Maths Made Easy and Fun

During our very busy November in Kathmandu we were visited by Anne Willmann and her husband Willi. Anne has recently retired as the principal of an IB School in Auckland, New Zealand and she and her husband are both Maths teachers. They were visiting Nepal to do some trekking and to visit their old favourite places as they lived in Kathmandu for 2 years a number of years ago. They generously volunteered their time to help with some teacher training at Riviera, our Model School.

We were very keen to accept this offer as many of the teacher training workshops we have conducted have focused on English and the Social Sciences. This has simply been the result of the expertise of the volunteers we have had in the past. Whilst the Maths teachers at Riviera have attended all these workshops they find it more difficult to apply the skills they learnt to the Maths classroom. This is compounded by the fact that many school students in Nepal struggle with Maths because unlike many other subjects, you can not do well by simple rote learning. Maths requires that you understand the concepts in order to be able to solve problems. As a result, Maths is an unpopular subject and one that teachers find very challenging to make fun. Let’s face it – this is not only an issue faced in Nepal! How many of you had fun in Maths classes when you were growing up?

Fortunately Anne and Willi were experts in this area, and their energy and enthusiasm immediately had the teachers at ease and eager to learn. As part of Riviera's Model School program, we invited 3 teachers from nearby government schools to benefit from the workshops as well.

Two workshops were conducted over two days and included an array of games, magic tricks and other activities all designed to make learning Maths easier and also fun. The teachers were having so much fun doing the activities I'm not sure they wanted to go back to teaching! It was also fantastic to see teachers from different schools working and learning together, sharing their ideas and experiences. One of the comments from the teachers was that they had so much fun that they didn't realise they were learning Maths! In one activity, the students would have done hundreds of calculations without being aware of how much they’d learned because they were racing to complete a competition against other teams. That’s exactly how learning should be – fun and relatively pain free!

At the end of the two workshops Anne and Willi donated copies of all of the exercises and activities they had worked through with the teachers meaning we will be able to share the concepts with other schools in our network. For this as well as for their time and effort, we want to say a huge 'thanks' to Anne and Willi. In the weeks since the workshops we have seen a great improvement in the moral of Riviera's Maths teachers and many of the students are now looking forward to going to Maths class - we can't ask for more than that!

Back to Riviera

Friday was the final day of the volunteer program for our visitors from Australia and after two extremely chaotic picnic days I think they were very relieved to be returning to the relative peace of an afternoon spent at the Model School with the teachers and some students!

Some of the group continued with their workshops from Tuesday but there were some new workshops on offer this time as well. We had a workshop for Social Sciences, a workshop for primary teachers, but the star of the day was Heather from Flinders St Primary School in Adelaide who hosted a fantastic art workshop for around 20 students. In less than an hour the group were churning out all kinds of colourful works that were used to decorate their classroom! It was obvious that as well as brightening up the place the kids were really enjoying what they were doing.

A group of Year 9 and 10 boys joined the Science workshop as word had got out from Tuesday's workshop that Science could actually be fun! And as I walked past the English workshop I was sure I heard them reading a story about a platypus?! There was much excitement in the Maths workshop as not only did we have electricity but someone actually got the internet to work. This was important as Keith from St Catherine's School in Waverley had arranged for the school to be given user codes for HOTmaths, an online Maths education program. The teachers were instantly engrossed in trying to complete the questions online and were amazed at the way the system would enable them to track their students' progress - a lot more fun than learning from a textbook! We must thank Keith and HOTmaths for organising the licences for us.


With visitors, teachers and students all having so much fun the afternoon passed far too quickly and it was soon time for our farewells. It was clear the advances the school had made since MLC's visit a year ago so it is exciting to think of how this trip will have benefitted them even further. After a quick thank you speech from the principal and the presentation of a 'token of love' in the form of Riviera school badges for everyone, it was time to once again board the bus and return to Thamel.

This concluded the formal program for the group. However that evening there was a quick trip to the tailor to collect some traditional outfits that some of the group had ordered. Then on Saturday morning I took a small group to visit Kathmandu Animal Treatment (KAT) Centre, where street dogs are taken in and 'cleaned up' before being adopted or returned to the street. This was of course a confronting experience for the group but by the same token it was great to see that things can and are being done and that there is hope. Those who did not join the visit to KAT no doubt spent the morning doing last minute shopping in Thamel, hunting for that 'special morning price'!

On Saturday afternoon I waved the group farewell as their bus left for the airport. I want to take this opportunity to thank everyone in the group for the amazing contributions they made throughout the week, all of the programs ran like clockwork and gave some insights into life in Nepal and how we can help. I would particularly like to thank Rosemary King from MLC School who organised the trip and did a great job of keeping everything in order for them once in Nepal!

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...

