To the Victor the Spoils? Just not Cricket.

When planning a family move to another country yes you look at the schools. But maybe, despite our most rigorous investigations, via website, via Good School Guide and personal visits, checking school libraries and art facilities and probing willingness of staff to say what they were good and less good at, maybe we were looking at the wrong things.

I'm not so very picky. I get that its hard being a teacher. But in my opinion all of Nairobi's schools have strengths and significant flaws. The kind of flaws which in UK would have us moving our state-educated kids, rapidly.  But look before you leap. Are the alternatives any better in the things which matter to us?

One of the things we looked at carefully was the racial mix of the schools.  One of Nairobi's schools is still 95% white. Our kids are at a school where a third of the kids are Kenyan African, a third Kenyan Asian, and a third expat or White Kenyan.  And the groups mix, which also isn't the case everywhere else.  Our kids have friends from a whole range of backgrounds, and that's what we'd wished for, and prize.

But the problem is, I come to realise, that despite their best pitch, most schools are run according to the values prevalent in the society you're in.  Friends of ours have recently moved to Kenya from another African country. 
'But why were your kids in the French system there, even thought that wasn't your language or the language of the country?'
'Well it was about discipline. In the other schools, if a child did something wrong, they were made to stand, holding a chair above their head in full tropical sun, often for hours.  We wanted a school which paid lip service to some more civilised ways of disciplining.'
Well yes. With you all the way there. 'Bien choisi.'

We came to Kenya from a tiny UK village school, with 100 kids, 4 teachers including the head and massive support and input from the local community. Yes it had been selective, it wasn't an open house for all, and that was its flaw. To get in, appreciated as it was, you had to be an active, engaged member in your local church. Once your kids were in you had to do your bit, giving your time by helping out in the library, running the walking bus, listening to kids read or as a governor - or giving your money.  It wasn't an academic power house. But it built community. We came to know each other in the things which matter. Our kids played in the same playgrounds, the parents drank wine at each others houses, did their bits on lift rotas to Brownies and covered for parents with scheduling difficulties. We got involved on the difficult bits too.  Weighed in on the playground to tell off someone else's child if need be. Organised rotas to spend time with a Mum with terminal cancer, to drop off meals to help feed the family. I can't say how I miss it.

When FirstBorn went for her SettlingInDay there, older children, aged all of ten, whisked her and her peers off at breaktime to initiate piggy in the middle for the anxious five year olds.  There was a Friendship Bench on which any child feeling a tad lonesome could sit, for the Playground Buddies, nine year olds, to scoop up in an inclusive game of tag.  Teachers lived up to their wider responsibilities. When SecondBorn's mate, enthralled by Alan Sugar's behaviour on The Apprentice, excluded SecondBorn from the playground game of football two days running:
'You're fired!'
his teacher told the other set of parents - also our mates - and explained to the child why, despite this happening in the outside world, this had been hurtful. SecondBorn's mate wrote him an apology on his own initiative. Friendship restored, life lessons learned, the weaker or more sensitive or Today's Underdog protected.

Underpinning it all were two things. A belief, put into practice, that each child matters. A recognition that beliefs are empty if they aren't acted upon, lived out.  And secondly, a commitment to recognising and celebrating the gifts of each.  In the weekly Sharing Assembly, each class teacher awarded an oversized rosette that week to a child in their class. Read a citation on why it had been given. And the rosettes, denoting a Beacon Pupil, were awarded for kindness, inclusion, leadership, exemplary tidying up, negotiation between friends on the playground and so on. Maybe for hard work. But not for academic success, for which there were a whole other set of prizes, shiny stickers which got stuck on work, after a trip to the headteacher's office to be congratulated.  The Beacon Pupil rosette had scarcity value. It might only be worn in the week in which it was issued.  When FirstBorn first received it she insisted we went, three evenings running, to the Tescos hypermarket near our home, where  a wider range of kindly elderly ladies could be counted on to notice it, comment, and to chuck her under the chin.  And the school realised too that if a child for some reason had not been caught by authority Being Good in a major way, then they would be encouraged for a lesser act.  I remember a child's look of startled delight and utter beaming pride when his citation was read out: 'For being kind to the classroom land snails, and reminding us daily to feed them their lettuce.'  Each plant needs watering. Children need praise to motivate them.

