Feedback...
One of the things that is drilled into us at our training is the importance of m & e (monitoring and evaluation). After every training session we give out questionnaires about how to improve and follow up on the training. They are supposed to gather the thoughts of the participants and use them to improve our work. But I have yet to receive a questionnaire where someone ticked anything other than the best options. Even the comments are copied from one person to the next.
But then, at the end of the day you get the real feedback! My colleagues reluctantly tell me the various snippets of Hausa conversation that happened during the day. Sometimes its practical stuff – like being gently told that there wasn’t a cats chance in hell of people staying after 1pm on a Friday. And then theres the other stuff – people worried that I must be exhausted (well no one turns up on time so Im trying to decide at what point I should just start without them, and then the refreshements still haven’t turned up 10 mins before break time so Im sneaking in phonecalls as they work, and then if you have 20 people classifying little booklets at least two-thirds of them repeatedly want you to reassure them that theyre on the right path, and then trying to convince adults to make posters on large sheets of cardboard paper for the first time is a battle…) So yeah, I am actually exhausted at the end of it all. And alot more insightful than those pesky forms!
But then, at the end of the day you get the real feedback! My colleagues reluctantly tell me the various snippets of Hausa conversation that happened during the day. Sometimes its practical stuff – like being gently told that there wasn’t a cats chance in hell of people staying after 1pm on a Friday. And then theres the other stuff – people worried that I must be exhausted (well no one turns up on time so Im trying to decide at what point I should just start without them, and then the refreshements still haven’t turned up 10 mins before break time so Im sneaking in phonecalls as they work, and then if you have 20 people classifying little booklets at least two-thirds of them repeatedly want you to reassure them that theyre on the right path, and then trying to convince adults to make posters on large sheets of cardboard paper for the first time is a battle…) So yeah, I am actually exhausted at the end of it all. And alot more insightful than those pesky forms!
<< Home