My Kenyan Experience

This August I was fortunate enough to be part of the Education Beyond Borders team that traveled to Nanyuki, Kenya. The first week was enjoyable and not too hectic as we prepared workshops and did some sightseeing in the area to familiarize ourselves with the community. Nanyuki is a town of about 30 000 in rural Kenya. We were fortunate to stay at a place called Pelican House on the Ol Pejeta conservancy. Our daily commute involved seeing numerous kinds of wildlife. Our second week was both hectic and rewarding. We met with our Kenyan facilitators. These were teachers that had attended the workshops last year and wanted to be facilitators this year. This week was demanding but we managed to finish our presentation of the methodologies and then work with the Kenyan teachers to create workshops for the next week. The next week saw the return of our facilitators plus around 50 more teachers. The teachers were very eager to learn and embraced the idea of professional development. We had many laughs and learned from each other. I learned about the Kenyan education system and their challenges as well as new ideas I could take back to my classroom. Overall, this was a very rewarding and fulfilling experience. It was certainly the best professional development I have ever done and I would certainly recommend this to any teacher.