Language, Technology, and Engagement in the Haitian Classroom: An Interim Report on the MIT-Haiti Initiative

Since 2013 I have been traveling to Haiti as part of the MIT- Haiti Initiative. This initiative, led by Professor Michel DeGraff of the MIT Department of Linguistics and Philosophy, aims to encourage active learning strategies, enabled by technology when possible and appropriate, and strongly stresses the importance of the use of the one language spoken by all Haitians, namely Haitian Creole (or Kreyòl). To use a Haitian metaphor, these three components form the three stones on which the cook-pot of our educational approach rests. We have focused our attention on the higher education sector. In this note I will begin with a review of the educational landscape that forms the background for our efforts. Then I will describe the work of the MIT-Haiti Initiative and some of the efforts undertaken in Haiti by participants in our workshops. I will discuss the mathematical material developed for these workshops and what we learned in leading them, and then describe the findings of a site visit to a campus of the State University of the Haiti. I will end by discussing how the typography of equity spelled out by Rochelle Gutiérrez (Teaching for Excellence and Equity in Mathematics, 2009) applies in the Haitian educational setting