Sharing, Not Training

---

Today was the day that Ellen, Karen and I have been preparing for. We had said we were coming to South Sudan to do teacher training. But the school director, Ben Opwonya, wisely pointed out that we would be doing teacher sharing because all of us in that room were teachers. That set the stage for us to share that we, as teachers in the US, wanted to share how we had to change our style of teaching over the years so we could better engage the students in their education. For example, I shared that I had started teaching in1968, and that in those days a principal thought a teacher was doing a good job if all the students were sitting quietly at their desks and the only voice heard was that of the teacher. This is no longer considered the best learning environment. We have come to realize that nobody, especially children, wants to sit still without owing or talking for an hour or more. Some adults can't sit quietly in church that long! So, educators began to back away from seeing the teacher's role as the "sage on the stage" to the "guide on the side." Believe me, some teachers had to be dragged kicking and screaming to that new role, but once they saw the positive results, they (myself included), didn't kick so hard or scream so loudly.

In the vast majority of schools that I have seen in South Sudan over the past two years, the teachers have been the sage on the stage. That is partly because that is how they were taught, partly because they have not had the advantage of continued education, and partly because the class size is often far bigger than what we ware used to. I, too, would hesitate to have 70 or more students form teams in which they are all talking--the space prohibits that and the volume would be incredible. So the first job of our team was to choose strategies that could work in these classrooms and were versatile enough that the grade level or the subject matter was flexible.

We shared strategies that have several names: Kagan (named for the originator of over 100 strategies), cooperative learning, and active learning. The ones we chose could be done with partners, teams, or the entire class. We described the procedures and then had the teachers become the students as we demonstrated them. There were a few times when we had to explain a technique several times so they could understand it (I think I have mentioned that for most, if not all of these teachers, English is their second language) and I was guilty of using a math problem in my example that was too difficult, but we all did enjoy sharing and laughing together. There were two things that totally made this trip 100% worthwhile. First, several teachers wanted to know when we were coming back (always a good sign). That made us feel wonderful, especially since we were sitting in the staff dining/staff room that had a whole bunch of tomatoes in the corner--it could have gotten ugly! Second, Ben later told Ellen that he had had no idea what to expect, but the training/sharing was way beyond his expectations.

We will be doing a repeat performance at the Yei campus next Saturday; please pray with and for us to be as well received as we were here. God is good--all the time!

---