Keith Leavitt Spends Third Summer with A Better World in Kenya

For the third consecutive year education professor Keith Leavitt spent time in Kenya this summer working with A Better World Canada to develop schools and education programs.

In 2012 Leavitt presented a series of teacher training workshops in the Kericho and Masai Mara regions of Kenya.  Teachers from 120 different schools took advantage of this training.  More information about that project can be found here.

Leavitt led a small team of teachers from Alberta that visited 10 schools to work one-on-one with Kenyan teachers in 2013.  "Each teacher on our team was paired with a teacher at the schools we visited," explained Leavitt.  "A teacher from our team would teach a demonstration lesson to students while the host teacher would observe and take notes."  After this, the teachers would swap roles and the teacher from Alberta would observe the Kenyan teacher.  Once this cycle of observations was completed, the two teachers would debrief and share observations and ideas.  Additional information about this trip can be found here.

"I came away from this trip with a sense of admiration for what the Kenyan teachers are doing with limited resources," said Leavitt.  "Many teachers have 70 or 80 pupils in their classroom with 3 or 4 students sharing one desk and one textbook."

This summer Leavitt met with around 55 administrators in three school districts.  The purpose of these meetings was to vision with school leaders ways they would like to develop and improve their institutions and how A Better World Canada might partner with them in achieving these goals.

In addition to these meetings Leavitt visited 10 schools to begin gathering data that will be used to document the impact improvements in facilities and teaching strategies have on students' academic performance.  "Simply putting a roof on a school that did not have one positively impacts students' academic performance," said Leavitt.  Without a roof classrooms would get quite cold during the "winter" months.  When the classroom is cold students don't show up and miss important lessons.

"Student achievement is improved by simply ensuring a school has a safe and reliable water supply," said Leavitt.  "When students must take turns hauling water in from a distance, those students miss instructional time."

Although Professor Leavitt will be retiring from his position at CUC, where he will have taught for 28 years, he plans to continue using his time and talent working with schools and teachers in Kenya and other A Better World Canada locations.  If you would like to support or learn more about A Better World Canada's education projects please click here.