26110: Fouche: (reply -- ask) Re: 26099: Morse (ask) Re: 26075: Jrigdon: (reply) Re: Walton (Discuss) RE: 26021: JRig (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: "[ISO-8859-1] Rachel Fouché" <rfouche@verizon.net>

Richard, could you expand upon this observation on developing educational texts 
for Haitian children?  Are you speaking of books/materials that are merely 
translated from European stories versus books/materials that receive their 
inspiration from Haitian (African) folklore?  I have been thinking of creating 
a coloring book to distribute to children during medical clinics that my uncle 
runs near Milot every year, and I would like to hear your opinion on the 
matter.

Initially, I was thinking of taking pictures from other coloring books and just 
translating  whatever text that appeared on the pages, but then it occurred to 
me to put a little more work into the matter and develop the coloring books 
from stories from The Magic Orange Tree and Harold Courlander's study on 
Haitian folktales.

Another problem occurred to me at that point, which was how to develop written 
language acquisition for Haitian children when their parents may be 
functionally or totally illiterate.  That brought me to think about developing 
a flashcard system that could be used by both parent and child with the parent 
leading the instruction as a form of early childhood learning (being a US-born 
child of middle class Haitian parents, I know that Haitian parents strongly 
believe in education -- but parental interaction in school-based learning 
oftentimes is deferred to teachers or those having a "greater intellectual 
standing" than the parents).

Thanks in advance for your two cents!

Rachel Fouché