INTRODUCTION OF LIFELONG LEARNING:
I am Samuel Imma Romano, born
in January 1957 to the family of Romano Mangwi in Limi Boma of Kajo-Keji
country / central Equatoria /South Sudan. My parents don’t remember the date I was
born, but would recall only the month, by reflecting Christmas festival
occasion and taking note of the next following month in which I was born and the
first month of the year is always worldwide marked by celebration of the first
day of the year. In our traditions, these two days are remembered by every person.
The third day to be celebrated if resources are available will be the birth
day.
Clan and
recognition of birth day
I was born a Sudanese and
Sera by clan. In 1957 – but before that,
1955 was remembered nationwide because that was the year South Sudanese (Africans)
mutinied against the Khartoum (Arabs) government in Torit town of Eastern
Equatoria State in which very many northern Sudan (Arabs) Traders and government army were gunned down and their
properties looted. My parents related the story and told me that I am the fourth child born to this family two
years after this mutiny; this assumption was taken into consideration and later
on the process my assessing my age to obtain the birth certificate; the year 1957 was approved and became year that I was born .
The government authorities
usually assess people who don’t know the birth day certificates to January 1st
of every year. Therefore I have to be assessed to 1st January 1957.
But after successful secession on 9th July 2011, South Sudan became
an Independent nation and I became a South Sudanese and Sera by clan.
“War” a destructive fare
As a child, I would not
actually much feel the effect and dangers of war until the age of seven years
old, I began feeling the war effects and that was in 1964 when the war intensified
and reached the rural villages of Kajo-Keji where I live and all the population
there were driven to the forest. Forest is that hiding thin bush with tall
trees; but bush is mainly used by rivals.
I begin to witness major
events that were happening. In one of the days we ran deep into the forest and
slept in a cave where throughout the night we were frightened by wild animals.
I would remember it was by then raining and the night was very dark indeed.
MY CHILDHOOD LIFE EXPERIENCE
Of course, as a child; most
of the events were related by mother and father that concern customs and
traditions, I was taken bath after my amplicord had is worn out. This is a
traditional principle for medical care, considering that when cold water is
applied for bathing the new born baby, it can get affected by pneumonia.
Therefore the baby should only be clean with a cloth dampened in lulu oil for a
period from birth to the third or fourth day.
Naming of this new baby is
always ceremonial and for a baby girl, this takes place on the third day of her
fourth and for baby boy is celebrated on the third day; this is according to
sera clan. It differs from one community to other community; but in sera clan;
the baby boy must be brought out earlier because god created man first and
women follow, secondly, sera believed that man should go first to clear the
garden before the woman get to weed the weeds and sometimes during the war
eras; our community believe that baby boy should be brought out earlier to
prepare him to take victory in the front battles.
When I was born, it two days,
the third day was celebrated with a lot of traditional beer, food and puddings.
I was name Imma – meaning “Try” and my mother gave me the name to signify their
close love that integrated the two clans of sera and moipi as one family. The
occasion was marked by colorful traditional dances which included kore and bula
dance which are meant for peace celebrations like the birthday, wedding,
Christmas and New Year day celebrations
Mammy told me that, the year
that I was born was famine era due to ongoing wars and making me to grow
malnourished with poor health and contributed to slow beginning to crawl and
walk; but able to hope up with active listening and getting meaning of signs;
for example calling water (maa), food or something to eat (nyanya) etc. mammy
taught me these before getting up to walk.
After getting up and walk, I
began an important environment getting interest to get attractive elements at
the surrounding for myself, but without knowing the safe and harmful ones. In
one of the day; I got burnt because of catching a fire, I got attracted to the
lightening without knowing it was burning. My mother have to tie for me a
joggle bell in order to monitor my movement; I am quite sure, because of long
stay on the ground without walk due to the malnutrition, I was now feeling
cheated by other peers. So mother sometimes gives me a gourd filled with small
aggregates to play with and this avoids me to go away and play in a confine
area.
