Dear Friends,

 

The third TAB program in Battambang, Cambodia is over and was a great success with over 315 Cambodian teachers and directors participating in thirteen workshops. The outcomes, in the workshops which included Early Years Literacy, English as a Second Language, Early Childhood Development, Inquiry Learning, Numeracy, Performance Assessment and Leadership and Administration, have been well documented and will form part of a detailed evaluation for TAB.

The “hidden curriculum” in these workshops, which some participants noted in their evaluation, serves as important modeling for Cambodian educators. Things such as the following were noted:

• the pre class preparation of the TAB workshop leaders who were always at the workshop half an hour before the participants arrived - something that we are informed doesn’t happen in Cambodia where teachers are often late to class and unprepared
• all workshop leaders asking questions to establish prior knowledge so they could build this into their teaching
• all workshop leaders incorporating a range of teaching strategies to encourage participants to discuss, share ideas and work in pairs or small teams with a “hands on” focus which meant that participants were experiencing a “learner centred focus” and not the rote learning approach which predominates in Cambodian school

In many instances the TAB workshop leaders worked in teams and modeled great collaboration. Some workshop leaders presented in other workshops and in one instance we had some Cambodian teachers presenting to the Cambodian directors and explaining what they had learnt in their workshop. Great role modeling!!!

The TAB workshops provide Cambodian educators with a chance to consider what “could be” in education and to do some future’s thinking. They provide a wonderful opportunity for educators to reflect on how far their system has come in thirty years and to take some ideas which maybe applicable from our system and incorporate these ideas into current practice. At all times workshop leaders reinforced, affirmed and celebrated the work of Cambodian educators. The workshops are great fun with lots of laughter and positive interaction.

The closing ceremony was a real celebration with Mr Mao Mei, the Director of the Provincial Office of Education thrilled to announce that TAB would return to Battambang again in 2010 to continue this powerful dialogue. TAB looks forward to continuing this work and building teacher capacity with small but very important steps!!