Teachers jump up in their seats while doing a Be! book skills activity
School’s back in session, Be! Books are shipping to schools in Bihar, and we just finished teacher training with 170 teachers in Patna. What does this mean? That’s right, Be! is going live in Bihar starting next week! We’re starting the program in schools in Patna, and will expand to 1,000 schools in the state this year.
Last week, 170 teachers traveled from all over Patna in the pouring rain to attend a teacher training session for the Be! Schools program. During five days of training, teachers forgot to be adults, and lost themselves in the magic of stories and fun skills activities. The GTS team of master trainers went over 31 books in the series and had teachers do skills activities that go along with the stories. We anticipated that it would be hard work to get teachers to actively participate, but turns out we had no reason to worry. A card game teaching the skill of being resourceful had teachers literally jumping in their chairs, and the negotiation activity led to a raucous and laughter-filled debate among groups.
Teachers told us over and over that they’d never been to a training like this, and they were excited to teach these books and skills to their classes.
“The training program is different because it imparts knowledge to students through pictures and storytelling. This is how I want to teach.”
Kamini Singh, teacher at BMP Higher Secondary School in Patna, told us “So far we had not been trained to teach children in ways that would interest them. Even the most absent minded children love stories and enjoy games. That’s why children will never find these books and activities tiresome.”
“Like children, adults also love colours. The stories attracted everyone and I found the colours exciting.” Sangeeta Sinha, P N Anglo Sanskrit Senior Secondary School, Naya Tola, Patna
“This workshop was based completely on experience sharing and it is about life skills.” -Dr Ashok Kumar, Govt Boys Senior Secondary School, Shashtri Nagar, Patna.
Teachers play a resource-matching game
“I like the new approach of group discussion and questioning method where different opinions can be expressed.” –Sanjay Kumar Chaudhary, Patna High School, Gardanibagh
A teacher maps his social network, funny faces and all
