Connaught teacher spends three weeks in Burkina Faso educating educators

By Jeremy Appel on August 16, 2018.

jappel@medicinehatnews.com @MHNJeremyAppel

An École Connaught School French immersion teacher joined three of her colleagues from Ontario on a trip to Burkina Faso in July to assist local educators.

Carolyn Weiler, who teaches Grade 2, says the three-week trip was an educational experience for both the Canadian and Burkinabé teachers.

Weiler and her fellow Canadians travelled to Africa as part of “Operation Overseas,” a partnership with the Canadian Teachers Federation, and by extension Alberta Teachers Association, has with countries across the world, including Burkina Faso.

The four Canadians delivered teacher workshops to a group of about 65 of their counterparts in two cities in Burkina Faso — Bobodeoulasso and the capital, Ouagadougou.

“We planned different workshops based on different topics, such as critical thinking, growth mindset and I actually taught some teachers strategies for co-operative learning in an English as Second Language setting,” said Weiler.

Burkinabé teachers don’t have the same opportunities for professional development that Canadian teachers do, she added.

“They really enjoyed our different style, which is more interactive, trying to teach those teachers how to use different interactive methods, as opposed to just lecture style,” Weiler said.

Educators in Burkina Faso lack the same technology many Canadian teachers take for granted.

“We didn’t have our powerpoints and our smartboards and our Wi-Fi as much,” said Weiler. “You really had to be creative and think on the spot.”

Still, the teaching methodologies and issues they face are universal.

“The concerns about the kids are the same as ours,” she said. “They had issues with their large class sizes, which we’ve been fighting for years.

“We realized we had all these commonalities.”

Burkina Faso is a French-speaking nation, so Weiler’s experience in French immersion was very helpful.

Weiler expressed immense gratitude to her hosts.

“We found the people to be extremely hospitable and warm,” she said. “The people went overboard to meet our needs.”

This wasn’t Weiler’s first experience travelling to a developing nation for volunteer work.

She went to Guatemala last year with Sernina, a school that promotes girls education, but she didn’t go there specifically to assist teachers.

“It was a new experience in terms of traveling with a purpose,” she said of the Burkina Faso trip.

Weiler said she “would definitely” return to Burkina Faso given a future opportunity to do so.

“It was one of the hardest things I’ve done, but it was one of the most rewarding things too,” she said.

“I’d say I gained as much out of the experience as the participants did, on a professional level and on a personal level.”

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