After getting stronger, I
began to join other peers to practice running and this becomes the point of
getting new environment with new members; who I sometimes dislike them for
rivaling and I had to accepting eating using my own hands. Before that mammy
would instruct me to eating using my own right hand, but sometimes I cry since
my right hand would not scoop enough food for quick satisfaction. So with the
peer, I cannot now submit my complaint to anybody but to learn eating with my
own hand. I got acquainted to eat with my peers started to spent considerable
time with this group without thinking of mammy.
Now my parents would go far
and last long in the garden, provide d that porridge is left for us to eat and
we would now enjoy playing games such as building model huts, hunting
butterflies, lizards and sometimes birds; football etc. the best favorite game
I like is building model huts. I prefer this game because, it has no rivaling,
pushing which result to fighting. Since building hut practice require
individual gathering of materials, setting individual work area and rivaling
and land grabbing is ever there practice.
We were guided by other
elderly children, but still as kids, we fight against each in certain demands
for example, singing songs, one may say the song is his and other may say it is
mine and here it develop rivaling and fighting arise. As some kids, these
differences erase away in our mine quickly and begin to enjoy the play.
In the building desire, I
develop the interest of becoming experience builder, my work was to gather
cassava and sorghum stock and try to fix them to make a hut; for the first time
it was not possible to make these materials stand firm, frequently falling
down, making to the extent of crying; discouraging my desire, making me to
dislike the practice.
One day I ask one of the
elderly children to show me how he fixed his cassava stock to stand firm and
after showing the ways through he managed to make his work successful. I tried
in the same way and fix them to stand firm; it stood firm and until the
following day, I could still mine hut standing. I was very happy and excited to
see it again standing; I would not allow somebody to move near my hut; avoiding
them in dismantling the work I have made. I practice for a week and become
skillful in working exactly like them. The challenges was when they ask me
about the number of holes that I have dug for the cassava stock to be fix, I
could not know; counting was a problem with me. What my mammy told me were the
major parts of mine like the eye, mouth, ear, tongue, nose, hand, leg etc.
these were told to know them, I am sometimes ask questions such as “what did
you use for seeing? Eating? Hearing? And
so on, here I caught these parts as my important useful parts of the body.
My mammy would tell me to
wash my eyes, nose, and mouth and clean my tongue before eating and one day I
asked her why do you instruct to wash my eyes, nose, and mouth and clean my
tongue before eating mammy? She replied me that food may be enjoyable when
those human body parts are not clean and may cause stomach pain and vomiting.
But she doesn’t know about hygiene or malaria and maybe she is sure that I may
not know about hygiene and malaria.
My father dug a small hole
and instructed me to excrete inside it when I feel excreta coming and clean my
buttocks before pulling back my pair of short trouser. I should not go and
excrete in an open area and leave flies to grumble over these excreta.
It was exactly this moment my
father would request me to go with him to the take bath at the nearby stream;
on our way he use to show me a lot of trees with names and areas which are near
within our family; he would first ask me a question – do you know this type of
a tree? Have you seen it one day? Or did you know that area? Pointing to the
direction of the village or area and I would simply answer “No I don’t know or
I have not seen this tree before” I think he might have realized the instinct
potential developing around my understanding. As we continue to go to bath with
him in the stream, he often show to me different types of trees such as kumi,
kuwi, bio and kite those are with eatable fruits and burluto, kiret (mahogany)
babanusa, kokobo (ebony) and kiriyo(bamboos) are trees suitable for building
purposes. The fibers include tora (local sisal), terat and others are used for
tying together the materials
Our buildings are renovated
every after two years and when renovation time comes, my father would give use
assignments, either uprooting the damaged poles which were destroyed by
termites or splitting fibers for tying or thatching grass. I observe their work
especially when tying or thatching grass; the skills that they apply and the
measurements especially the normal height of the poles and the size of the
grass bundles; the skills for splitting the bamboos which he said, it should
begin from the eyes (an area which emerge the branch from). I developed those
skills gradually while taking first observation as the first step and trial and
error second step. After several practice together with my father and peer, I
became a skillful person in building and renovation skill practice.
