Volunteer Teachers Get To Work

Tuesday saw the beginning of a 4 day volunteer program by a group of teachers from schools across Australia. Organised by Rosemary King from MLC School following on from their wonderful visit last year, and with the help of the IB Organisation, we welcomed a group of 13 to Kathmandu. The group included 3 parents and 2 students from MLC, the remainder being teachers from MLC as well as schools from Perth, Orange, Sydney, Adelaide and Melbourne. The group had spent a week trekking so they were already very rapidly coming to terms with some of the bizarre and wonderful aspects of life in Nepal!

On Tuesday we spent the morning visiting the stupa at Boudha and then having lunch there whilst discussing everyone's plans for the afternoon which would be spent at Riviera, the Model School. Then it was a quick walk down the road to Riviera so the real fun could begin!

Our visit started with an introduction to the school by Milan Dharel, director of the school and also director of our partner organisation, CWISH. This was followed by a quick tour of the school including the much expanded library. The teachers then divided themselves into 3 groups covering Maths, Science and English. It was then up to the Riviera teachers to choose which workshop they would like to do for the afternoon.

All of the workshops went very well with a lot of involvement from the Nepalese teachers and loads of new teaching methods and ideas being shared by the teachers from Australia. Science was of particular interest as Judy, a science teacher from Ravenswood in Sydney, had brought a plethora of interesting and easy to source items that could be used to create experiments. Science in Nepal is typically taught by simply studying the experiments from the textbook, learning the hypothesis, methods and expected results. In some cases the teachers may demonstrate an experiment but this would still not allow the students any practical experience themselves. Judy opened the teachers eyes to numerous fun and exciting experiments that the students could easily do with some guidance from their teachers, making Science more meaningful and enjoyable for everyone.

It was a similar story with Maths where teachers were learning to make models with plasticine and matchsticks as well as fun and easy ways to quickly solve apparently difficult calculations without the use of a calculator! In the English workshop the Australian teachers were really put to the test as the Riviera teachers demanded to know how it was possible to incorporate more interesting and learner focused teaching methods whilst still covering the curriculum. Fortunately, the teachers from Australia were prepared for this and were able to share a lot of great ideas with the enthusiastic Nepali group.

As always happens with these programs the afternoon finished all too soon however the group will be returning to Riviera on Friday to spend another afternoon with the teachers and some of the students from the school. Updates on the other adventures of the group coming soon...