A colorful little sign that read, “We most welcome you at Mphanda Nursery School” hung above the front entrance of this tiny school made of bamboo.  This is the site of the 3rd nursery school connected to Tiyambe Nawo.  We visited after our meeting with all of the teachers, and it was the only one of the 3 we hadn’t already seen.  This little school, smaller than even the Orphan Care School we visited last week, was more colorful and full of life than we could have imagined possible. The women danced and sang as soon as we stepped out of the car. The children, as we have become so accustomed to seeing, were seated, all 50 of them, side by side, smiling and clapping when we arrived.  Their two teachers, Amina and Cremencia, were among the hardest working educators I’ve ever seen.  With their babies on their backs, (Amina’s little girl is Maria, one of the many I’ve grown to adore, which makes me Auntie Joanna according to Amina) often breast-feeding them in the midst of teaching, they implemented the nursery school routine we reviewed at our meeting only a few days earlier.  Like this routine, which they followed pretty flawlessly, there was so much concrete evidence that what we discussed at that meeting meant something.  From the little welcome sign that mirrored the larger one I hung above the doors to the main center, to the many pictures they hung around the straw walls of the school – and by hung, I mean they poked holes in small pieces of paper and used the string we gave them to tie these beautiful pictures around the 4 sides of their straw walls – this unlikely home to a school felt like a real classroom.  We saw colorful handmade drawings of animals and mini versions of many of the posters we had made and hung on our more stable, brick walls.  The few materials we shared at our meeting were used immediately.  This was also the only school where the children were fed consistently at 11:00 each day.  Any moments of wondering if what we are doing here has the power to sick were washed away when I saw this place.

What I loved most about this school, beyond the physical appearance, was the natural sharing and creativity floating in the air that the children breathed.  These beautiful babies instinctively and with loving guidance from their teachers, took turns and made the most use out of the materials in front of them.  Homemade clay was passed around after Amina proudly showed off the examples of people and mini phones that she molded herself.  A collection of books and toys, too few in number for each of the children in the small group to have his own, were shared among 2 or 3 kids at a time. They knew, at such a young age, sitting in circles like the one shown below, that what’s mine is yours and what’s yours is mine.

We spent two days there.  During our first day, we observed.  We took it all in so that we could offer the very best suggestions and model different activities on the second day. I was so reminded of the power of modeling, and how meaningful it is to show what works – both when facilitating professional development and while teaching the children.  It only took two days to feel so incredibly inspired by these two women who take in what others offer and make use of everything they have.  And they do so with energy, with optimism, with an apparent investment in teaching the best ways they know how. The impossible is possible when teachers like Amina and Cremecia remain focused on what’s most important, when what matters most are the children who they teach.