Riverview helps equip and inspire rural teachers
Twelve teachers from early childhood development centres (ECD) in Nkomazi Wards 16 and 19 learned how to transform everyday items into useful teaching tools during a workshop at Riverview Prep School (RPS) on March 25.
MALALANE – Riverview Prep joined the Leave No Young Child Behind project, a multi-stakeholder initiative which includes RCL Foods, aimed at empowering and educating communities and caregivers of young children in two of Nkomazi’s most impoverished wards. The school hosted their first workshop to share their skills and ideas with teachers from these areas on March 25.
Through easy projects, the RPS teachers hope to spark the ideas and creativity of the ECD teachers. The projects teach them to utilise whatever they have on hand to create interesting projects and items to use in the learning process.
Two groups of six teachers and an official from the Department of Education took turns to learn how to use magazines, bottle caps and washing pegs in the learning and teaching process. They also had a lot of fun making their own non-toxic play dough from ingredients such as flour, food colouring, oil and boiling water.
The teachers completed a total of six projects during the workshop and could take their projects home.
After a session making play dough, the ECD teachers thanked their hosts for the practical experience. “There is a song which we sing to the children: ‘When I hear, I forget. When I sing, I remember. When I do, I will learn.’ You are helping us to learn in a way we won’t easily forget,” one of the teachers said.
Not only had the ECD teachers benefited from the project, the RPS staff also learned a lot while preparing for the workshop. One teacher stated that she had also learned to be very thankful for the facilities they had at Riverview, as many of the ECD teachers had to make do with very few resources.
The school hopes to host these workshops once a term. Pupils will in future be helping out teachers as part of their community involvement and hopefully also learn a few more skills and become aware of the challenges other teachers and pupils face in rural teaching facilities.
