My central work project all last year revolved around
updating Child Aid's teacher training curriculum. I observed in our workshops and Guatemalan
classrooms to see what we were doing well and what needs teachers still
had. I lead staff professional
development sessions to teach new concepts and teaching methods that I wanted
to try implementing in workshops. And I
spent a really lot of hours staring at my computer screen trying to figure out
how to make all the moving pieces fit together in a logical way.
In October, I finally had it "done", or so I
thought, and spent the next 7 weeks modeling and discussing changes with our
leadership team. Their feedback of
course lead to another round of revisions and I was finally ready to share the
nearly final product with our entire staff in December. Having them work in small groups to discuss
content and map changes between the old and new curriculum was beyond
rewarding. Then, I left for Christmas
vacation, trusting my curriculum to the hands of a graphic designer and hoping
it would be ready when I got back.
January rolled around, workshops were just around the corner
and suddenly we had a crisis- the graphic designer we'd been working with left
without telling us, and there were still 30 pages that needed to be
finalized. One of my amazing coworkers
took over from there, stopping by the office in person and making sure we got
it done on time. And finally, just in
time to get them out to workshops, we got the finished product from the copy
shop. To say I'm delighted would be an
understatement.
 |
| Reading for Life, Child Aid's four-year teacher training curriculum, being used by over 600 teachers in nearly 70 schools. I feel pretty proud of my work :) |
So, one project ended, and now we start a new phase- rolling
out the curriculum for use by our teacher trainers and the teachers we work
with. I'm so excited!
