Tuesday, September 15, 2009

The 183rd good thing about Lagos: Educational signs

In Nigeria, private schools often have colorful painted signs on the walls surrounding their premises.

I like the warning against speaking Pidgin English at this school. The widespread use of pidgin in this country has, in my opinion, had a detrimental effect on the literacy and education of much of the population.


Printed materials in the schools are often limited, so most schools use the blackboard much more than it is used in the States. In this cooking class at this training center for adult women, recipes are written on the blackboard,


as are notes in this nutrition class.



When we were walking through the town of Badagry recently, we passed a school with this painted wall. Notice that they are teaching French as well as English here. I have read many alphabet books to my children and grandchildren over the years, but I don't recall ever having the letter "Y" stand for "Yam," but here in Nigeria, the yam is their staple food, and they get respect (as I have noted earlier).




Next to the festival grounds in Badagry, there was a school and I went wandering over there during one of the speeches. It wasn't much to look at, but it's pretty typical of schools here.





It had children hanging around, wanting their picture taken.

And I really got a chuckle out of this sign posted on the wall: In schools everywhere, praise is a motivating factor, as well as shame!


2 comments:

Saipanlonz said...

Carolee, what is the name of your Ward/Branch? We are thinking of moving to Lagos for work.

Carolee said...

Saipanlonz:
We are currently in Victoria Island ward. There are some ward boundary changes in the works with a new branch announced for Victoria Island and Ikoyi, while the current ward will cover the Lekki area. You can email me with any more questions you may have:
caroleew [at] byu [dot] net. There's a good group of expats LDS members here, and we'd love to have you join us!