Today, our class had a visitor from Lesotho. Lesotho is a country in the Southern part of Africa. It is surrounded by South-Africa, and it is one of the worlds’ smallest countries.
This is how one of the many blogs written about Moliehi Sekese starts. (Eline) The class started with a 30 minute presentation from Moliehi before she went on to another class for 1 hour. That gave the students time to prepare questions and decide on how to work. Most opted for blog entries, but we also had 2 videos and an interview. These will be posted here as soon as they are edited! This post is made of quotes from the students’ blogs and you can read more by following the links. Many have great pictures and videos they have found from Lesotho.
Moliehi Sekese is the Educator’s Choice award winner 2009 for the Microsoft Innovative Education Forum. She won this award for her school project about indigenous plants. The impressing part is that her school in Lesotho, Mamoeketsi Government Primary School, had no electricity while they did this project. (Cathrine) Moliehi Sekese is not an ordinary woman; she is more of a hero. Moliehi is a teacher from Lesotho, the poorest country in the world. (Erle) . Lesotho is a country surrounded by the Republic of South Africa. (Philip) The students had a bake sale to raise money to go to the Internet cafe in town (15 km away) to blog. When they wanted to raise awareness about protecting endangered plants, they had teachers bring charged laptops to school so they could scan the hand drawn images and make flyers in Microsoft Publisher. (Eva) .I can’t imagine what a challenge it must be to have so many students in one classroom. The classroom is not very big, and there isn’t enough chairs, desks and textbooks for 100 learners. They have to use each others’ backs to write on, and walk on the desks to get from one side of the classroom to another side. ( Nooshin) Listening to her presentation made us realize how lucky we are here in Norway. We have food, clean drinking water, clothes, textbooks, and computers. (Marie) I think that the job she’s doing is very inspiring because she is so engaged, and we could hear when she was holding her presentation to us, that she really wanted the situation to be better for her class in Lesotho. Olivia. In a way, I feel like making a difference is the theme we’ve had the entire year. Starting with Erin Brochovich, later Gran Torino, the Kite Runner and Narnia. All of these movies are about how one person or a group of people can change something, or make a difference. Moliehi Sekese makes a difference. Her being so enthusiastic and her being willing to travel around the world has brought attention from all over the world regarding the learning situation in Lesotho. People have started gathering money and “its learning” has offered to give 4 computers to her school. Everyone wants to pitch in to make a difference because we all know that education is the beginning of the change that needs to come in Lesotho. So having Moliehi Sekese at our school and her traveling around the world is making a difference that desperately needs to be made, and it’s amazing what she has accomplished…(Nooshin) Last, we would like to thank her for your time with us, and her wise words. “Use it Profitably, learn it Effectively”. (Marie)
Despite the fact that Moliehi’s school has few resources she has been dedicated to her work all the time and has managed to provide her school with several computers. Joackim
Julie wrote a beautiful poem describing what Moliehi talked about. Read it here.
Roshanak, June and Shirin were excited about the interview that I have posted here for you to read.
Hello! This makes fascinating reading. I am currently working as a creative agent in schools in the Uk – with a specific remit to encourage teachers to use technology (especially SKYPE) to link with children in other parts of the world. I would love it if you and your school could be involved. But regardless – keep up the inspirational work.
Thank you for your nice comment. Sounds like an interesting job working as a creative agent in schools in the UK. Was in London last week and visited the Guilford school for girls. always a lot to learn from visiting schools. Have also done a lot of skyping with my students. Interesting and to learn about other countries.
I’m realy overwhelmed with your report. It shows clearly that were listening attentively to what I was saying. With the use of technology like this blogging it shows clearly that the world can become one village where everyone is learning from one another. Keep up the good work and hope oneday we will be able to collaborate on different issues.