How past headmasters prepared students for life, not just examinations

My memory of them became forceful whenever former Principal Secretary for Basic Education, Dr Belio Kipsang, entered primary and secondary schools where candidates were sitting their respective national examinations.

The late Mr Raza Mwanzo and Mr John Kinaro of Kivaywa Secondary School and Kakamega High School, respectively, were outstanding leaders who made education meaningful beyond the classroom and the school system.

I remember them for two things.

First, I remember them for steering teachers to teach us with a view to preparing us not for examinations, but for something bigger than examinations: life.

Whenever they appeared for the morning assembly, they always had something to tell us. The things they told us were almost always about public affairs, mentioning either data or personalities involved in the events.

They would connect these issues to our lives in the context of the future. They connected these big issues to our lives by way of advice, example or counsel.

The two heads didn't express any contempt for any subject in the prescribed curriculum or syllabus.

At Kivaywa Secondary School, for example, the only optional subject for students who sat for the Kenya Certificate of Education was Physical Sciences. Schools which offered Physical Science—an integration of Physics and Chemistry—were schools which didn't have facilities for separate laboratories for Physics, Chemistry and Biology.

Otherwise, all students studied English, Kiswahili, Geography, History, Christian Religious Education (CRE), Literature and Biology. We never had any science teacher at Kivaywa Secondary School belittling arts-oriented subjects to dissuade students with some level of aptitude in the sciences.

I don't remember either of the two heads patronising the teachers who taught us. We detected mutual respect between the headteachers and the teachers. Teachers went about their duties without being corralled around.

The second feature I clearly remember is the way the headteachers behaved at the onset of the national examinations. They looked calm and collected.

Why did they look composed during this period? I think it was for two reasons.

The first reason was that the late Mwanzo and the late Kinaro had, in the four years leading to the examinations, provided strong instructional leadership that supported the development of teaching and learning, even as they provided equally strong administrative leadership to the school community.

Sound instructional leadership helps teachers and instructors achieve individual and collective goals. Mwanzo and Kinaro provided flawlessly able management of curricula, school finances and delegation of duties and roles to teachers and non-teaching staff. Management ensured that school responsibilities were shared equitably. Teachers didn't get embroiled in school finances and other things with little connection to teaching.

With this kind of teaching and learning environment, the workflow was flawless. Teachers taught us without discernible constraints. We learned without constraints either.

We, the students, were relaxed with the approach of the examinations. This is because we had had an educational experience where teachers had exposed us, through appropriate pedagogies, to a body of content knowledge, skills and other capabilities that ably prepared us for the examinations.

I recall that the third term was a more relaxed term. Not that the previous terms in the school calendar were tense. We started official class or instructional hours at 8.00am and ended them at 3.30pm each school day. We held our own self-directed learning, otherwise called preps in educational jargon, from 7.00am and ended them at 9.00pm each day of the week.

The teaching and learning environment empowered not just the teachers, but also us, the students.

Former US Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare under President Lyndon Johnson, John W. Gardner, observed: “The ultimate goal of the educational system is to shift to the individual the burden of pursuing his own education. This will not be a widely shared pursuit until we get over our odd conviction that education is what goes on in school buildings and nowhere else.”

I don't know whether my two great headmasters were acquainted with the US statesman. They nevertheless separately created an environment that gave students the freedom to take charge of their education.

This is why the students, including yours truly, never panicked at the approach of either the national examinations during the third term of the school calendar or during Mock—which was administered only once—during the second term.

Perhaps the most important reason Mwanzo and Kinaro were composed during the examination period was that they didn't allow other interests, other than developing the innate powers of the learners, to interfere with their thinking.

They knew that they had been given an opportunity to nurture the minds of the learners to the best extent possible. Their job was to expose the learners to the knowledge, skills, attitudes, values and habits of thinking that society desires.

Clearly, the two headmasters appreciated the basic function of examinations—to test or assess the capacity of the individual learner or candidate to master and apply the knowledge and repertoire of skills that the school curriculum prescribes.

They understood the trust: to coordinate the teaching and learning of the learners and thereafter present them for assessment without interfering with the administration of the examinations.

Beyond creating a favourable environment for the students to undertake the examinations, they went about their duties normally. The schools remained in session, unlike today. Everybody knows the schools are closed, except for the candidates' class.

Nevertheless, Mwanzo and Kinaro didn't look like they were competing against fellow headteachers in other schools, nor did they demonstrate that they were after other interests unknown to the students.

They calmly conducted the affairs of their respective schools with the utmost integrity. They calmly implemented the curriculum and equally calmly managed the national examinations.