Other skills that my father
shown to me was setting and building granary which is built using either split
bamboos; granary is a silo built to store grains and other food item harvested
from the farm or garden. It is a circular wall set to a diameter ranging from
60 – 120 cm with its height from 75 – 100cm. normally the vertical props are
set of an odd number to allow correct opposite lapsing in order to confine
together the props. These techniques and skills are traditional very important;
in our communities customs, if you are preparing for an official marriage, the
first step is to build a granary for your parent’s laws and without knowing
these skills, it will be impossible for approval of the marriage by the parents
of the lady as you have not fulfil the first condition for an official
marriage
Of course, childhood life was
not so comfortable; there were activities that not continued in practice as
time goes and others were improved and redevelop. Practices which were immoral
or wicked such as insults, giving names,
abused, fight, stealing, raping were discouraged; I personally had not taken
step is applying them other than by observation I carried out observing other
children stealing, abusing, insulting and we of course fought due to rivaling
issues. We rival of building materials which my friend claim to have seen the
materials first and I also claim the same and we fought.
Another stage of environment
was when we were practicing smoking, drinking and dancing; this stage developed
unwanted habits and this habits develop due to influence of either drinking or
smoking. With my peers once we have taken alcohol, we became drunk and decide
to go for dancing and there will be confrontation with young girls of our age.
With the influence of drinks, our style of dancing may be not morally
acceptable; then misunderstanding arose between us and the girls. As time
passed, parents begin discouraging this habit and shown us how to behave and have
a better future; giving us several examples of those youth who went drinking
and were ruined and those who stopped drinking and become responsible and
recognized personal. I decided to abandon this style of life and continue to
live a sober life. Although in other ceremonial occasions, children could be
offered alcoholic beverages to drink, I would only take the soft beverage. As life pass, passing through adventures, with
the parents, individually and with peers working in the garden, building sites
and hunting. I develop competencies and
become skilful person and yet other skills need improvement and invasion of new
skills.
Consequences of war
For the first time to be told
by my father about wild animals; I have seen them and identified them, they resemble
sheep, but with hairy long tails and broad necks; my father later told me that
these are the wild animal known as lion and saying that a lion is a dangerous animals
that can kill and eat people. During that night my eyes would not sleep and the
same with my parents have never slept throughout the night keeping the fire
lighting to prevent these animals from moving near us and kept on throwing
stones to dislodge them from attacking us. Due to this war the schools were
closed, social gathering were banned and every gathering made by infants were
restricted and this has forced the village youths to move to the urban towns or
major cities like Khartoum and Kampala. On one occasion, my father was
arrested, accused of collaborating with those in the bush (freedom fighter) and
later on released after spending 48 hours in detention cell.
Although war was ongoing,
cultivation was being carried on in the gardens, rearing exists and as a child;
I could dig only very small area. In the other day, I remember, I hurt by young
brother on the head with a hoe and was serious beaten by my father. He had to show to me how to use the hoe and
demonstrated how to lift up the hoe to avoid further accidents and ordered us
to dig at least a direct apart to avoid accident occurring. The war made me not to be enrolling
to school at the age of 5years as expected; until I was seven years old.
Although we attend to class teachings; yet learning was not regular as rumors
frequently interrupt the learning process.
Informal
learning / the social learning
John Dewey wrote in his book – “Democracy and Education” quote “A
being whose activities are associated with others has a social environment.
What he does and what he can do depends upon the expectations, demands,
approval, and condemnation of others. A being connected with other being cannot
perform his own activities without taking the activities of others into
account.
During my activities in the
garden, cattle keeping and hunting, I have learned a lot, working together with
peers, age – mate teams and imitating other activities from the elders- this
learning here means acquisition of what already is incorporated in books and in
the heads of the elders. e.g. how to prepare an area for cultivation, cutting
trees and bushes down and burning them, heaping the big stones in one place or
forming steps to protect soil erosion and getting advise to dig a distant apart
to avoid injuring one another. Yet as a child, I would not manage to cut down
those big trees, but with observation method, I would yet learn the ways how
the other youth handle the cutting tools and working together with the peers
enables learn the skills of felling down all the big trees and finally acquired
the technic of cutting
During hunting, shooting arrows
anyhow were prohibited; unless you see to it that your colleagues are not in
that direction that the arrows are travelling. Throwing big stones on domestic animals
are not allowed and when practicing building huts, cutting or skinning fibers
should be carefully done to avoid cutting yourself with the knife or cutting
tool.
