Teacher Training
Saturday 28 January. I am on cloud nine right now. Totally joyfulness! I just returned from our first Teacher Training session with the CEP teachers. Naadia Momberg, an educational psychologist who lives with us at RCG, agreed to run a three-part teacher training series on (Discipline, creative teaching, etc.) Every teacher was able to come, and they spent the two hours in total listening-mode. My staff is very determined to learn more about teaching, and I’m so pumped!
Naadia is from South Africa, so she was able to really connect with our refugee staff who also are trying to rebuilt a war-torn country. Naadia spoke of her country’s issues of war and violence, quoting Nelson Mandela regarding the replacement of guys for pencils and paper. He once said, “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” I agree, and so does the staff.
The main reason I’m so excited about this is because I have never been involved in something that mattered so much. I mean, these children are the future of Sudan! We need to teach them life skills now, because their parent’s generation doesn’t know it and can’t teach it. They need to have functional math, functional science, functional English. At the same time, we need to think about what we are telling them about the rules of the world; about morality and conflict resolution and teamwork. When I sat in the teacher training session today I could just feel the positive energy in the room! It’s been so gloomy for these refugees for so long, and the demonstration has really put them over the edge. But for those couple of hours at least, we were really getting somewhere. Now I pray that we can build on that and see what good can come from this.
Naadia is from South Africa, so she was able to really connect with our refugee staff who also are trying to rebuilt a war-torn country. Naadia spoke of her country’s issues of war and violence, quoting Nelson Mandela regarding the replacement of guys for pencils and paper. He once said, “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” I agree, and so does the staff.
The main reason I’m so excited about this is because I have never been involved in something that mattered so much. I mean, these children are the future of Sudan! We need to teach them life skills now, because their parent’s generation doesn’t know it and can’t teach it. They need to have functional math, functional science, functional English. At the same time, we need to think about what we are telling them about the rules of the world; about morality and conflict resolution and teamwork. When I sat in the teacher training session today I could just feel the positive energy in the room! It’s been so gloomy for these refugees for so long, and the demonstration has really put them over the edge. But for those couple of hours at least, we were really getting somewhere. Now I pray that we can build on that and see what good can come from this.
posted by Sarah @ 9:01 PM
1 Comments:
At 2/02/2006,
Anonymous said…
Hi Sarah.
I like your blog- good work.
I'm actually commenting in the hopes that I can find some form of more direct contacxt wiith you- I'm currently working hard on the FMRS independent investigation into the Sudanese protest and would love to get any more information you might have on the "Ugent" statement from Refugee Voices asking parents to withdraw their kids from school- do you have a copy of this? I'd love to know more about it. It's terrible! Thanks. Themba (themba {at} aucegypt.edu)
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