Learning through pictures, reflections on building a sustainable LTP program
The LTP Arusha DukeEngage program is part of an effort to build a locally sustainable Literacy Through Photography program within Arusha schools. LTP is not itself a subject, but a teaching tool that can be used within any area of the curricula to enhance critical thinking and improve visual, written and cultural literacy. As we work with teachers and children in Arusha we hope to understand how LTP can best operate within the context of Tanzanian schools—in light of resources, national curricula, and educational reform, such as the call for more participatory teaching methods. As we gain experience and gather information, our time in Arusha is devoted to the main activities of training teachers in LTP’s method of integrating photography and writing, and then collaborating with teachers as they carry out projects in their classrooms. Thus far, the base of LTP trained teachers includes over 50 primary and secondary level teachers, as well as a few professors from Teachers’ Colleges. Last summer alone, DukeEngage students co-led classroom LTP projects with over six hundred students.
Also essential to the program’s eventual sustainability are resources and local leadership. Toward this end, we’ve established and will continue to grow a Teacher Resource Center, which contains cameras, printers, other photographic and art supplies, books, how-to LTP guides, sample photographs, and so on. DukeEngage students have made significant contributions to this Center through impressive fundraising efforts in which they’ve raised thousands of dollars, and through the development of straightforward teaching aides made available in English and Swahili. There is now an Arusha teacher advisory committee, with members who have created innovative LTP projects and begun making decisions about the direction of LTP in Arusha. Also crucially important is the work of Arusha’s local coordinator who, throughout the year, trains new teachers, leads classroom projects and generally oversees the growing Arusha program.
Some Arusha teachers have begun calling LTP “Learning through Pictures”—a great example of teachers making the program their own. (This name speaks to the variety of ways to integrate images—for instance, by using drawings, found photographs, newspaper clippings—in the absence of cameras and/or money for printing photos.) The projects developed last summer attest to LTP’s versatility—Arusha students used photography to explore their dreams, their communities, and science themes such as the five senses, family planning and HIV prevention. Students made self-portraits, visual alphabets, as well as photographic representations of French verbs, and Swahili proverbs. On the very last day of our 2008 program, students’ vast body of work was displayed at a public venue. Hundreds of children attended the opening reception and reflected on their own work with enthusiasm and pride. The event also provided teachers, parents and community leaders the opportunity to peer into students’ imaginations and realities. It may be a few years before we can assess the program’s sustainability, but in the meantime we are certainly learning through pictures.
One of my favorite photographs was taken during the first LTP workshop in Arusha. For the forty teachers involved, this was their first exposure to LTP. One assignment involved making photographs about the theme of community. Working in groups, teachers discussed how they define and experience community. The next step was to use the alphabet as an organizing framework with which to plan photographs representing one specific community in their lives.
With a single camera and a small notebook bearing an alphabetized list of words, a group of ten men set off to photograph their selected community—Arusha’s main market. I followed at their heels as they quickly moved through unfamiliar streets, arriving twenty minutes later, at the market. For me, this experience was enlightening for several reasons.
First was observing the teachers’ mastery of the camera and the assignment. Some of the participating teachers had never used cameras, and most were unfamiliar with the idea using the camera to tell a story. That is, most considered photography a way ‘to show the real thing,’ to create literal, truthful documents of an event/person/object. Furthermore, as we’d explained the assignment it had been difficult to tell whether our directions were clearly understood, since, like the young students in Arusha schools, the teachers respectfully nodded their heads and refrained from asking questions.
As soon as I watched the teachers set up and shoot their first picture in the market, it became obvious how well they understood the assignment’s concept and power. Like this one (G is for Greens) the pictures in their market alphabet are well-framed and dynamic—all the more impressive given that the teachers had only one shot (and the sometimes quirky Polaroid camera) to work with for each letter/concept. The teachers’ photos show the market as one experiences it—colorful, lively, crowded; it features objects like ‘umbrella’ and ‘money,’ as well as actions like ‘choosing,’ ‘quarreling,’ ‘talking,’ and ‘selling.’
The teachers worked together with patience, efficiency and camaraderie. As they wove through the outdoor market’s narrow, congested, serpentine aisles, they stayed together as a team, taking turns operating the camera. As one person asked for permission to photograph a market vendor and/or his or her space, another teacher worked as the group’s scribe, taking notes and crossing out words and photo plans, one by one. This team of teachers took time to explain to their subjects what they were doing and why. They also described the assignment and the way to operate the camera to crowds of curious market-goers, who gathered around to watch the photographers in action and wait as the Polaroid images gradually appeared.
The complicated process of negotiating one’s role as a collaborator, observer, and documentarian seemed to come naturally for these novices. Watching the teachers navigate (and conquer!) this assignment, and then studying the pictures themselves, I thought about my dual role as teacher and learner. I would certainly have made different photographs as an outsider and was moved by what I could see as a result of the teachers’ insider access and viewpoints and the care with which they completed the assignment.
Like the “Greens” market photo, this one pushes and allows me to see more. DukeEngage students helped 7th graders review material related to the skeletal, respiratory, endocrine systems for their upcoming science exams. We wondered how students would make photographs about internal systems they could neither photograph directly nor even see—visual teaching aides are rare and most of students’ information comes from notes copied down from their teachers’ dictation. As in this example, the Arusha students’ pictures reveal creative representations and thoughtful metaphorical connections. This photograph, which is captioned “This picture shows support,” relates to the workings of the skeletal system. Another beautifully envisaged photograph carefully frames two students’ arms extended toward one another; the students are holding hands—a literal and symbolic portrayal of “joint.” These examples showed us how several learning goals were accomplished simultaneously—reviewing for national exams, contextualizing learning and demystifying complicated information and abstract concepts, encouraging critically thinking and infusing learning with creativity and fun.
Although time always seemed too short for the classroom photography projects, the students’ photographs have, nonetheless, made lasting impressions. At the end of our program, DukeEngage students recalled their favorite pictures, remarking, especially, on the children’s energy, commitment, creativity and intentionality. They reflected on how much they’d learned about the students’ lives via the dreams, memories and meanings attached to their pictures.
The exhibition, Literacy Through Photography—Arusha, Tanzania is on display until June 30th, 2009 in the Allen Building, 2nd Floor Gallery. The exhibition features photographs and writings made by Arusha students, as well as images that document the collaborative LTP process. Literacy Through Photography is a program of the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University.