Friday Headlines
the weekly newsletter from EHS
My summer volunteering with LRTT
13 September 2019
This summer, Music Teacher Mrs Jarvis was given the opportunity to work with LRTT (Limited Resource Teacher Training), an organisation that works to provide quality teacher training to teachers in developing countries. She travelled to Africa recently and shares an inspiring account of what she describes as a hugely rewarding experience:
“It was a huge privilege to become a Fellow with LRTT, an organisation that operates in 11 different countries. They run 28 fellowships a year, and these see around 30 teachers work in local schools, helping local teachers to develop their skills.
“My fellowship was in Morogoro, Tanzania, a town that is on a key travel route between Dar Es Salaam (the main city) and the capital Dodoma. Schools in the region face several significant challenges, from overcrowded classrooms (since the start of compulsory education there are 60 - 100 students in a classroom) to lack of resources and funding. I was really nervous about arriving at Lupanga Secondary School for the first time with Orla, my LRTT partner, but I needn’t have been. We were welcomed like old friends, fed and given so many cups of spiced chai! By 5pm (we should have finished around 1pm) we had toured the school, met the teachers we would be working with and been taken on a school trip!
“Over the next two weeks we observed lessons every day, building an understanding of the teachers’ specific needs and challenges that they face, sharing strategies and principles to help them. It was hugely rewarding to see them experiment and try these in subsequent lessons, making a big impact on their students’ learning.
“On Saturdays we invited our teachers to attend conference days where we presented workshops on particular theories and strategies. We had lots of fun while having some really important discussions about the importance of our actions and words as teachers.
“By the end of my four weeks in Morogoro I was starting to see the real impact our training was having. One of the local teachers went from teaching an entire 80 min lesson where he looked at the ceiling or writing on the blackboard to asking questions and engaging with his students, not discouraging them if they got an answer wrong.
“Our stay wasn’t all work however, as we finished off our stay in Tanzania with a trip to the amazing island of Zanzibar.
“I have learned so much both personally and professionally from my LRTT fellowship this summer and I am pleased to say I am still in contact with some of the teachers that I
worked with. My hope is that this continues into the future, so that I can continue to learn just as much from them.”
My Summer with LRRT
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