Wheaton College Alumni Magazine Spring 2013 | Page 52

wheaton in the world (right) Dr. Susan Hayes Greener ’83 (center), associate professor Hope for Trauma’s Children of intercultural studies, The beginnings of early childhood education in Rwanda drew one Wheaton professor to this East African nation to better understand the task ahead for Rwanda’s teachers, many of whom were children themselves during the 1994 genocide. l 62     s p r i n g   2 0 1 3 Rosengren ’04 (back row, lef t) with preschool teachers in the Shyira Diocese. (below) A preschool by Jeremy Weber ’05 ast summer, Dr. Susan Hayes Greener ’83 spent 11 days in the most mountainous region of Rwanda. The associate professor of intercultural studies was not in Musanze, one of the top tourist destinations in East Africa, on vacation to see the nearby volcanic peaks and mountain gorillas made famous by Dian Fossey and Gorillas in the Mist. Instead, Dr. Greene was training teachers in order to help friend and former colleague Rev. Dr. Laurent Mbanda, an innovative Anglican bishop who has opened almost 200 preschools in his diocese’s churches over the past two years, and hopes to open 150 more. Dr. Greener previously designed early childhood development programs at Compassion International; Mbanda was her boss. Preschools are uncommon in Musanze, where children normally start school at age 7. And given the area’s 50 percent literacy rate, most available teachers lack the proper training in early childhood education. So Dr. Greener, whose faculty missions trip was funded by the Wheaton College Alumni Association, traveled to Musanze with her husband Rev. Jay Greener ’82, rector of Church of the Redeemer in Highland Park, Illinois, which has long worked with Mbanda’s Diocese of Shyira, and funds a school for orphans. “Young children in Rwanda typically receive little adult investment beyond and Amanda Holm near Musanze. custodial care until they are older,” Dr. Greener says. Though she planned carefully for her trip based on her previous global work, she realized when she arrived, “I first needed to listen and learn from the teachers, which resulted in some significant changes to my plans.” The challenges facing the preschool initiative are many. The typical preschool has 100 children per class, yet only two teachers. Most teachers only have an elementary education, in which they experienced rote learning and “seat work” instead of the multi-sensory methods needed in early childhood education. Access to training is difficult to obtain, given the rural and hilly location of most Shyira churches. Teaching materials are scarce. Such problems are unfortunately common in the developing world. But a challenge distinct to Rwanda is the aftereffects of the densely populated nation’s 1994 genocide, in which longstanding ethnic tensions erupted in the slaughter of an estimated 800,000 people. In order to contextualize her training, Dr. Greener visited some of the genocide memorials scattered throughout Rwanda today. Most are in churches where people had gathered seeking sanctuary, but instead were slaughtered. Frozen in her memory is a visit to a Sunday school room at Nytarama Catholic Church, where young children had been placed in hopes that they would be spared. She saw for herself what remains 18 years later: a large stain where marauders had swung the children by their feet and smashed their heads against the brick wall. Rwandans don’t like to talk much about the genocide, says Dr. Greener, but the effects of trauma impede the preschool effort, as many of the teachers were the children who lost their families or witnessed the atrocities. “The lack of loving parenting these teachers received has crippled their own ability to parent well. Toddlers or preschoolers are often left unsupervised, and thus vulnerable to accidents and abuse.” Dr. Greener conducted interactive training sessions with 34 teachers covering topics including lesson planning, classroom managem [