Does anyone of my colleagues in this Reading Program ever wonder what our fate will be at the end of this program? I know that I do wonder and especially so because of the change in government. I wonder if anyone has told the new Education Minister that there exists such a program so that it can be and by extension WE (the future first Reading Specialists) can be considered in his new vision for education in T&T. I think it will be a great opportunity for SEMP the initiator of this program to get together a group of us to sit and collate a plan for the way ahead. I plan tp put forward this idea to Mr G. Sarkar and others from the Unit. We need to begin now to plan what the way forward as the first group of Reading Specialists.
Our task is not an easy one but it is a MUCH NEEDED ONE and having common a goal/mission/vision will make it easier. One of the first goal I believe is to let that Ministry REMEMBER that we are here and in the next few months when we are finished what do they plan for us?
We all will readily agreee that our schools need us, our communities need us, our country needs us even our region needs us but do they know that we are here, preparing (academically) and will be coming in the next few months?
I have also thought about this a great deal especially since we are almost finished with the programme. I too have considered the fact that there is a change in government but, as you rightly said, we have to make the relevant authorities aware that we exist.
ReplyDeleteAbout a month ago I was looking at a morning programme and the TTUTA president was speaking about literacy coaches. He was referring to the US and he mentioned that these literacy coaches did a Masters programme in reading and were then sent to train teachers to teach reading. He did not mention anything about this programme that we are doing in Trinidad so I wondered about that as well.
Another thing is that there were several CETT workshops and one of our representatives from school said that the people who conducted the workshop spoke about our programme.
I am hopeful that the Ministry of Education will use this wealth of human resource in an attempt to improve literacy in our country.
Denise Sooknanan-Maraj
I agree with Edlin
ReplyDeleteWe should be proactive if this is a passion for some of us and the need is great then we should not wait on the Minister, the Ministry or Mr Sarkar to get started with at least a tentative framework for a National Literacy Attack.
In the mean time we should begin in our classrooms, in our schools or whatever space we work in to experiment with the information and tools that we have been given.
When preparing for battle it is what you do off the battlefield that will poise you for success: the planning, the practice, the strategising, the networking and so on.
I know some of us are overwhelmed and tired with the intense pace of the course but do not let your spirits flag--we can draw on our collective strengths, we are an army of reading specialists and we will overcome, so refresh and nourish yourselves as this phase comes to an end.
Reading comics is one of the ways I destress here is a site that you can join for free to get comics GoComics