Teacher Training

And exciting development among four of the OPCU village churches, is that they have started small schools.  For most of them, they are doing Nursery (pre-K), primary 1 and primary 2 (grades 1 and 2).  We are very excited at the small beginning we are seeing with Christian education.  We hope and pray that the Lord will bless these schools.

Eric and I have, for some time, seen the need for teacher training.  While we knew that we couldn't do a lot, we did want to do some.  So this past Saturday, we organized an afternoon class at KTC.  Eric taught on what it means to have a Christ filled school...that it is more than working to produce good smart kids, but that Christ should be at the center of everything so that Christ's kingdom is built.  I taught on the academic side of things.  I used the classical education model to give them the "Tools of Learning"...namely, "memorizing the facts" (grammar), "understanding" (logic) and "speaking" (dialectic).  I presented it, not as a developmental pattern, but rather as a way that a child can learn any subject..."memorize the facts"; "understand" how they fit together; and then "speak" back to the teacher what he has learned so that the teacher can check for understanding.

We thought that it went really well!  The Ugandan way of teaching is very very different than what we have in America.  Some of the information that we gave them, they really understood, some of it was very new to them, but they were eager to understand, and some of it was quite a stretch, but at least the ideas were presented and seeds were planted.  All in all, though, the teachers seemed very receptive and eager to have more days like this.  

Please pray for these schools.  Pray that their small beginnings will be blessed by the Lord...both spiritually and physically.  They are very poor schools.  The idea of a distinctly Christian education...bringing Christ into every subject...is also relatively new.  Please pray that God's will pour out his grace upon these teachers and schools.