express these ‘good manners’ that they are taught but rather than simply model the expected behaviour, the children use the agency to interpret when and how to express these values. Another indication from the views of the children with regard to values is that children are able to make meaning of the expectations of others especially adults. As such they make note of ‘places’ or ‘occasions’ when they have the freedom to behave contrary to the expectations of adults as indicated in the following;
M: in what way do you think you have changed since you started coming to school
C1: I used to like playing too much and fighting with my friends before I started coming to school. But here the Teachers does not allow us to fight
C2: In do not like fighting
C1: you don’t fight but you used to be very dirty when you first started coming to school [gesturing], you would come with dirty clothes and wouldn’t even wash your face when coming to school
C2: yes but now I don’t. I wash my face and apply Vaseline before I come to school. [Pointing at C1] you used to fight and insult all the time but now you have stopped
M: so why do you think you have changed?
C3: because Teacher says its ‘bad manners’ to behave in that way
M: what about your parents, how do they feel when you behave in that way?
C4: they don’t feel good; they don’t allow us to do it. We only fight when we are playing and our parents are not watching. My mother beats me when she catches me fighting or insulting so I don’t do it anymore.
C3: Me too, my grandmother beats me when my friends tell on her that I was fighting so I stopped fighting and doing bad manners like my friends at home. My grandmother even stops me from playing with the kids who don’t go to school because she says they will teach me bad manners.
This indicates children’s ability to interpret expectations of those around them as well as their awareness of the expectations of adults, the family, the community and the school. This awareness enables the children to interpret these values and what they mean to them in different everyday situations of their lives. Woodhead and Moss (2007), note that the role that children play as a source of continuity has been relatively neglected. They further note that children’s siblings, friends and their wider peer group can be significant as sources of shared experience and social support by collectively bridging the familiar and the unfamiliar. In this case, bridging cultural values and ‘good manners’ , stories, games, toys, songs and play in school, home and community.