Teacher Training

STATUS: implemented January 2005 to December 2007 / now completed

Conducting onsite workshops to improve teaching methods (including ‘active learning’ techniques) in 16 schools each in Gonaives and Port-au-Prince.

NEED: Haiti’s educational system is said to be the feeblest in the Western Hemisphere, based on an antiquated 2-tiered system that has not changed since Haiti’s independence in 1804: “rote memorization” or “learning by repetition” enforced by daily use of the classroom whip or other baton type instrument. Rote memorization, a learning technique which avoids understanding of the subject, when coupled with the daily fear of corporal punishment, encourages repetition without comprehension, actively punishes creative thought processes and suppresses critical thinking.

RESPONSE: Starting with 16 schools in 2005 and doubling to 32 schools in 2006 due to widespread acceptance and anticipation, Yéle Haiti funds CAFT, an NGO that provides teachers with the training and knowledge to impart another approach in their teaching: “active” and “participatory” learning, and removing the whip from the curriculum. While teachers in the US get a great deal of schooling to become teachers, this is not the case in Haiti, and teachers follow tradition. They have not been exposed to methods that teach conceptual and cognitive development, and, taking their students education very seriously, embrace these new teaching methods.

Partner:
Centre d’Apprentissage et de Formation Pour la Transformation (CAFT)

Sponsor:

Photo: After taking part in the workshops, this teacher is applying active learning techniques in the classroom.