HEAL’s mission of forming indigent youth into future Servant Leader Saints depends on quality education. But, handing on and acquiring knowledge is a struggle even for the best teachers and students.
Any method that facilitates learning is worth adopting. I recall how I would quickly forget a person’s name right after meeting him. Thankfully, I learned a way to remember a person’s name by associating it with a word it rhymed with or with a famous person of the same name.
In my most recent trip to Nigeria, BOMCA students welcomed me by performing a series of group skits to showcase their learning. In each skit, 3 or 4 students took turns reciting different aspects of an academic subject.
Their confident expression of knowledge as a team, with each student contributing their part, greatly impressed me. This learning and presentation of knowledge as a team defines HEAL’s academic formation program.
Innocent, an SS-3 (12th grade) teacher, describes the practice of dividing students into teams of 2 or 3 and assigning each team a topic. Each team member then writes the assigned topic on a notepad followed by a bullet point list of sentences, each of which elaborates on the topic.
Then, each student passes his or her notebook to a teammate, who expands on the original set of sentences by adding their own. This cycle continues until the team has nothing left to write on its assigned topic.
Innocent explains, “After every team of students has exhausted their input on a subject, the teacher takes their notebooks and reads aloud the answers that most resemble the teacher’s class notes.”
Happily, team learning has borne academic fruit. In 2024, BOMCA Academy graduated 77 primary and secondary students. And, in recently available national exam scores, a large majority of senior secondary students who took the exam passed mathematics and chemistry with distinction!
But, perpetuating the fruits of team learning as a central part of HEAL’s formation program for poor rural village children depends on YOUR support of our heroic teachers, who continue to serve in spite of economic hardships.
Rev. Leo Okonkwo says, “May our teachers, by their example of self-emptying service in forming children into future Servant Leaders, inspire HEAL followers to be good stewards of their God-given resources in solidarity with our transformative mission.”
Just as our students are growing and achieving through team learning, HEAL must grow and achieve through team giving.
So, please prayerfully consider joining “team HEAL” today with your best one-time or monthly gift on behalf of God’s less fortunate children!