Teacher Training for Participatory Learning and Holistic Education

Paung Daw Oo Teacher Training
18 April – 2 May, 2005. Mandalay, Myanmar.

Last month, after Songkran holiday, I had a chance to travel to Burma to conduct a training for teachers on particpatory learning. This was my the first training workshop that I did for the longest of time, 16 days, and it was the first time I conduct a training for a group of 30 teachers, three of which were Buddhist monks. It was a wonderful experience and I left Mandalay with great hope that the people of Burma will lead their life in joy and learn to co-create a peaceful society along with us here in Thailand. The workshop was organized and supported by Spirit in Education Movement-Burma (SEM) and was co-facilitated by Thet Nai, a wonderful friend, and assisted by Nyi Nyi.

Here are some of my observations and reflection from the workshop.

What have the teachers learned?

At the end of the workshop, my heart was filled with joy in witnessing changes and growth in 30 teachers, 22 of which were from Paung Daw Oo School and the rest were from other rural monastic schools. Our evaluation took two forms, first by the participants writing a personal letter to their friends to tell about what they have learned from the 15-day workshop. The second form was by answering a list of 16 questions. The answers are to be summarized by Thet Nai.

Change and growth takes place not only on an individual level, but also interpersonal and consequently organizational level. Teachers learned the core principles of participatory learning process that can empower their students to be confident and to value life-long learning.

To be able to teach effectively as facilitators, they learn to be aware of their internal obstacles, such as inability to hold judgments and need of deep listening. They learned that it was their primary task to develop the sense of self-awareness.

We spent a whole morning to discuss about conventional factory-like education where schools were expected to be a factory and students should come out as the same. We explore how we also were educated in this same system. We were more or less the product of this factory schooling system. So there was a real need to de-school our minds and unlearn our behaviors and attitudes, and then we can re-learn.

Especially, the hierarchical construction-giving teaching style accompanied with rewarding or punishment has been internalized and replayed in their lives. This creates the culture and environment of fear in which the creative and open human minds would only result in submissive silence and behaviors. Instead the teachers learned to create the environment of trust and appreciation of diversity through a variety of tools that invoke physical, feeling and creative thinking learning process.

A part of the course is to emphasize the participatory creation of teacher learning community. Through the participatory learning, they realized the importance of collective learning in cooperative and trustful environment. Many of them knew each other before, but never spent enough time getting to know each other on a deeper level. Through out the course, the participants became aware of their differences and value. They recognized the importance of maintaining the community of practitioners (COP) after the end of the course in order to empower each othe, share and construct new knowledge and methodologies in a holistic experiential participatory way. This interpersonal bond should sustain their teacher community in a long run.

More importantly, at the end of the course, we invited Pong Pong Gee (U Nayaka), the abbot principal of PDO School to join the dialogue with the teachers in a fishbowl format regarding the future of holistic education at PDO. The dialogue led to explore the school structure and teacher ranking which for many was quite a controversial issue.

Content/process
The course provided a basic conceptual framework for holistic education and participatory learning for the teachers whose critical awareness of the conventional education approach was not much. In order to develop this awareness, it might be worth to create more space in which they can explore a larger context of education system such as sustainable development issues and how the world is evolving. So more exposure to a larger context of education and development should enhance their critical thinking.

Dialogue
More practice on thinking together as a unite organism or organization is needed. This is very crucial for maintaining the creative and collective learning dynamics of the group. This group, however, tends to easily fall into the familiar behavior of debate. It was such a challenge to hold a space for deep exchange without skillful facilitation. The group is aware of this lack. People who tend to take more space or speak more than others tend to give space to those who were more receptive and silent. I became aware of the need for the group to continue the practice of deep listening and thinking together as a coherent improvisation.

Self-organization and organizational empowerment
There was a structural and organization challenge for the teachers to apply what they have learned to their daily classroom practice and education system. PDO has 6000 students with about 120 teachers. So generally, one teacher is in charge of a class of 70 – 100 students. The classroom is small and some times there were not enough benches or tables for students. Sometimes they could not write because of the crowded seating condition. It was hard to apply the participatory to such a scale of classroom, although it was not impossible. I have discussed about this with U Nayaka and told him that it would be ideal to have more space in classroom or cut down the students, or increase more teachers. He also would like to experiment with having two teachers teaching together in one classroom with the participatory methods. So next year we should see the outcome.

Notes from U Nayaka
He really liked the teacher training and noticed some positive changes in the teachers. Excited about how his vision for a holistic PDO, he would like to continue teacher training project in near future since he still have more teachers both from his school and from other monastic schools around Mandalay who need training support on the matter.

Community of Practice (COP) in Mandalay
Some core leading teachers who have received the training this time were very inspired by what they had learned and would like to provide training to other teachers in the same school so that the environment and methods can gradually turn into a human-centered holistic and participatory approach. They also would like to have a room for COP to regularly meet at school. They can potentially maintain their community of practice and expand it to other interested network of teachers in Mandalay. They are also interested in visiting some alternative schools in Thailand to see the real practice and learn more.