Peggy Revell
Sandy beaches, a tan, and relaxing in the sun are the usual fare for trips to the Caribbean.
But not for local teacher Dana Kosowick, who recently returned from the small island of Anguilla as part of a program that aims to improve education in developing countries.
“‘Project Overseas’ is teachers teaching teachers,” Kosowick, a Grade 8 teacher at Robert Moore School, explained about the program which is organized by the Canadian Teachers’ Federation, with support from the provincial and territorial teachers’ federations.
“They choose Canadian teachers to go into the developing world and do summer programs for the local teachers,” she noted.
For most of the teachers in these developing countries, this is the only form of professional development they will have throughout the entire school year, Kosowick said.
“So they really value that partnership and they just are so excited when the Canadians come,” she remarked.
“Many of the teachers in Anguilla were not trained,” Kosowick added. “Like, they didn’t have a university education, they’d never been to teachers’ college, they had no training whatsoever.
“So when CTF comes in, that’s kind of like the only training that they might receive.”
Kosowick is no stranger to the program, having had the opportunity to participate a few years ago when she travelled to St. Vincent and the Grenadines.
Participating teachers don’t have a choice of where they are placed, she noted. This year five teams went to the Caribbean, one went to Mongolia, and the rest to Africa.
“All would be great placements, but once you go to the Caribbean, it gets in your blood,” Kosowick admitted, referring to the “awesome” opportunity which saw her travel to Anguilla for three weeks in July alongside her Canadian teammates: a teacher from Edmonton and another from Nunavut.
Kosowick said the Edmonton teacher gave workshops on critical thinking while her Nunavut counterpart focused on teaching English as a Second Language [ESL].
“Although Anguilla is an English-speaking country, they speak with a very poor English dialect,” Kosowick explained about the need for ESL.
“So they’re finding that a lot of their students are not, I guess, speaking proper English.”
For her part, Kosowick focused on teaching classroom management and information technology (IT).
“Some of their computer skills were awesome and then others, they had never even turned on a computer before,” she recalled.
“So it was definitely different from here.”
The visiting teachers also gave workshops about AIDS/HIV, gender equity, and workshop facilitation.
As part of the program, they also were partnered up with local teachers who acted as co-tutors.
“So there’s an aspect of team-teaching, as well, because we want to leave whatever information we’re bringing into the country and have some sort of local expert who can help reinforce [it],” she reasoned.
Prior to heading off to their selected destinations, the 53 participating Canadian teachers met in Ottawa for an orientation session and workshops on working inter-culturally and teamwork, Kosowick said.
“Because not only did we have to get along with our local Canadian team, we had to get along with our Anguillan team because we were partnered up with those co-tutors,” she explained.
“And when you’re working inter-culturally, there can be some communication issues, there can be difficulties,” she conceded.
During their first week in Anguilla—a “really small country of only about 14,000 people”—the team taught about 65 secondary school teachers who came out to the workshop.
Following that, they taught about 95 primary school teachers and principals, as well as some people from Anguilla’s Ministry of Education.
The workshops the team ran went from 9 a.m. until 2:30 p.m., with all the teachers rotating through the sessions.
“There was a break for lunch and because the country is so small, all the teachers went home for lunch,” Kosowick noted. “It was their summer vacation, so they had chosen to come to these workshops and to attend, and they had different family obligations.
“There were some teachers that brought their families to the workshops.
“It’s a very, very Christian country, and family is very important,” she stressed.
The Canadian team also had the opportunity to meet people such as Hubert Hughes—the chief minister for Anguilla—and “Ras Bucket” Trevor Davis, known as Anguilla’s fastest man and now a primary school phys. ed. teacher.
For Kosowick, her favourite part of the project was working with the teachers and the professional conversations they had.
“It doesn’t make a difference where you go, you always find like-minded people who are so passionate about education and who really do enjoy learning best practices and are really there for the students, and value that education for all,” she enthused.
“I think working in the Caribbean, you definitely learn patience and you learn that things happen when they happen,” Kosowick said.
“It’s definitely a very laid-back culture, a laid-back environment.
“I think North Americans could definitely benefit from just sort of chilling out, and valuing [and] listening more to people.
“It definitely makes you appreciate what we have in Canada,” she added. “The [Anguillan] teachers there are working with little in terms of resources.
“Their classrooms are basically bare bones in comparison to what we have.
“They’re still using corporeal punishment in schools. Things are just very different.”
Teaching materials are very expensive, Kosowick continued, noting that everything, including food, is imported to the country since it’s essentially a rock made of coral and limestone with very little vegetation.
Because of this, Kosowick also left behind a lot of resources—such as books, lessons, and school supplies—for the teachers.
The local ETFO chapter donated money to buy some classroom management resources, such as books, CDs, and videos, she said, while the staff at Robert Moore School donated money from their “Friday dress down” fund.
She purchased flash drives for the computer workshops, and the local school board and ETFO gave her pins and pens to hand out in the workshops.
Kosowick sees her applying to participate in the program again down the road, calling it “a fantastic way to work inter-culturally.”
“It’s a lot of work. It’s definitely very rewarding, but it is a lot of work to prep two weeks of workshop,” she remarked, explaining she also went as the team leader this year, meaning she was responsible for all the financials and liaising, with a lot of prep work to get things organized.
“Working in the Caribbean and with ‘Project Overseas’ is a true lesson in flexibility—things happen when they happen—communication, patience, teamwork, and adaptation,” Kosowick said.
“The rewards are amazing, and will carry with me into the new school year and beyond.”
Since first beginning in 1962, more than 1,900 Canadian teachers have been involved in “Project Overseas.”