By comparison, in our Kenyan school, there is a focus on showcasing a minority of children who already excel in things. Frequently with the support of an additional coach - elocution for the poetry competition, five nights of swimming training for the swimmers. Yes, it's nice to show the pretty ways of the Best of the Bunch. But why are the same children given attention and the majority of the races as the Best of the Bunch across each of the six sports played?  Of course, in external competitions it's right it is the best who compete and perform. But internally? In compulsory events in the curriculum? To my mind then each child should have the chance to compete, at least in the heats.  But I have the vision of the other school before me. Of the anarchic, chaotic, highspirited Whole School Relay, in which overexcited five year olds might run three times, and it never mattered.  There were races for excellence, and children who competed at county and regional level and beyond. And there was inclusion too, about demonstrating that it mattered that each child had a chance to perform, to try their hardest, to develop their skills, to be part of the event. Being good at something, being recognised, was its own reward. But taking part, striving hard, matters for the education of all.  But we're in Kenya. There are massive payoffs here to being The Best in something, witness the lists of names in the newpapers of the top 100 candidates in national exams.  And this is a culture without formal safety nets.

I accept that our children won't star in all the races they might in a more inclusive culture. What I object to is how they are belittled during the selection process.  How, in the selection for the upcoming swimming gala, instead of conducting heats, the process was for children in their houses to put up their hands for each race in which they thought they could compete. And then they had to negotiate between peers
'Well I'm better at breast stroke than you',
with the other children shouting out who they thought was best.  SecondBorn is a reasonable swimmer - he came second in two races last year - but not a confident advocate for his abilities. And the experience of volunteering for ten races, and being selected by his peers for the float race (aimed at non-swimmers) won't have helped with that.  And in this culture, the supervising teacher didn't see her role as promoting inclusion, rather more, supervising the audience at the Roman gladiator bloodbath.  It wouldn't happen in the Olympics, that the competitor with the greatest confidence, not the one with the fastest time got to compete.

The difficulty too, what the school doesn't want to acknowledge, is that in Kenya its far from a level playing field.  Several parents have explained to me:
'If you want your child to be selected for something, because they arrived a year late, after teams had been selected, its best to get private coaching with the person who selects for the team.  That way they see what they can do, they get to feel a link with them, they feel identified with their progress.'
Just teaching them in the school sports lessons seemingly isn't enough for this.
More political parents have explained:
'Look, to move a child into the team they have to bump another child. Lots of parents get angry at this. Cause difficulties for the coaches. They can fear for their jobs with some parents. You need to make it in their interests to look out for your child.'
I'm not saying I agree with this. But it has chimed with our experience.  SecondBorn wasn't selected for the B team in cricket last year. He cried, and I explained that he'd probably get switched in, later in the term, so everyone could get a chance.  Joy unbounded, in the second week, he was selected, another child deselected.  Whose mother then loudly harranged the coach. SecondBorn played one game, and was then swapped out in favour of the other child, for the whole of the term.  It could have been on good cricketing grounds. But I have my doubts.

First and SecondBorn are learning different things about the world than I learnt at their age. SecondBorn sat in the car on the way back from taekwondo yesterday and explained to me in considerable detail which of his teachers would lie to get out of trouble with parents or authorities, and which wouldn't.  He's not a boy of great emotional intelligence, he's nine. This isn't usually in his range of interests - currently yoyo tricks. But he's given it lots of thought. He wants to understand where the solid land lies. And he does understand that it felt very different at his former school, and that that is the way he wants to be in life.