Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-ACC-2019-067
Stephen McLaughlin served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Sierra Leone from July 1968 to July 1970 as a teacher educator. He trained at Fourah Bay College and Njala University, both in Sierra Leone, and received instruction in the Krio language, African history, and teacher education. He was stationed at the Magburaka Government Teacher Training College in Magburaka, Northern Province, where he taught African and Sierra Leonean history to students who were training to be primary school teachers. McLaughlin also reorganized and cataloged the college's library and did some adult literacy instruction. He was an experienced secondary school history teacher, and came to Sierra Leone with the hope of teaching critical thinking through class discussions, but instead found that his students were more acclimated to lectures and memorization. After some adaptation to prevailing practices, he guided his students through the curriculum and prepared them successfully for their year-end exams. In his second year, McLaughlin was able to introduce more dialog among students and helped to create a more interactive classroom, which was a mutually beneficial give-and-take experience. Interviewed and recorded by Ellen Gagne, January 18, 2019. 2 digital audio files (web streaming files combined into 1 file).