I am calling
today’s workshop a success.
1. All the food was eaten, except what we
salvaged for Miss Chuki to take home. Miss Chuki is fasting during daylight
hours for Ramadan. She says it is not a problem if people eat in front of her;
she has such a cheerful and optimistic disposition! We sent her home with two
carrot muffins, two banana pikelets and two chocolate orange Jaffa cakes. The
‘boys’ looked slightly bashful that they had not been considerate of her – she
missed out on a Ginger biscuit - but overall everyone was happy with the
Afternoon Tea criterion.
2. We started and finished on time. This was
very important. The workshop followed a Staff Meeting – very variable in length
– but could not start early if the staff meeting finished early as visitors had
been invited for 2 pm. In the event none of the invited visitors came. We
finished bang on 3.30!
3. We met the published objective. All the
participants finished the workshop with a Lesson Plan to use in the next week.
I worked on mine – I’ll be teaching about Tanzania under the British mandate
next week – and had some help from our grants volunteer who isn’t a teacher but
knows what a good lesson looks like!
4. The feedback during the plenary session
was positive and encouraging. We are already talking about the subject for the
next workshop – Report Writing or maybe Communication – and what food would be
nice!
Over the next two
weeks I will seek feedback privately on how well their lesson plans went but
the proof will be in whether they continue to use the pro forma, or their own
modification of it, as that will truly test if it was a way of planning lessons
that was quick easy and effective!