Gradually I was able to learn
skills that had enable me to build huts, cultivate very big gardens, planting
varieties of food and cash crops and acquired tactics of hunting for example
how to trace out animals in the thick forest.
I began getting experiences
in those skills mentioned above and manage to grew up responsible, although
very many challenges were encountered during the process, among others
incidences of hurting mates during the process of learning how to dig, killing
calves (young cow) accidently due to throwing them with big stones, injuring
colleagues when skinning animals etc. and through these poor workmanship
events, I learnt a lot from it and became a skilled family housing figure.
John Dewey in his final account in the book title “Democracy and
Education” – Education and communication – wrote, quote “not only does social
life demand teaching and learning for its own permanence, but the very process
of living together educates. It enlarges and enlightens experience; it
stimulates and enriches imaginations; it creates responsibility for accuracy
and vividness of statement and thought. A man really living alone (alone
mentally as well as physically) would have little or no occasion to reflect
upon his past experience to extract its net meaning. The inequality of
achievement between the mature and the immature not only necessitates teaching
the young, but the necessity of this teaching gives an immense stimulus to
reducing experience to that order and form which will render it most easily
communicable and hence most usable”.
Together with the learning
earned from the informal learning and the knowledge taught in the class and
demonstrated by practices; basically I began to get experiences in taking
responsibility as a gentleman who would share experiences together in team
work, maintaining the informal knowledge and skills and improving it with what
is acquired during the formal learning; For example helping parents in the
family housing, working closely with the age-mate teams, at schools with
colleagues, paying respect to teachers and the school administration.
Culture
John Dewey in his book “Democracy and Education” the nature and
meaning of environment wrote, quote –“Beliefs and aspirations cannot be
physically extracted and inserted – “the question is how then, are they
communicated? Given the impossibility of direct contagion or literal
inculcation, our problem is to discover the method by which the young
assimilate the point of view of the old, or the older bring the young into
like-mindedness with themselves – the answer, in general formulation is by means
of action of environment in calling out certain responses. The required beliefs
cannot be hammered in; the needed attitudes cannot be plastered on. But the
particular medium in which an individual exists leads him to see and feel one
thing rather than other, it leads him to have certain plans in order that may
act successfully with others, it strengthens some beliefs and weaken others as
a condition of winning the approval of others. Thus it gradually produces in
him a certain system of behaviors, a certain deposition of action. The word
environment, medium denote something more than surroundings which encompass and
individual. They denote the specific continuity of the surroundings with his
own active tendencies”.
I would still remember that
in my culture; a person who has no skills in building a hut, digging in the
garden , dancing and singing his/her native language songs and given other
names and always degraded in any gathering. Considered of no value and
sometimes girls would not entertain your talks and marriage may be difficult
for you to achieve. These traditions and culture has encouraged me to play a
role in the garden, cattle keeping, building skills and in social gatherings to
enable me have these values.
Courtship and marriage
I married an active lady,
hardworking and cooperating to her parents in laws, although she has not gone
to school. Within few months my life was change and began knowing the
importance of a wife and the contribution the wife could inject to the family.
Our first born child was in 1984; I realized that staying as single person in
our culture has great consequences. Although mistrusted sometimes do occur
between couples but it is always being down played by the children born; they
improve you and minimize your differences.
Relationship
The relationship expanded
after I had married – that, having parents in law, sisters in law, brothers in
law and etc. With the cordial life in the
family, many friends visit our family and contributed in sharing the cordial family
life. The challenges were lack of resources for welcoming frequent visitors and
we always struggle to look for resources. Secondly the children have no enough
resources for their social life, education, medical care etc. due to poverty
which has penetrated deep into the family. But with cooperation between me and
my wife, we were able to find solutions to our family problem and this created
peace and freedom in which we continue to stay well and continue to pursue with
my studies and on-the job training.
