Year-long Senegalese Classroom Experiences: From Baobabs to Fanals to Graffiti
- Katy Wheelock
- Apr 1
- 6 min read
Updated: Apr 3
It's my pleasure to share this guest blog post by Emily Greif, a French teacher at a Reggio-Emilia-inspired elementary school in Washington, DC Public Schools. Her creativity in designing engaging instruction in French for a year based on Senegal is inspirational. Enjoy!
Bonjour! I’m honored to share my story via this blog for Vive l’expérience, particularly given how impactful my travel with Vive has been in all aspects of my life. When I traveled with Vive to Senegal during the summer of 2024, I was preparing to begin my 10th year teaching at School-Within-School (SWS) in DC; I was eager for my first trip to Africa and to bring my learning experiences directly to my students. As I will soon describe further, each year, our school focuses on a different Francophone country, and the upcoming year’s focus on Senegal promised to be more impactful than ever. I simply did not know how transformative it would be for both my students and me. In this post, I’ll share some of the lessons and connections created and enhanced by my Senegalese travel with Vive l’expérience.
The practice of holding a school-wide election to select the following year’s Francophone country of study started in the spring of 2017. After two years of teaching at the elementary level and building new curriculum suited to this age group, I knew it was time to bring in something new, a way to invigorate the teaching and learning each year and to ensure I didn’t continue teaching as I’d been taught: with a strictly France-centric focus in all areas. Having grown up in Idaho and attended both undergraduate and graduate universities in Washington State, virtually all of my cultural learning experiences were related to France itself, with the occasional Québecois reference. Following the U.S. Presidential election in 2016 and the French Presidential election in 2017, SWS students were primed for their own election. We voted “French-style” - with two rounds of voting: first round with all Francophone country contenders, second round with the top two contenders from the first round. The caveat was that France would not be on the ballot, to de-colonize the curriculum. Madagascar won the first election in a landslide over Canada, and I entered summer break ready to learn and plan.
The idea of the Francophone country study is to use all aspects of the country as provocation for learning: geography, weather, art, music, food, sports, animals, etc. With Madagascar that first year, Léa the lemur was the main character in most of our stories, art from the country was used to teach colors, feelings and more, and we discussed our favorite breakfast foods while learning about and tasting “mofogasy” a common yeasted bread made from rice flour. While I had never before visited Madagascar, I did my best to infuse aspects of the country it into the majority of the year’s lessons for my PK3-5th grade students.
Fast forward through years of studying Canada, Belgium, Haiti, Togo, Burundi... and a partial year studying Senegal before Covid-19 sent us all home in 2020. When the opportunity to travel with Vive l’expérience appeared, I knew it would be phenomenal. I had learned about Senegal from Katy Wheelock at the ACTFL Conference in DC in 2019, so I had seen how Katy integrated Senegalese culture into her classes. I could not wait for my own travel – and shared with SWS students that we would re-visit Senegal after our interrupted year of 2020. The students all agreed this was a good choice and we parted ways for the summer. As the 2024-2025 school year approaches its final term (in DC, the school year doesn’t end until late June), I can freely say that this year’s study of Senegal has been extraordinary: students have felt greater connection to the culture through my own direct experience, the teaching and learning have reached a deeper level, and I personally have gotten to re-live some of the most meaningful travel experiences of my life every day this school year. I’m sharing a few of our lessons and connections here.
As a Responsive Classroom school, we begin each school year with the creation of “Hopes and Dreams” for each class, and in French, we center our “espoirs et rêves” around what we most wish to learn about the Francophone country of study. Our Reggio-Emilia school is also centered around student-directed project work, so by sharing our hopes and dreams, it also gives a direction about where to start. Perhaps due to my effusive comments about the delicious food I’d eaten while traveling in Senegal, the students overwhelmingly voted to begin the year with la nourriture. I knew exactly what to introduce first: the fruit from the incredible arbre de la vie: le baobab.
We learned facts about the baobab tree itself, made observational drawings, told stories centered around the tree and made predictions about its fruit. We learned about its phenomenal nutritional values then made and tasted the juice, bouye, in class. Engaging all the senses while learning is so impactful!
While in Dakar, I noticed a billboard with an image of a baobab several times, with the message “La force d’un baobab réside dans ses racines” and I knew I wanted to highlight it in my class. After tasting “la bouye” we turned our focus to “les racines” reviewing the parts of the tree and discussing whether humans also have roots. Our review and teaching of vocabulary for family members, abstract nouns and geography has never been more meaningful. Students interviewed family members, designed their own family trees, and presented them in small groups with pride and strength.
As our school prepared for its annual Winter Solstice celebration, I knew that an introduction to “Le Fanal” -a celebration of light, music, culture and community that takes place annually in Saint-Louis, Senegal – would connect wonderfully. On a day that our school community celebrates the darkness and light on the shortest day of the year, students began crafting their own “fanal” - a paper lantern they would create in honor of something or someone that is meaningful to them. I shared that my fanal would represent Zeinixx, an artist and activist from Senegal but didn’t share more details until after winter break. The students started creating beautiful lanterns in honor of all manner of people, character traits and even food. When we returned from winter break, the fanal creation continued, with photos and videos of Fanal 2024 from Saint-Louis. We were delighted to have a school-wide parade of our fanals at the end of January, with many of the student lanterns connecting to our community questions of the month: “Who inspires you? What do they do that is inspiring?”
As we moved into February, we focused closely on the art and activism of Zeinixx, whom I got to meet at her studio in Dakar last summer. Hearing Zeinixx speak about her commitment to human rights, and to lifting up young people, giving them purpose and connection, resonated deeply with me. For our school-wide Black Joy and Excellence project, there was no question that I wished to highlight the art + activism (artivism!) of Zeinixx.
Le graffiti became our focus: Zeinixx’s graffiti art was our provocation in class, with discussions about the difference between graffiti art and vandalism, and the perspectives on graffiti in Senegal vs the United States. Students were tasked with seeking graffiti in their own communities, sending in images for examination in class. We also learned about a local graffiti artist and muralist, Miss CheLove, who created a mural on our school as part of its modernization.
Eventually, students were asked to become “artivists” themselves – to come up with one word in French to convey what they wished to see more of in the world, or a word that represented their beliefs and to create a graffiti-version of the word in honor of Zeinixx and her positive activism. Our youngest students, ages 3 and 4, created the “spray-painted” background to the graffiti “walls” that would feature the students’ artwork at our school-wide Exhibition of Learning in early March. Linked here is the glossary of graffiti words that students selected; linked here is a document that features the framework of the project based on Gholdy Muhammad’s Culturally & Historically Responsive Education (CHRE) Pursuits Framework, as well as more project photos and documentation.
With Zeinixx’s art and activism in our hearts, we turn towards the final term of the year, ready to highlight sports, animals and more food from Senegal. We will also prepare to vote for next year’s Francophone country of study, knowing that this year’s learning has no comparison, thanks to the well-planned, meaningful cultural learning experiences I received as part of my travel with Vive l’expérience last summer. Merci, mille fois à Vive l’expérience, à Zeinixx et au teranga inoubliable du Sénégal!
Again, thanks Emily, for this great guest blog post! Are you ready to learn more about our teacher experiences in Senegal? Hope to hear from you soon!
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