Sharing good practice
on Kate in Guyana (Guyana), 26/Nov/2009 17:44, 34 days ago
We have a day off tomorrow as it is a Muslim holiday. There are quite a few holidays as we get the Christian, Muslim and Hindu, but maybe not all of all of them. It is always a week for something or other as well, and next week is National Disability Week. There is an awareness raising march, a free concert in Main Street, a sticker campaign about letting persons with disabilities onto minibuses. So I'll be going to these events and networking. The Disability Bill is having its second reading in the Guyanese Parliament today. It has taken five years to get this far. If it gets passed then it gives the right to equitable education, so that will make a big difference to Special Needs Education (hopefully). This week we heard that the government is planning on increasing spending on education generally, I hope that includes giving teachers more pay. Currently they get less money than us, and we are classed as volunteers. Most teachers just want to get qualified then go overseas.Yesterday I had a workshop about how Rehabilitation links up to Education - aimed at teachers and workers in special schools. It was run by the VSO for Rehab, so it was a fun day. We had a game of cricket (guess who hit the ball out into the road and lost it) - then we were asked to list the skills involved in cricket, link the whole experience to education, then think how it could be adapted for a child with any disability to take part. The interesting idea was that every subject on the school curriculum could be taught through the medium of cricket. Cricket is a national obsession in Guyana - maybe I mentioned that I met Clive Lloyd who is a famous West Indies cricketer - are you impressed?One of the new ideas I am getting involved in is to work on building up a curriculum for special needs based on sharing good practice between the special schools. The idea is to use it as a vehicle to empower teachers - to make them feel that they have valuable expertise, and so they will feel more motivated. But it is hard when they are so badly paid. To get the atmosphere in the schools think about 1950s in the UK. We are going to look at the idea of working on little bits of curriculum, then getting someone to try it out, then it will be tried and tested in Guyana. Then we have to monitor whether it is actually used in classrooms.A guy at choir says he has a piano accordion that nobody uses, so he will bring it. So maybe I can have a blast on that. Will they cope?