TEACHER INSERVICE

When ABREN president Kristina Underdal was working as a Peace Corps volunteer in Pueblo Nuevo, teacher education was a significant aspect of her assignment. The Nicaraguan Ministry of Education had revised its national curriculum based on newer best-practice strategies and constructivist methodologies. They did not have the resources, however, to effectively retrain their teaching staff, particularly in the rural areas far from the capital. With the creation and development of the children’s library, one of ABREN’s goals has been to develop programs that can serve as models for these teaching practices.

Over the years, many teachers have become interested in the teaching practices they observe at the library. The librarians have always been happy to share insights and help organize yearly workshops during Kristina’s annual visits. Now ABREN looks forward to taking the next step in fulfilling its role as an educational model by developing a formal Teacher In-Service Program.

With scholarship assistance from ABREN board members, Irma Gómez López has been pursuing a rigorous course of study to attain the equivalent of a master’s degree in teaching. She now has the knowledge, the experience and the accreditation to be an effective teacher-trainer. This year, Irma will be helping us develop our teacher in-service program, which will provide teachers with concrete strategies to implement Nicaragua’s newly developed curriculum and access to materials that support these strategies.

In this program, teachers will have the opportunity to participate in a series of short, 2-hour workshops. When they have successfully completed all of the workshops in the series, they will be permitted to check out materials from the library. ABREN will organize these materials into grade-level units based on the Nicaraguan academic standards. In addition to leading these workshops, Irma will be available to offer coaching in the use of these units.