Formal /organized learning
In the formal learning, other
languages were taught, like English, French, Arabic and mathematics, geography,
reading and writing etc. which built up the capacity and encourages me to
participate in building construction course and become a builder. As a trained
builder, I acquired knowledge and skills for investigating to soil texture,
working on foundations, floors, walls, concrete slab roofs, general wall
finishes etc. and although these knowledge and skills I acquired helped me a
lot; still I incurred mistakes in other occasions.
Reflection of weakness - I
would remember, one day, I have wrongly admitted a cement ratio which was wrong
and caused a building to collapse. Casting a beam supposed to take concrete
ratio 1:2:4 (one part of cement to two parts of sand and four parts of crushed
stones) but the client ordered me to change the ratio to 1:2:6 (one part of
cement to two parts of sand and six parts of crushed stones). Due to wide span
of windows and doors; and heavy walls above the span caused the wall to
collapse. This mistake that happened would not be forgotten because it has
degraded my reputations and charged me to maintain the wall in my own expenses.
It has also given me an experience and wide knowledge for determining accurate
and correct ratios that could stabilize and correct stability of a building
foundation in any type of subsoil.
On-the job training /industrial practice
Now as a learnt person, a teacher
and at the same time experience parent; I have to move through various
activities and this activities requires knowledge and skills within their
various fields- management of the family, roles of teaching and management of a
class and skills for demonstrating and giving instructions in the workshop; and
learning as a student in the college. These activities or tasks become on-the
job training as its basics has theoretically and practically been learned. I
would experience challenges because it looks as I am serving some many masters
at one time or throwing two birds with one stone. The advantage of the on-job
training is to acquire experiences in managing family, abilities of values of
resolving disputes and creative, innovative for both family and community
issues; as an experience will be working with less supervision.
ANALYSIS:
LEARNING - learning means acquisition of new ideas, feelings and things can
be learn different ways – this learning can be informal or formal. Informal
learning begins right during birth; a child once given birth, this child can
immediately feel a new environment and begins to cry very loudly and this is an
indication that he/she has join another world environment. Therefore the child
has to start learning new events by feeling, observation, touching and breastfeeding
sources.
The mother comes in
diligently with lovely smiles, talking to her new born, although at the moment,
the child cannot talk but the concept of love and gratitude makes her to begin
developing hope that eventually the child need to learn. The child can cry when
taken bath with cold water; this indicates that feeling has taken action and
directed the child to cry because the body had felt very cold water is applied on his/her body. When the
child is breastfeeding and milk would not satisfy her/his needs, she/he cries
and this reveals that the milk is not satisfying the needs of the child.
When I was born, I started to
learn the world through feeling, observation, touching and sucking (breastfeeding);
and assisted by my mammy who continuously cared for me, talking to me. The
environment is also one of the learning ways, the environment directs the
instinct of a person to act according to the situation and actions practice
within the peer groups. From childhood, youth hood, and adulthood, through
learning from the parents, environment and peers and experience various
competences. Other competences are recurrent (traditionally inherited) and
others are incorporated (assimilated) from neighboring communities through
intermarriages and others are environmentally integrated.
EXPERIENCE – when frequent activities happens and continue to acted upon,
experiences are acquired and other experience are compulsory assimilated, for
example those actions which are conditional and environmental – like annual
maintenance of buildings carried out in Malakal due the climate situation
caused by the poor type of soil and materials found within the vicinity.
Experiences also can be
acquired through observation, feeling, and touching; but gradually through
growth, they are translated into actions and sometimes these actions are
assimilated from the surrounding that it has become a habitual part of our
mental and moral make-up. But similar experiences in other environment have
different meaning and conclusion depending on beliefs and moral forms of social
life.
John Dewey further defined Experience as “Sound educational experience involves, above all, continuity and
interaction between the learner and what is learned.”
CONTINUITY – in this context, learning, experience and continuity of learning
and experience depends on the way of judgment of the habit. Basically every
experience is enacted and undergone modifies the one who acts and goes, while
this refinement affects, whether it is like or dislike, the quality of
subsequent experience.