100 Views Kathmandu

Libby Hathorn’s 100 Views has arrived in Kathmandu! Recently Libby and her friend, Pat Granville Smith, visited us in Nepal and together we introduced the 100 Views program to the model school. You can read more about the program itself at the 100 Views website – http://www.100views.com.au and also on our website - http://www.mitrataa.org/projects/100views.htm.


The program is a celebration of the arts through a local icon so fittingly we chose Mt Everest for the first run of the program in Nepal. From our perspective the program also provides a great opportunity to work with school teachers in Nepal to develop more creative and learner centered methods of teaching which fits in perfectly with the training we have been conducting over the last 6 months with the model school.

Libby and Pat spent 3 days with the teachers from the model school leading them through workshops for teaching both poetry and art. This turned out to be a more amazing experience for the teachers than we could have imagined. In a group of 21 teachers we discovered that only 2 of them had ever held a paintbrush! Imagine their joy and excitement as Pat had them sketching, painting and on the last day building a paper mache model of Mt Everest. Libby conducted the poetry workshops and she had the teachers performing different poems as well as creating their own – again a definite first for the majority of the teachers. According to one teacher, before the workshops he thought that poetry was something you did if you were bored in your spare time, not something so powerful and creative!

We know that the program was an instant success as on the 4th day we held a launch event at the model school and we were inundated with teachers and students wanting to read their poems to the entire school! Such enthusiasm is exactly what these programs are all about and I don’t think Libby and Pat could ever have been prepared for the gusto with which the teachers took to their work.


The next step in the program involves the teachers passing on their knowledge to their students and helping the school to collectively assemble a body of work that celebrates Mt Everest and its meaning to the school and the wider community. This will then culminate in a festival to celebrate 100 Views of Mt Everest and we will be posting the poetry, art and other works to the 100 Views website so that it can be viewed by children all around the world. We are also working to develop a regular connection between the students of the model school and school students in Australia so that they can both benefit from sharing their ideas and thoughts as well as their art.


As if conducting this program was not enough Libby had also arranged a documentary crew to record the entire thing so that 100 Views Kathmandu and our work through Mitrataa might be viewed by even more people. Stay tuned for details as to where you might see the finished documentary!

We really must say a big “thank you” to Libby and Pat for all of their hard work to introduce this program to Nepal – we are honoured that Libby agreed to run the first 100 Views program outside Australia in Nepal. The program has provided invaluable teaching skills and ideas to the teachers and I am sure it will be a huge hit with the students too. Neither woman had been to Nepal previously and they dealt with all the excitement and challenges that this country throws at you with great humour and compassion. We hope this will be the start of another wonderful long term friendship between Nepal and Australia.

Teacher Training Workshop

We have had the most amazing time over the last 2 days conducting our frst teacher training course in the new model school we will be working with. The course was entitled “Teachers’ Workshop on Learner Centred Education” and was attended by around 20 teachers from the Rosy Garden School in Maijubahal, Kathmandu.

The first day of the course included an introduction to Howard Gardner’s model of “multiple intelligences”. The seven main intelligences in this model being linguistic, logical/maths, visual/spatial, musical, bodily/kinaesthetic, interpersonal and intrapersonal. The teachers explored how they can use this model in their classes to help their students learn in different ways. On the second day we put this into practice and delved into the importance of lesson plans and thorough preparation to ensure the teachers use as much learner focused activity as possible. It was very practical and the teachers went away with many examples to help put what they had learned into practice in their classrooms.

We were heartened and encouraged by the enthusiasm and commitment of the teachers involved. Many of them had not had any formal training but nonetheless approached each of the tasks and activties with vigour and a can-do attitude.

At one stage Rebecca had the class standing in a circle outside and throwing a roll of toilet paper at each other whilst asking questions and shouting answers. I’m sure they have never encountered such a thing before and may well have been hoping they will never do so again!

Nepal’s education approach is based heavily on rote learning to pass exams and we hope to break open this way of thinking with more of these courses in the future. We have tentatively scheduled the next courses for March/April 2008 and beyond then we will be providing advanced training to some of the teachers with a view to them then conducting the course on a more frequent basis for teachers from other schools. We also plan to make the course available to teachers from outside the Kathmandu Valley through some form of sponsorship program for teachers from remote schools in disadvantaged areas.

The Rosy Garden School has only recently been taken over by some people that we have been working closely with through CWISH. They are extremely passionate about developing a school that is cutting edge in terms of its approach to education and it is for this reason that we have become involved. We have many great plans for the model school (including a name change!) and are so excited about the possibilities it presents for the development and growth of the Foundation through the number of people whose lives we can touch.

We will keep you posted as plans progress but it certinly seems as though 2008 is going to be a huge year for the Foundation and we can’t wait to share all of the experiences and excitement with you!