eXtreme Teaching
The practical realities of teaching former child soldiers in Uganda and how they apply to teaching traumatized populations in the U.S.
In Northern Uganda, seventy-five percent of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) is comprised of abducted children and youth. In many cases, children’s involvement in combat “has obstructed their education—while such atrocities as rape, watching families being murdered, or being forced to be child soldiers has left lasting trauma” (Reynolds). However, Michael Wessells, in his article Child Soldiers, Peace Education, and Postconflict Reconstruction for Peace, suggests that education or literacy is essential in helping these children reintegrate into civilian life and build positive futures.
This paper explores the practical realities of literacy education within a postconflict environment. I share my experiences teaching writing to former LRA child-soldiers at Living Hope College, located in a village outside Mbale, Uganda. In an attempt to teach literacy skills and assist with their reintegration, I chose to live in the village with the students. Both living and teaching conditions in this context are extreme: There is no running water or electricity; there is a severe lack of basic school supplies such as textbooks, paper, and pencils; there is excessive classroom overcrowding—sometimes with a 75:1 student to teacher ratio. In addition, the literacy classrooms at Living Hope College are populated with students who are victims of prolonged and pervasive trauma.
The paper analyzes my own attempts to develop a practical, context-sensitive teaching approach. I argue that when teaching in extreme environments, the following pedagogical principles are crucial to reintegration; building positive futures; and overall learning and literacy of traumatized populations:
1. Because war-affected children can exhibit aggressive or withdrawn behavior, teachers in extreme teaching environments must educate themselves on symptoms of trauma and how it can impact learning.
2. Teachers must not categorize students, but should rather perceive each student’s individual strengths. Each traumatized or war-affected student has had different life experiences. To simply view individuals as “poor child-soldier orphans” would not only reduce the students to one-dimensional stereotypes, but would effectively render the teacher an ideologue.
3. While trust is extremely hard to restore in former child soldiers, teachers needs to create a safe place in which students can learn. In Overcoming the Trauma of War: Literacy Challenges of Adults Learners, an interviewed teacher states “Sometimes being a good teacher means being a friend, co-learner, and counselor […] we have to give these students an opportunity to express their perceptions and feelings of isolation and uprootedness.”
4. To establish effective classroom practices, a teacher cannot be tied to a set curriculum, but instead, remain flexible and innovative. In his book English for Life?—Teaching English as a second language in Sub-Saharan Africa with special reference to Uganda, G. P. McGregor states, “If we teach our English with energy, imagination, and organization, we will not only bring our students pleasure and examination success. We will enrich their lives” (p. 25).
Finally, sharing photographs and samples of student writing, the paper will analyze successful—and unsuccessful—methodologies for extreme teaching environments and discuss how similar methodologies might be applicable to teaching traumatized populations in the United States. To display these photographs I will need a projector and screen.