As we know from a previous Rotary Minute, September is reading and Literacy month. But realizing that getting children into schools isn't enough to solve illiteracy, Rotary also does mentoring and coaching for teachers. The UN projects that 264 million children from low-income countries will be failing to learn basic primary-level skills by 2030. Only three in 10 will achieve minimum reading levels. Currently, more than 775 million people over the age of 15 are illiterate. That’s 17 percent of the world’s adult population.
Rotary projects like the Nepal Teacher Training Innovations in Nepal are leading the effort to advance childhood reading by empowering teachers to teach better. Rotary, the United Nations, and other organizations are shifting their focus to helping teachers plan lessons that ensure students will actually learn. The entire effort is part of a larger goal to reduce extreme poverty, because knowing how to read and write increases a person’s earning potential and ability to build a better life. Before taking part in the Nepal Teacher Training Innovations program, one teacher relied heavily on memorization, having her students copy words off the blackboard. After training, the teacher made her lesson on animate and inanimate objects more interactive, says Ashley Hager, NTTI’s director. The teacher asked the children to point to objects and describe how they were different. She then listed the differences on the board and paired students up to discuss them. As a final exercise, the class went outside to find examples in nature. Other teachers agree that the training taught them the value of interactive teaching. “It’s transformed my way of teaching and given me brilliant ideas to employ the best teaching practices I have learned,” says Goma Khada, who teaches fourth grade at Shrijana Higher Secondary School in Thumpakhar, Nepal.
Rotary helping teachers teach better is just one-way Rotary is helping to make this world a better place for everyone. And that is today’s Rotary minute!
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