Haiti Focus: The second of four reports on the different types of school in Haiti, by Larry Jerden, UBS photojournalist

Prosperous college teaches lessons about life

Excelsior teacher Ginale Jérõme shows an O-21 book to pupils Josia Jenifer (left) and Sanon Paolor
n Excelsior teacher Ginale Jérõme shows an O-21 book to pupils Josia Jenifer (left) and Sanon Paolor
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti —Excelsior College presents a vivid contrast with Cité Soleil. It, too, is a school for grades from kindergarten to sixth grade, but it is comparatively well-to-do. Visitors are accordingly met by an armed guard standing beside a steel gate and are escorted into a large, air-conditioned office where the supply cupboard is well-stocked with books and paper.

Despite the material contrast, however, the spiritual needs of the two places are the same and the principal of the 530-student school, Marlene Le ne Saison, is equally enthusiastic about the O-21 program.

“I was attracted to it because of its study of the four Gospels,” Ms Saison explained, “but also because of its emphasis on family life.

How to live

“Many families here are divided, so the young people have to rely on the schools to supply this kind of teaching. We have to teach more than mere academic subjects – we have to teach them how to live. The Book of Life curriculum is very helpful and the teachers appreciate it very much.

Questions

“The children ask a lot of questions about life, and many of them are desperate, so when they look in the book and see the material about life, they find it very encouraging. The book asks questions such as what really constitutes success, and how to gain true wisdom.

“Do the students like it? Most like it so much that they buy extra copies for their friends outside school.”
“We have to teach more than mere academic subjects – we have to teach them how to live.”

Ms Saison also says she likes the book for its depiction of black people instead of white. This was one of the changes made to the original materials by the Bible Society in adapting them for Haiti, and the sentiment was echoed by students and teachers alike.

Teacher Ginale Jérõme, who has used the Book of Life for two months in her four Christian education classes, agrees.

“The pictures look like us,” she declares. “We can relate to them. The children can see themselves in them.”

Traditionally, Ms Jérõme has developed her own curriculum aimed at teaching her students what God expects from them and how they should live.

Help

“I try to teach them that they are to give what they receive to other people. Many of them feel this is an important course and these new materials really help.”

The students themselves agree. One teenager named Christine said she was especially touched by the lesson on love.

“It really helped me because in Haiti, people think that love and sex are the same thing,” she explains. “In this book I learned that you can really share love with another person without having sex.”

A girl named Nerlali praises the section on the family. “The book changed the way I think about the family,” she said. “It talks about a family as a father, a mother and children, and how that unit is the basis of society. The family is our responsibility for tomorrow, for the future, because one day we children will become the parents.”

“This book talks a lot about things that interest me – that interest all of us,” says a boy named Josias. “It speaks of things that our parents don’t often discuss with us.”

Another boy, called Andy, adds, “This book is helping us to think in another way. We need to read it often – both adults and children.” (WR 362/25 - 09.01) [PHOTOS]