Dalton development in Senegal

Nestor Diatta

Caitlin Stoop

Annette Hooijmeijer

Great Dalton team in Senegal




I mentioned the activities of two Dutch students in Senegal some time ago here in this blog.
I've met Annette yesterday and I will have a meeting with Nestor today.
For me enough reasons to give an impression of their activities.
I took a part from the report the students made.

During our internship at primary school Espérance Laique school, located in Grand Mbao, Senegal. We, Caitlin Stoop and Annette Hooijmeijer, worked together with the school team of Espérance Laique to take the first steps to make the education more Dalton oriented.
Before we began with our internship we thought that the teachers knew about Dalton education and his three principles: freedom, self-reliance and co-operation. There was also told that kindergarten, called prescolaire, works with a Dalton board. By receiving this information, we wanted to continue the development of Dalton by implementing the weekly task. We wanted to implement the weekly task in all groups of primary school, except kindergarten. We thought that the weekly task was a great solution to stimulate effective apprenticeship. Helen Parkhurst, thought of a weekly task to keep the children busy during the day. It was her idea that every child has to work independently, until the teacher could check their work. To succeed this plan she had to make sure that the older children were able to help the younger children (co-operation). We wanted to achieve that the children would help each other during their tasks without any help of the teacher. The main goal was, that children had the freedom of organization and execution of their work.With this information in our minds and our intended activities we went to Senegal.

To be continued.