Children’s Resources International is conducting its annual teacher-training workshop on interactive teaching and learning methodologies, which kicked off on July 14. The first week of training was for kindergarten teachers, and I happened to be at the Islamabad Model School G-9/3 session, recording minutes. And what a colourful week indeed. The participants of the workshop were introduced to innovative ways to improve the quality of elementary education and to make learning fun for kindergarten children in a friendly and inclusive classroom environment. This involved getting the teachers to actually do all sorts of activities designed for kindergarteners. So throughout the workshop, the participants were ‘kacchi jamaat kay bacchay’ and the workshop instructors were their ‘madams.’ As you might imagine, the teachers had a blast. Elderly gentlemen fingerpainting, matronly principals playing with brightly-coloured blocks, young ladies trying to better one another in the art of making popup storybooks out of A4 paper. For one week, these teachers all became kids. What was really interesting was that whenever the instructors had trouble getting the participants to hear them out, they would end up saying: “See how hard it is to sit still and be quiet? Can you blame the kids?” This was a running theme throughout the workshop: teachers putting themselves in their students’ little shoes. They experienced firsthand the creative learning materials provided by CRI and the many fun ways they could be used to learn math or languages. They felt the satisfaction of having their work appreciated by the instructors and displayed on the walls. All in all, I felt it was a promising way to improve teaching skills. Next week, the workshop will train Class 1 teachers.

Click on the thumbnails to see more photos from kindergarten week.