Summarily – continuity of experience
means that every experience both takes up something from those which have gone
before and modifies in some way the quality of those which come later. Therefore,
things learned by feeling, observation, touching are later replaced by their
condition experienced during the action taken through demonstrating upon it and
acquire its theory of practice that gradually refined to competences and this
happens as time goes, developing it physically, intellectually and morally.
REFLECTION
LEARNING – is a compulsory activity
that every person born alive undergoes the learning process. Knowledge can be
acquired in different ways and avenues and any knowledge learnt has purpose. In
my long-life journey, I started feeling the environment from childbirth that I
am already in a different world that requires talking/crying depending upon the
sensory feeling, observation, touching and feeding/sucking. Through the
presences of my parents (mother and father) interactions and utilization of the
surrounding (environment); I developed experiences that continued to open up
new environment for subsequent learning as I stated earlier and become a
confident and competent experience builder and family man.
John Dewey wrote in his
literature book title “Experience and Education” quote - “Learning is define here as means acquisition of what already is
incorporated in books and in the heads of the elders, moreover, that which is
taught is thought of as essentially static. It is taught as a finished product,
with little regard either to the ways in which it was originally built up or to
changes that will surely occur in the future.”
EXPERIENCE – Experience motivates /influences the desire and new environment.
Experience is considered a moving force and encourages continuity of work. The
valve of experience can be judge on the ground of the process procedure (means)
and the product (ends).
John Dewey wrote – quote, “moreover, every experience influences in
some degree the objective conditions under which further experiences are had.
For example, a child who learns to speak has a new facility and new desire. But
he has also widened the external conditions of subsequent learning. When he
learns to read, he similarly opens up a new environment
Oh the other hand, if an experience arouses curiosity, strengthens
initiative and sets up desires and purposes that are sufficiently intense to
carry a person over dead places in the future, continuity works in a very
different way. Every experience is a moving force. Its valve can be judged only
on the ground of what it moves toward and into. The greater maturity of
experience which should belong to the adult as educator puts him in a position
to evaluate each experience of the young in way in which the one having the
less mature experience cannot do.”
CONTINUITY – Continuity of activities
justifies existing practice which involves habit desires and promotes greater
maturity of experience. I continued to learn, practice and demonstrates the
skills through improvement of them; and develop competencies that continue to
improve.
John Dewey wrote “Above all they should know to utilize the
surroundings, physical and social, that exist so as to extract from them all
that they have to contribute to building up experiences that are worthwhile”.
Again John Dewey express in
point of the means and goal for granted the sound- ness of the principle
that education in order to accomplish its ends both for the individual learner
and for society must be based upon experience--which is always the actual
life-experience of some individual. This meaning that the continuity of the
past to the present pave means for the future (ends); and it is the continuity.
Dewey wrote again Quote “The educational system must move
one way or another, either backward to the intellectual and moral standards of
a pre-scientific age or forward to ever greater utilization of scientific
method in the development of the possibilities of growing, expanding experience.
I have but endeavored to point out some of the conditions, which must be
satisfactorily fulfilled if education takes the latter course.
I would rather emphasize that learning begins
from child birth and continue to exist until the day of the death and learning,
experience and continuity are integrated or embodied when accomplish qualify a
person to become experience professional
human being. Here learning is of course education and Dr. Dewey interprets education as the scientific method by means of
which man studies the world, acquires cumulatively knowledge of meanings and
values, these outcomes, however, being data for critical study and intelligent
living. The tendency of scientific inquiry is toward a body of knowledge which
needs to be understood as the means whereby further inquiry may be directed.
Hence the scientist, instead of confining his investigation to problems as they
are discovered, proceeds to study the nature of problems, their age,
conditions, significance. To this end he may need to review related stores of
knowledge.
It is
this concept of learning to become a confident person translated to the current
imposed learning which outside imposed knowledge is impact to a person; the
knowledge which has no various existing foundation that can be reflected. Both
learning has the same quality or values when they are taken into consideration,
their merit are the same. Therefore, through interactions with my
parents (mother and father) peers, school mates, environment and the objects; I
developed experiences that continued to open up new avenues and environment for
subsequent learning as I stated earlier and become a confident and competent
experience builder and family man.
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