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 [