Julie, Bev, Emily and Steve came to Shanto, Ethiopia armed with teaching supplies, lesson plans, training books and open hearts. We intentionally over planned and simply hoped to get as much time with the teachers as we could. We didn’t know how much the language barrier would apply, nor how much actual time we would get with the teachers, as this was the first teaching task with FOVC. We accomplished much, learned more and bonded with the teachers in Shanto.
The time spent with the teachers was precious and we devoted much of that to team training. Beverly Howlett started out with her Digestive System lesson. With Emily Garbus’ and the Shanto teachers help, they taught 2 lesson plans, then watched as the Shanto teachers took over the 3rd lesson plan. Emily also taught a water cycle lesson plan provided by Rick Negvesky that will teach the community how to take care of their water wells once they are in.
Student demonstration of the Digestive System Rope (colored for each section)
Student drawings of the Digestive System
Shanto teachers going through Digestive System Lesson Plan with students
Steve and Emily also had a day of training with the Shanto teachers, 5 other teachers from surrounding communities and a few Ethiopian government officials. With Julie Driver’s advice, we kept the training to teaching UbD (Understanding by Design) and a basic lesson plan. The UbD simply teaches that the first thing you should think about is the end result, what do you want the students to learn. Then you think about how the students can show/prove they learned what you set out to teach them. Only then, should you decide how to teach the students. It’s a new concept, but one that has greatly impacted many Denver Academy teachers and beyond. The basic lesson plan was taken from Denver Academy’s lesson plan and modified. Steps include Attention Getter, Review, Homework Check, New Concept, Teacher Presentation, Student Processing, Homework Assigned and Summary.
Emily and Steve took all of the teachers and government officials through the Ubd and lesson plan sheets in the morning and had them all write up their own lesson plan. In the afternoon we had Denise step in and teach an art lesson that followed the basic lesson plan. The teachers really seemed to get the importance and understand the process of writing up lesson plans and had a blast with the artwork.
Thank you to everyone who donated supplies and money for this trip. It was another amazing step towards helping the children of FOVC rise above their circumstances and have the chance to become self-sufficient in their own country. We hope a few of these children will become FOVC teachers, doctors, nurses, veterinarians, farmers, water well specialists, engineers and pay it forward to help their community.
Special thanks to the Denver Academy community for donating much of the school supplies and raising over $1,000 in cash. With that extra money we are paying the teachers’ salaries for the next 3 months!
The highlight of the entire week was going through all of the supplies with the teachers. Beverly went through all of the science supplies. Emily handled the social studies and literature, while Steve explained the math and art supplies. The love and gratitude shown by the teachers was beautiful and sincere. They were so thankful to have real supplies to use and were grinning from ear to ear, saying thank you and “we love you” over and over. It was perfect.
Some of the Shanto teachers enjoying a rare break
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