Anglican teachers turn students in workshop
If you’re the parent of a school aged child, then like many others, you probably hold your breathe at the start of every year hoping he or she gets a “good teacher”. This has prompted one diocese to turn their teachers into students. Jacqueline Woods reports.
Jacqueline Woods, Reporting
Standard five and six students of Anglican primary schools spent the day at home while their teachers were hard at work. The teachers are taking part in a two-day workshop to sharpen their skills and improve overall class performance. General Manager of Anglican Schools Carol Babb, says it’s not that the teachers are doing anything wrong, but to help them become better educators.
Carol Babb, General Manager, Anglican Schools
“I think we have to train our teachers or train them more in methodologies that would work. I think the ones that we are presently using for some reason or the other are not working the way they should be.”
Teachers are being called upon to make themselves more available to the children and to exercise more patience to help their students reach their goal…that is of receiving a sound education. Babb says she has become concerned that many school children, both in lower and upper divisions, do not know how to read. Babb says it is a problem that all schools are experiencing.
Carol Babb
“We know for a fact that many of our children are not reading at their grade level. So this workshop is to work on effective teaching skills, hoping that teachers will be better informed and rethink the way they are teaching and try to improve so as to promote learning.”
Workshop facilitator Dr. Paul Eggen, says part of the exercise will show teachers that their responsibility is more than just standing in front of a class and giving children information. Dr. Eggen says it is important for teachers to know about the way children learn in order for them to deliver a lesson effectively.
Dr. Paul Eggen, Facilitator, Workshop
“Kids create their own understanding, they don’t actually get it from teachers. Now that does not imply that teachers don’t have a crucial role, because teachers are the ones that have to guide them. So what I am going to try and do in the time we have here together, the teachers and I, is to communicate that teaching orientation.
Reading is a problem for a lot of kids, partially because some kids do not have basic reading skills, but in addition to that words by their nature are in the abstract. So if we can provide some things for the kids that are concrete, that they can link those abstractions to, then the reading is much more meaningful for them. And not only are they more able to read but they are more willing to try.”
While this workshop targets upper primary school teachers, Babb says in February they plan to hold a number of reading workshops for the lower divisions. Reporting for News 5, Jacqueline Woods.
