Teacher Training - My First Project!

Teacher Training - My First Project

Written on 12/3/2015

As a Second-Year Peace Corps Volunteer, sometimes its hard to take time to reflect - which is true but also an excuse for the reason I haven't been blogging a lot lately..

Over the past few months, among other things, I have been planning a teaching training. I thought a teacher training would be a great way to create a sustainable change in my community and unite teachers in my district to improve their English teaching skills.

So...that's where it all started. And then came about a month of drafting up a grant, another month of it getting checked over, about a month of revising it...and finally...it was posted on the inter-webs. I was overjoyed by the response from my friends and family when, in just under a month, I received the funds and started planning my teacher training.

Then the real planning began. I started with the thing that would take the longest - getting t-shirts printed. I designed the shirts, brought the design up to the big city - and the teacher training was on its way to reality. The most alluring part of the shirts - in big letters on the back it said " I <3 Teaching English"

(Although T-Shirts aren't always accepted in a Grant proposal as a necessary thing, the sense of unity the teachers had after the training was wonderful - and the matching t-shirts only increased the sense of pride and unity for being an English teacher.)

Printing the t-shirts sounds like an easy task - but alas - it was not without its challenges. First, I can't get t-shirts printed in a big city, so I must go to the city 7 hours north to put in the order and pay the advance for the t-shirts. All was going well, until they asked me to pay the advance and I realized I didn't have the money with me. No problem, they said, you can stop by tomorrow. So the next morning I get up and go to the bank. Oddly enough, the bank doesn't allow me to withdraw any money from my Peace Corps account and is showing me that I don't have access to my account. 

Thankfully, Charlotte helped me conquer that hurdle and fronted me the money until the banks settled down and I could get money from my account to pay her back. 

And then I waited a few weeks for their call saying the shirts were finished. It was finally time to go up and get them, so I decided to just give them a call. As soon as the woman picked up and realized it was me she said, "We tried to call you, we didn't have enough blue fabric. We have to change the color of the shirt. They aren't done yet."

SOOOOOOO the shirts were changed from yellow to blue and promised to be done the week after on Friday. A week goes by, and I all again before I leave to go up north. "The shirts will be done. We promise."

LIES! I show up on Friday evening and they say, tomorrow morning! I was planning on making my way back to Mahanoro the following morning, so the shirts had to be done by 9 o'clock at the latest. "No problem," They said, "The shirts will be done! We just need to iron them."

The next morning I arrive at opening time. The woman smiles and says I should return at nine and pick up the shirts, they still have a few left to iron. Fine. So I go around town and get breakfast and take my time packing my things. I check out of my hotel room, take everything with me to go pick up the shirts....

When I arrive, the woman can barely look at me. "They aren't finished yet...." She says shyly.

I smile, and say, "Okay. I'll call my bus. Maybe they can wait. It won't take too much longer, right?"

"No. Thirty minutes. We just have to iron them."

......2 hours and a missed bus later my t-shirts were done.

So I took my things and my tshirts and went back to my hotel. I entered and the front desk people were confused..."Didn't you leave?"

"I didn't catch my bus."

"There isn't any more today?" Honest concern on their faces.

"Nope. That was the last one. Can I have my room back?"

*Smiles* "Yes, of course."

So basically, I ended up wearing a freshly printed t-shirt while washing the one pair of clothes I had brought with me in the sink and spent the day in my hotel room watching Ellen videos on Youtube. But...I got my t-shirts. And to be fair, the woman was extremely apologetic and very sorry that I had missed my bus. And I got a pizza for dinner. All was still well in the world. On to the step number two....

Which was drafting an invitation - which I couldn't have done without the help of a Malagasy counterpart, and sending them out to the different villages. This was a task all in its own.

I had asked my CISCO (like the Education Department of the District/County) for a list of all the English teachers in the district and where they taught so we could send out the invitations to the right people. Unfortunately, the list they gave was old, and many teachers that teach English were not on the list or there were teachers listed that no longer worked in the district.

So hurdle number one - what do we do with this ancient list? We decided we would invite all the English Teachers in the town of Mahanoro (public and private) and then one teacher from each school in the country side on the list.

The next problem? How do we send an invitation to a city 6 miles down the canal. Well, with a lot of trust and hope, we decided the invitations would travel by foot, bus, truck, and boat.

First, I headed to the Port for the canal and asked if the drivers would help me spread the invitations. I sat with the pile of invites in my hand, and with the drivers and driver's helpers around me, I called out the different names of the cities - and one by one the took a invitation with the name of the school on it.

