Update for March 2016

Dear friends of Matènwa,

Students are always excited to work in the garden and go to the library. Here are the third graders (pictured left) creating a new vegetable garden. Together with the garden technician, they discuss the shape and dimensions of the garden. Next, they go over some of tools they need such as rakes, strings, hoes, picks, shovels and a measuring tape. They then gather some of the tools and go to work. For their next class, they will be putting homemade organic fertilizer into the garden.

In the library, the kindergarteners have a great time reading with librarian and director Delson Engerville. They enjoy choosing books to take back to class each week.

Training Updates

There were several trainings for and by MCLC teachers. After a follow-up evaluation of the primary school teachers, Chris Low facilitated several refresher workshops on the use of concrete materials for different courses. Teachers got to practice how they can make math lessons more concrete by using students themselves, for example, to represent denominators and numerators.

Two professors from the MIT-Haiti Initiative came from Port Au Prince to give Matènwa a day training on some MIT physics and math computer applications that have been translated into Creole. Secondary teachers are eager to learn more about these programs so that they can integrate the ones pertinent to the 12 grade curriculum.

From February 23rd to the 26th, COSPES (a consortium of private sector school organizations in Haiti) brought 8 teachers from the mainland of Port-au-Prince to Matènwa for training. The first day of the visit a couple teachers had reservations of having the language of instruction be solely in Creole. However, upon observing the MCLC classrooms and seeing how students were learning and interacting, the COSPES teachers quickly saw the benefits of mother tongue education. They loved all the music and gardening. COSPES director Caroline Hudicourt said she is eager to bring more teachers from the mainland each year.

Samila Edmond, MCLC Direction Committee

Chris Low, Executive Director FOM