Wednesday, July 29th

Today at Madre Marcelena was a professional development day!  Sister Luz Marena had a very busy day!  Her day started at 6 a.m. with a meeting of the Board about the policy mandates from the Colombian Department of Education.  After that she had a meeting with parents to discuss the changes in the school...and then our program with the teachers began at 9:00 a.m.!

The purpose of her meeting with the faculty was to inform them of the mandated changes from the Department of Education.  As I've mentioned before, Colombia is pushing their bilingual program. Local governments were asked to each select 26 schools to be the first in the sequence to implement the policies.  Basically, the changes include 2 extra hours of school a day to be used for enriching and deepening understanding in various subject areas.  The teachers have the option of increasing their hours with extra pay....or keeping their current hours and the school will hire additional teachers to assume the extra hours.  Although it may seem simple...there are many issues that arise as a result. Since all students do not get lunch at school...this new policy would force the school to provide daily lunches for the students as they will be in school from 7-3...or later if older.  This not only entails the food programs that will have to be instituted, but as it stands, they don't have an adequate area for students to eat...so they will need to build an area for them.  The program will begin well before they are able to build the necessary infrastructure.  Some members of the faculty were accepting of the new policies...but others were understandably upset!  I kept thinking about what would happen if that meeting would have occurred at EHS.  The Sister handled the meeting quite well and was able to eloquently diffuse the anger arising from some of the teachers.  After that meeting, we facilitated a workshop with all of the faculty discussing global competence.

Agenda for our morning meeting with the faculty.

Jason and I starting our workshop!

Teachers busy working on their brainstorming!

When time was up we tried to take the posters away from the teachers...but they grabbed them back and kept adding information!  It was so wonderful to see everyone so invested and engaged!

After the brainstorming was done, a representative from each group got up and talked about the terms that they had included in their brainstorm...and why they included that information.

Jason, Katie and I listening to the teachers talk about their brainstorming!

When we were done discussing the brainstorming, we asked the teachers to work collaboratively in their groups to develop a working definition of Global Competence.  Each group read and translated their definition....and then we shared the GCC definition...and lo and behold...they were almost identical!

My partners....(from left to right...Patricia, Katie, and Jason)

Patricia discussing the GCC Matrix

At the end of the workshop, Katie posed the question asking how we could best support each other to enable our students to become globally competent.  It was an excellent discussion!  Many of the teachers participated...even Sister Luz Marena!  The teachers had an overwhelmingly humanistic perspective!  The needs of the student were always tantamount!  It was so incredible to have the opportunity to work collaboratively!  I felt as if we were actually one team!  It always amazes me that you can live far away from people and still share basically the same thoughts, values, and behaviors!

All in all it was a great day!  In the afternoon we sat with the English Language teachers and talked about various challenges that we all face.  Again...very similar!  I was able to set up a pen-pal program with Jesus to begin when we return to school in the fall!  He teaches students in grades 9, 10 and 11!  I am really excited to get back to school and continue our collaborative relationship!  The pen-pal program will give his students a chance to practice their English language writing and reading skills while learning about our culture...  and... my students will have the opportunity to learn about a new culture!

Tomorrow we are back at the school for our last day!  I will be visiting a 9th grade social studies class, and a philosophy class!  The school has a surprise for us in the morning...I can't wait to see what it is!