Where we are right now

We are now a real group. We have four people (including me) for our trip for this year. For the first time, we have two teachers from the public board here in Ottawa. I am hoping that we will make new inroads into the public board with the help of these new participants!

We are working with a new executive director for Salvaide
Rene Guerra Salazar is the new director and he is currently in El Salvador getting to know our partners and some of the communities we will be working with.

We continue to work with Teachers Without Borders, although we will be working more in the background. Teachers Without Borders likes to work directly with in-country partners and we are doing our best to facilitate this. I am hoping that Rene and the TWB Mexico program officer will have the opportunity to develop some programming ideas for this year in El Salvador.

We are also trying to work with the Ottawa Catholic School Board to develop a course link to Religion courses offered by the University of Ottawa. This is complicated, slow business, but I know that we will be able to increase the size of this year's group if we are able to offer course credit for Catholic teachers. This is an attractive option for the university so I am hoping we will be able to work something out.

Right now, we are working on our program for this summer. I am hoping that Rene will be able to meet with some of our partners to firm up activities for July.

It is good to know that we have a trip confirmed for this year. For the first time, we have teachers who are interested in conducting workshops with teachers in El Salvador. This would be a new venture for us and offers us great new opportunities to enter into meaningful professional dialogue with Salvadoran teachers. Now we need to find ways to 'release' teachers so that these workshops will have lots of participation from local teachers.

All very exciting. More to follow as our 2011 program begins to take shape!

Paul



More exchanges like this planned for 2011

Partner Profile - Teachers Without Borders

Teachers Without Borders is a new adventure for us. This summer, we are hoping that we will be working with Teachers Without Borders while we are in Chalatenango google satellite maps">Chalatenango

This year our approach will be different. We have spent two years visiting communities and talking to lots of people. During these visits, we have learned a great deal and more importantly, our hosts have learned lots about us. We are now at the stage where we can focus on a community that we have visited and a group that is interested in developing sustainable links with us.

I have written about Nelson and the community support organization CCR. I want to write a little bit about TWB. I consider TWB another partner, one that can bring great value to our work. We have worked with TWB staff and have decided together that we will be developing a program that combines some of the most dynamic elements of TWB programs.

We are very interested in the teacher training tools that TWB can offer. From past conversations, teachers in El Salvador have told us that what they really want is more training. It will be great to see a program develop that will allow Canadians and Salvadorans participate in professional training and dialogue. It is still early days, but we are really looking forward to see what ideas TWB will come up with!

Starting a new year for Compadres

Now that summer is almost over and we are returning to school, it is time to start thinking about our next trip to El Salvador.

At this point, we have 20 people who have signed up for the experience. This is a good number. I am now looking for ways to keep people engaged so we don't have the drop off of interest that we experienced last year.

There are several new ventures. We will be working with Teachers Without Borders this year. They run two programs that could be a great fit with the work we are doing.

I just enrolled myself in the Certificate of Teaching Mastery program. I really hope that we will be able to find a way to offer credit to our teachers this year. This program may help.

If not, no matter. TWB offers some really interesting programs that I think we finally give us the tools to structure the professional dialogue we want to have with Salvadoran educators.

We are also working on a partnership with ASCORCAN here is Ottawa. We hope to promote their speakers program to our teachers and possibly to some of our students as well! We are also hoping to develop a popular education workshop with them some time this winter.

More to come, I will try to use the blog to chronicle the preparation work we are doing this fall.