Inaugural Alma Foundation Teachers Roundtable October 18, 2014
We felt that getting all of our teachers and partners together on a regular basis to share
best practices, commiserate and celebrate would be a good idea. We also felt that turning
these roundtables into “seminars” where we could also train the teachers creative ways to
motivate their students to develop critical thinking would be very beneficial. To this end
we held our first “roundtable” in Urubamba while I was there a few weeks back.
Twenty two teachers and partners came representing thirteen of our projects. Some
drove six hours to get to Urubamba so I was very happy with the attendance. Everyone
introduced themselves, described their projects and shared some very preliminary
thoughts. Ian then lead a discussion on best practices and what we hope to accomplish at
these meetings.
We believe that these regular sessions (every 6 weeks) will inspire our teachers, improve
the quality of their lessons and create better quality teachers regardless of where they
work. Eventually we will videotape lessons in the communities and share these tapes at
the meetings. It will be a way of “measuring” and sharing the successes of both the
students and the teachers. More to come in 2015!
Alan Harman