Ferndale Teacher Spends Two Weeks in Liberia

"What did YOU do on your summer vacation?" Ferndale High School teacher Maurice Telesford has a somewhat atypical tale to tell about his summer. He traveled to Liberia to participate in the planning and implementation of a professional development course for Liberian teachers.

Liberian teachers at the secondary level from all over the country came to the training. Most of the teachers were men (39 of the 40) and although the country is roughly the size of Virginia, the journey took some teachers as much as 30 hours to get there, Telesford told the Ferndale school newsletter.

During, the first week of the training, Telesford's team presented workshops on general best-practices for teaching and learning. They also conducted content-specific workshops. Telesford led the sessions on physics
as well as a session on classroom management.

In the second week of the training, 40 high school students came to the campus and the teachers were able to practice implementing the new strategies and ideas that they learned in the previous week. The trainers

served as coaches to help them think through lessons and debrief after teaching each day. One of the major focus areas for the training was to incorporate as many hands-on activities as possible, to show the teachers how to do labs with very inexpensive equipment and to model student-centered classrooms.

“I was incredibly moved by the enthusiasm and appreciation that the Liberian teachers demonstrated throughout the two weeks. Most of the teachers face classrooms with over 70 students and with little to no materials. The country is also in the process of healing from almost two decades of civil war and working hard to rebuild its economy and re-develop a sense of trust between the people and the government. Despite these substantial challenges, the teachers were optimistic about the difference they could make in their students’ lives through empowering them with a strong, engaging education that fosters
critical thinking over rote memorization”.

Photo courtesy Ferndale School District