A well-rounded education comes from a well-rounded staff. During school closure due to the pandemic, our staff took advantage of professional development opportunities from a diverse assemblage of teachers ranging from their own colleagues to professionals across the globe.
English:
We dream and actively work toward achieving a place where all of our staff members will be able to exchange with others in both French and English. This is quite a feat, as English is not an official language in DRC and many of our constituents come from a background speaking local languages. During lockdown, our teachers have been spending two days a week learning English at school taught by none other than superstar English teacher Rebecca Kabuya. Assisting Rebecca was our new English teacher Achille Rati, whom we’re so glad to have on board.
“The result is so successful that most of our teachers have already started expressing their ideas in English,” says Programs and Evaluation Manager Elvis Nshimba.
Coding:
As our students keep pace with rapidly changing technology, so must their teachers. We warmly welcomed Flora Blanez, of Art Computer, as she gave our teachers lessons in integrating the use of iPads. She also worked on concepts in coding for children, so even students as young as the primary level should be able to develop games using robots.
Meanwhile Josuel Musambaghani (a new advisory board member and remote technology teacher) introduced our staff to yet even more languages. He worked with Donat, our IT teacher, in programming languages including HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript.
Reading comprehension:
Our teachers have also been learning remotely with new advisory board members Marjorie Coestier and Francois Latouche, in order to build their capacity in teaching reading comprehension.
Mathematics:
Professor Jonathan has stayed very involved with Malaika during the lockdown. He worked with our teachers to enrich and reinforce the national mathematics curriculum, organizing lessons for demonstration. He also discussed methodology and approaches staff can use to teach math at all grade levels.
Teachers’ response to these learning opportunities has been exceptionally positive. They are committed to their craft and cannot wait to implement their newfound skills and valuable ideas and concepts into their daily teachings.