Part Three: Uganda Fellowship Fun
In her third post of the LRTT Uganda Series, 2017 Fellow Cathy Ricciardone shares thoughts on our first-ever January Fellowship
As you may know, LRTT stands for Limited Resource Teacher Training. It’s the true reason why we are in Uganda and therefore this blog will be the longest and the most in-depth.
Sometime in the middle of 2016 LRTT released a video on Facebook that called for teachers from Australia to take part in their 2017 January Fellowship in Uganda. Application forms were filled, Skype interviews held and the Fellowship team was formed! Other than the brief messages on a Facebook group or a Google hangout call with some of the Fellows and team leaders, we didn’t know much about who we were going to embark on in this journey. Was it even a truly a legitimate thing? But onward we went — booking flights, paying the program fee and selecting excursions.
Flights from Perth, Sydney, Melbourne, Dublin and London brought 16 Aussie teachers and one Irish filmmaker to Uganda for a teacher training program.
Getting Started: Learning About Uganda
The program started with an introductory day at the lodge. We were privileged enough to learn Rukiga, the language spoken in this part of Uganda, and about the customs and culture of the Ugandan from our Ugandan team leaders and mentors Frank and Gloria. We shared with them some things about Australia and together we learnt more about both countries.
Following these sessions our LRTT leaders Andy and Lauren guided us through best team teaching practices. We reflected on what our purpose for being a part of the Fellowship was and then found out who we would be team teaching with for the next two weeks! Initial plans and a timetable was made for our sessions the following day. Our role was to support the lecturer, who would be delivering content-based information, with best practice pedagogy. We would share our knowledge and understanding of areas including: differentiation, assessment for learning, physical learning environment, planning, special needs education, learning styles and questioning.
We worked at Great Lakes Regional University to supplement their in-service teacher training program. We arrived fresh-faced and keen for our first day. After a brief opening session — where we encountered the incredible Ugandan musical talent for the first time — we set off to our assigned classes and lectures.
Week One
We had high hopes and visions for the first day. We headed to our rooms and waited. If the class we were to be working with didn’t turn up, we would return to our “base” room and continue planning, making resources and discussing ideas for how we could best approach the topics we were to cover.
The week wasn’t all smooth sailing but we all learnt a lot about ourselves, what we are capable of and how important our little family was in keeping us positive and excited for the next day despite the challenges. We would arrive each day hoping to share a lecture with a class of eight teachers. When too few or no teachers turned up, we made the most of our time by honing our plans. The vibe remained positive.
Day three came around and our Ugandan mentors and our Team Leaders were all starting to wonder whether the programme would come to fruition and get the result we were hoping for.
But this did not stop real teachers and progressive educators from thinking on their feet. Our Team Leaders truly proved worthy of the lead role in LRTT by turning the program on its head, facilitating sessions that explored our own teaching practice and development as educators and leaders. This was truly rewarding to all those involved.
After a relaxing weekend in Lake Bunyonyi, we returned to the University on Monday morning to a crowd of enthusiastic teachers who had turned up for our sessions. Thanks to the time we had spent in planning the week before, we were ready to kick off our four-day professional development program.
In the second week, more than 60 teachers turned up including some who wanted to refresh their LRTT training. They were equally as pumped as we were to get immersed in learning! Our teaching teams ran successful sessions on great teaching practice. The teachers’ enthusiasm was evident in their punctuality — on time and ready to learn. In each session our Ugandan compatriots were showing us how incredible they were as professional teachers. It was not simply about them learning from us: we were absolutely learning a lot from them as well!
It was in this week that we felt that our true purpose for being in Kanungu, Uganda was fulfilled. We had bursting classrooms with highly involved participants learning and developing their teaching skills. Resources were put together and new strategies learnt, tried and implemented! In just four days, we the Aussie teachers and our Ugandan colleagues really felt like we had left a true impact on one another.
End of an Era
On our final day, some of us were fortunate enough to spend the day in a sensational excursion tracking gorillas. The even more fortunate group spent the last day of our teaching training program with our amazing Ugandan teachers. They concluded the four-day program which, compared to the first week, absolutely flew by singing and dancing the afternoon away.
The closing ceremony had some fine words from one of our Fellows, the Vice Chancellor and with a rendition of I am, You are, We are Australian adapted to include the Rukiga language for “We are all friends”.
On the one hand, I think had we begun with the amazing experience like we had in the second week, the reach and depth of our sessions may have had further impact than it did. On the other hand, I can’t help but think that our our sentiment might have changed. Maybe we wouldn’t have treasured as much as we do now each hour of successful sessions we ran compared to the unsuccessful hours we spent in the first week praying for people to enter our rooms.
All in all, four days were enough to make us truly feel like our choice to come here was right! Through adversity comes great strength and promise and that’s what our Fellowship felt like! We got there in the end and it has been a life-changing experience: professionally, emotionally and socially.
We’ve hopefully helped LRTT’s reach grow to now include an Australian-Ugandan professional network of teachers. Being here has helped a lot of us put our teaching practice into perspective. In Uganda, class sizes are over 50, the classrooms are tiny and a lot of children arrive hungry. Paper and pencils are a luxury that many can’t afford. To many, computers, iPads and laptops are a distant reality. But the silver lining is that a wave of fantastic teachers are revolutionising education in schools, whole districts and ultimately changing the lives of Ugandan children.
Interested in becoming an LRTT teacher Fellow or partnering with LRTT to train teachers? Visit www.lrtt.org.
This story is Part Three of this feature:
- Part One: From the White Nile to Paradise Among The Trees
- Part Two: Life in the Lodge
- Part Three: Uganda Fellowship Fun
- Part Four: A Lake Bunyonyi Adventure
- Part Five: At 43, 000ft, Farewell to the Pearl of Africa
Cathy Ricciardone is a primary school teacher from Perth, Australia. She was an LRTT Uganda January 2017 Fellow.
