On Saturday, 11th March 2017, 60 Form 3 students visited Machakos Secondary School for the Deaf. Mr. Muhia, Mr. Haggai and Mr. Githaiga accompanied them. They began their journey at around 8:45 a.m and reached Machakos at around 11:30 a.m.
The Deputy Principal of Machakos Secondary School for the Deaf welcomed the visitors and went ahead to introduce the members of staff present. The Strathmore group went ahead to introduce themselves and further explained the purpose of their visit. Being a school for the deaf, an interpreter was used.
The students were then divided into two groups. The first group was to engage in peer teaching while other group was to have an inter-school debate.
During peer teaching the students of both schools were divided into smaller groups and worked through a mathematics paper. Any student who didn’t understand a certain concept was encouraged to ask questions so that his peers may help him understand. This was the essence of peer teaching.
It was a unique and enjoyable experience for the Strathmore students. One of the students, David Omondi commented: “It is my first time being in a room where there is so much communication yet no sound is being made.”
The debate motion was “City Life or Village Life. Better which?” It was a face-off kind of debate where a student was to give one point to support their stand before allowing the opposer to counter. Village Life emerged victorious.
After the peer teaching and debate the Strathmore students were taught simple sign language such as the alphabet, simple family terms like mother and father, food terms like ugali and fish and the signs for various places like Nairobi and Nakuru. The Kenya sign language session ended at 1:30 pm and the students went for lunch.
The students gathered in the main assembly ground at 1:40 pm for the presentation of the items donated by the students.
After a brief photo session, the students boarded the buses at 2:20 pm and began the journey back to school where they arrived in school at around 4:15 pm.
