Features
Research Turns Personal for Prof
Munsch, hokey-pokey useful teaching tools for historian
BY ANDREW VOWLES
What do Robert Munsch, the hokey-pokey and pioneer social activist Eglantyne Jebb have in common? Everything — at least to history professor Linda Mahood. For her, this unique trio is forever linked by a life-changing experience of teaching English to elementary teachers in Vietnam this summer.
It's a journey that really started 10 years ago when Mahood embarked on an ambitious project: writing about the life and times of Jebb, the woman who in 1919 started the renowned non-governmental organization Save the Children and wrote the Declaration of the Rights of the Child.
Jebb, who was born in 1876, inspired women of her generation and beyond to engage in volunteerism and philanthropy, especially when it came to helping children. She believed children everywhere should be entitled to basic rights such as nutrition, health care, education and relief in time of war — a novel idea in the aftermath of the First World War.
Mahood was drawn to researching and writing about Jebb because of her own academic interests in child welfare issues of the 19th and 20th centuries. So she started working on a biography.
But over the years, the project ballooned into a history of feminism, volunteerism and social activism, a path Jebb helped pave, which intrigued the Guelph historian.
"I spent almost a decade reading and writing about women who spent their lives as volunteers," says Mahood. "I always said that when I was finished, it would be my turn to do something."
She shipped the book off to the printer in July and was soon boarding a plane for Vietnam as part of Guelph's Leave for Change program. Run through Uniterra, Leave for Change allows a limited number of qualified employees from participating organizations to transform their holidays into short international assignments where they help with humanitarian aid projects.
"It was a nice way to wrap up a deeply personal research project," says Mahood, who signed up for the program in the spring as soon as she was finished writing Feminism and Voluntary Action: Eglantyne Jebb and Save the Children, 1876-1928, which was just published by Palgrave.
Her assignment was to teach English to elementary teachers in Hai Duong, a town in northern Vietnam. Before heading overseas, she enrolled in a program to become a certified English-as-a-second-language teacher and earned a diploma in early childhood education.
"That was the first good call I made, or so I thought," she says. "The second was to bring along a Robert Munsch book."
Before leaving Guelph, Mahood bought 50 copies of Munsch's best-known children's book, Love You Forever, at a dollar store. She thought having a children's book she could teach the teachers to read to their classes would be helpful, and she thought Munsch's story about unconditional love would have universal appeal.
It turned out to be a wise move. Once she got to Vietnam, she discovered that what the teachers really wanted to learn were children's songs, stories and games they could use to help boost their students' English skills.
"All that ESL ‘theory' stuff went out the window," she says.
Luckily, Mahood had spent many summers as a Y camp counsellor and had a bevy of fun tunes in her memory bank, including The Hokey- Pokey, B-I-N-G-O and Farmer in the Dell. "I spent hours every night in my room downloading audio links to the songs."
Teaching such active songs meant doing her own little performances for the Vietnamese teachers, who were a reserved bunch of learners at first, she says. The first time she sang The Hokey-Pokey for them, she felt self-conscious about standing in front of the group doing the arm and leg movements.
"When I looked up, there were 40 cellphones pointed at me filming me dancing. They wanted to learn it."
At first, the teachers were shy about singing out loud and dancing in front of others, says Mahood. "But once they relaxed, it was wonderful. I don't think I realized until then the power of song." They mastered The Hokey-Pokey, even performing it at a closing Leave for Change ceremony for ministry of education dignitaries.
Love You Forever went over just as well. The book's theme of the lifelong bond between parent and child struck a chord with the teachers, most of whom were young parents.
"Family is very important in Vietnam," says Mahood. "They loved the book and they loved the lullaby in it. We practised it over and over. It was beautiful, really moving."
While she was halfway around the world, she found herself thinking of Jebb from time to time because the activist had also taught primary school.
"I had a few: ‘What would Eglantyne do?' moments. I thought a lot about all teachers' determination to become better teachers, to empower their students through knowledge. I also thought about Eglantyne's lobbying for all children to have basic human rights, regardless of race, religion or nationality, and about Save the Children's foundational commitment to capacity building, which is the central goal of Leave for Change.
Ninety years ago, Eglantyne really paved the way for other hands-on female activists, and it was an honour to try to put some of her policies into practice."