First day reflections - A global community!

On Sunday we had our first day working with Nepali teachers. Limited Resource Teacher Training (LRTT) and their local partner organisation VIN (Volunteer Initiatives Nepal) have organised a 4 day conference for approximately 100 Kathmandu teachers. These teachers are then split into groups of about 10. Two or three of the LRTT fellows then work with one group of ten teachers for the four days of the conference. I am really enjoying this format as it gives the opportunity to design the conference around the teacher's needs. It also provides the time to really get to know each other and have some genuinely robust conversations.

We started the first day of this conference with an opening ceremony. Various Nepal leaders spoke about the importance of this opportunity. Rachel, one of the team leaders from LRTT gave a fabulous speech too. After this the whole group of LRTT fellows, made up of mostly Australians, a handful of kiwis, and a few people from the United Kingdom got up and sang a waiata we had taught everyone the night before. Sarah, one of the kiwi fellows then explained the meaning of the waiata. It was beautiful. One of the Australians remarked later in the day that they felt proud to be a little bit kiwi today.

I am really lucky to be working with two fabulous teachers here, Stephanie and Anna. They both bring the most incredible sets of experience and expertise. Anna is an encyclopaedia of folk songs. Stephanie also dabbles in politics where she is an elected councillor. Both are deeply passionate about education.

Using the Question Race game to generate questions.

The sessions we ran with our Nepali teachers on day one was largely focussed on getting to know them personally and professionally. As a result, we had SO many great discussions! I found a kindred spirit in one gentleman who wanted to revolutionise education, and another in an enthusiastic woman who was interested in global citizenship and creativity.

We used the Question Race game to help identify the areas that the teachers in our group wanted to focus on over the course of their training.

Our group of teachers identified student motivation, behaviour management and parent engagement as issues that they would like to learn about throughout the conference. These are the same things many of the teachers in New Zealand, Australia and everywhere else struggle with. Perhaps one of my key learnings from the first day working with the awesome Nepali teachers, Australian teachers, New Zealand teachers and those form the United Kingdom, is that we really are a global community. We are never alone in our journey to do the best for our students, and if we reach out to learn from and support each other, there is so much more that we can accomplish.