Next, I went to the bus station and asked the nice woman I usually go to if I need to go somewhere who I should talk to for the different cities I had in hand. I was told only Driver Sammy goes to these towns on his big fruit truck, and he lives close to the dentist. So off I went to the dentist, asked a little girl where Driver Sam lived, and asked his wife (he was sleeping as he leaves at 3 AM to go to the countryside) if she thought he could deliver the invitations. She happily agreed and they invitations were on their way.

The next day, I traveled to the different schools around Mahanoro and asked their director if their school would like to participate in the training and how may English Teachers they had with my lovely counterpart, Madame Vola. (and got extremely sun burnt).

Then, that afternoon, Driver Sammy's helper came to my house to tell me that a few of the towns were not on the road he takes, and that I should go to the bus station tomorrow morning at 7 and there are a few small trucks that go out that way. So the next morning, off I went..and all but 3 invitations were sent out.

Mind you - all of these people helped me out free of charge, without question. I asked them for assistance and they happily obliged. Honestly, Malagasy people are so kind.

The next hurdle, EVERYONE wanted to come to the training. Teachers who were teaching a different subject but had taught English in the past. People who were hoping to teach English someday. All 5 English teachers from a school in the countryside even though only one invite was sent. I let them all come, and fortunately, on the day of the training, we had enough room to sit them all down.

The training was three days long, and included subjects like - student-centered learning, learning styles, introducing fun activities in class, blackboard management, increasing participation, and last but not least, lesson planning.

Everyday, we ate a wonderfully delicious lunch out on the beach. Originally, we were going to have it at a restaurant by the market, but then were afraid there space wouldn't be big enough. We searched for a solution, first asking the Church across the street if we could use one of their rooms - no they had a group of visiting Fathers coming.

And then my sitemate remembered she had been at a wedding that used wood shelters on the beach. So with the restaurant owner in tow, we headed out that way and asked the owner if we could use the shelter. She agreed - but asked that we find someone to clean up the space before we use it. Again, no questions, no fee, completely free of cost.

It was so lovely, and refreshingly cool. It was a nice place to stretch our legs after long sessions and take in some fresh ocean air before starting back at training again.

The last day of the training, all of the things we had learned were put to the test and we asked the teachers to meet in small groups and create a lesson plan. Seeing the teachers work together and create participatory, fun, and well thought out lesson plans was a wonderful way to end the training.

Lastly, we handed out curriculum guides for each school - which show examples of dialogues and exercises for each lesson in the curriculum -, certificates, and the amazing t-shirts. And me, my site mate Charlotte, and my wonderful PCV friend Gabby were given a surprise gift of a Betsimisaraka (the region I live in) style hat and a small hand-woven bag.

But no gifts were needed. It was great to see the teachers learn something, and more importantly come together to improve their teaching and therefore improve the chance at opportunities for their students. We handed out a survey at the beginning and end of the training to test improvement (the topics covered were mentioned and the teachers wrote how well the understood the topic - 1 being don't understand at all and 5 being understand completely. In the beginning of the training, the average level of understanding for the teachers for all topics was a 2 - somewhat understand. By the end - a 4 - understand well!

It took me a few days to relax before I really realized what I had accomplished. Here I am, a recent college graduate at age 22, with one year living in Madagascar, with never have written a Grant or organized an event of this proportion - organizing and conducting a teacher training for 50 teachers in my district. If that's not an accomplishment, than I don't know what is!

Obviously, I didn't do this on my own. I would've been extremely stressed and lost without the help of my sitemate, who is an amazing volunteer and has quite a few achievements under her belt. With out my wonderful counterparts - who helped me translate things to Malagasy that was understandable (writing Malagasy and speaking Malagasy are two completely different animals), without the community involvement, be it boat drivers or school administration, or the CISCO (although the list was out-dated it was still helpful in the end), and of course, without all the people at home who donated a little or a lot to help me make it all happen in the end.

Honestly, although planning, organizing, and leading the training had its ups and downs - and at some points I was so stressed I questioned if it was even worth doing - I am so happy for the results. Hopefully the teachers are excited for another year of teaching, and will be better teachers for their students. And in the end - that was my whole purpose of doing a teacher training to begin with.

AND to make things even greater - the teachers gathered in the end to create and English Teachers Association for the District of Mahanoro and they will meet each trimester to discuss difficulties and find solutions.

So I created a small amount of sustainable change in my community and for that I am extremely proud of myself!