Global Literacy Initiative

Is a project that is dedicated to supporting teacher education in underprivileged areas by teaching teachers to be Teacher-Innovators that first learn how to learn, and through this, how to teach.

The Need

Many schools in other countries are staffed by dedicated individuals who work for little or no compensation and give the children in these communities an opportunity to access a better life through the power of education. Many of these teachers have the desire but have very limited resources. Often these schools may have packaged curriculums that either are difficult for the teachers to use or are dependent upon expensive consumables. Either one of these circumstances limits the effectiveness of these curriculums for the schools.

The Philosophy

The philosophy that forms the basis of this project is
ARA Ed.: Acquisition, Reasoning, Application Education. We apply the methods that demonstrate how children best learn. Having worked in an International Baccalaureate program, Montessori education, and conventional education, we utilize the aspects of each of these programs that align with our philosophy to empower teachers to change the lives of their students.

The Focus

We are focusing on teaching methodology and philosophy. These schools are in underdeveloped areas so there is no money for expensive materials. We are showing them how manipulatives work and then helping them figure out what materials they can use from their own area. For example, one group we have worked with has lots of different types of beans. They will choose one to represent units, one for tens and one for hundreds and will use those to teach basic operations in Mathematics. This allows them to work in all four operations with something they can source locally.

The Initiative

To either bring these teachers to the U.S. or go to their schools for a period of three to seven weeks of intensive training either in teaching philosophy or specific content areas. We first teach the teachers how to learn and then how to find resources from their local environment to use as the tools and vehicles for teaching their students. Following the training we provide continued support. We seek to help our students become teacher-innovators.

Our Projects

Our first project is in Myanmar. We brought five teachers from Cornerstone Children Academy to join us in New Jersey and spend seven weeks in an intensive training that challenged their views of teaching, thinking and learning. We taught the teachers how to develop materials and curriculum based on locally sourced resources.
Subsequent work has secured the donation of licensing for reproducible materials to support the teaching of English. Training has continued via Skype, and we are working to visit the school for follow-up training.

Our next project is beginning in Buenos Aires, Argentina. We are training teacher-trainers to empower local teachers to become lifelong learners and teacher-innovators. We have two volunteers that are taking up the mission, and we will be sending the materials for them to supply to the schools in the villas and assentamientos.