Try teaching 95 children in a room for 40. That is how it was in Ethiopia when I first came in 2003. I visited primary schools in Hosanna, a rural town 240 Kilometers south of the capitol Addis Ababa. The largest primary school, Alemu Woldehanna Primary School, had 4,524 students, of courses in 2 shifts. I even saw a first grade classroom with 163 children. They were sitting in the aisles, standing in the back and 6 in a bench for 4, lucky they were small. Teachers in grades 1 to 4 had 10th…

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Try teaching 95 children in a room for 40. That is how it was in Ethiopia when I first came in 2003. I visited primary schools in Hosanna, a rural town 240 Kilometers south of the capitol Addis Ababa. The largest primary school, Alemu Woldehanna Primary School, had 4,524 students, of courses in 2 shifts. I even saw a first grade classroom with 163 children. They were sitting in the aisles, standing in the back and 6 in a bench for 4, lucky they were small. Teachers in grades 1 to 4 had 10th…

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Friends,

I have decided to go to Ethiopia to spend the year working on improving reading in the primary grades. This has always been my passion and it is one important reason I have been working for years on building the library and sending books there) through h2 Empower (www.h2empower.org). It is essential that children learn to read. Then they can ask questions and find ways to solve themselves, become critical thinkers and lovers of learning. But… Continue