Thank You Craft Hope!

The LOEP Training Team sends our thanks and best wishes to the 100 caring, talented Craft Hope crafters - they sent more than 140 sets of Bean Bags for Liberian classrooms!

Thank you to Jade Sims, Craft Hope creator and Special Friend to LOEP!

Bean Bags ARE a Big Deal!

The Bean Bag project through Craft Hope has been a stunning success for LOEP. Exactly 100 wonderful crafters responded with beautifully hand made bean bag sets. Alphabet sets, number sets and shape sets will be packed up and sent in June along with other school and teachers supplies for LOEP partner schools in Liberia.

Most of us here in the U.S. are accustomed to school classrooms packed full of books, instructional tools, art and craft supplies, colorful bulletin boards and posters on the walls. Paper, pencils, crayons, and basic materials are always available and the supply of such items seems nearly endless - we take it for granted that there is always plenty of whatever is needed in the classroom.

Seeing pictures of Liberian schools was a bit of a shock for some who viewed the LOEP presentation last Sunday. After the presentation, one commenter said, "I can see why the bean bags are a big deal" for Liberian classrooms. The pictures of Liberia's bare, dim classrooms stood in stark contrast to the cheerful and colorful array of hand-crafted bean bags lined up in front of the room.

How the bean bags will be used in Liberian classrooms and what they bring to the teaching experience for teachers will be the subject of future blog posts. Now we have to begin packing to send them on their way by ship to West Africa. More pictures and posts to come!

Building a Community with Bean Bags

The LOEP 2010 Training Workshop theme was "Building a Community of Learners". The theme spoke directly to the critically important role of educators in re-building the Liberian nation community broken by 25 years of political strife and 14 years of war. The workshop focused on how to begin building a community of learners by starting with the inclusive classroom. Teachers discovered that developing a community of learners is important to any educational environment whether that setting is an individual classroom, a school, or a teacher education program Teachers discovered how establishing a positive classroom environment can increase student success and learned how expanding the positive environment to include teachers and students as an entire school community working and learning together can enhance the learning experience for all. Broadening the learning community's reach into the homes of students to include families brings the learning experience into the surrounding community at large - a sort of ripple effect beginning with the classroom nucleus.
Liberian society and culture once consisted of strong, close-knit communities - nation of villages and extended family networks. That all changed with devastating war and now it is time to rebuild communities and restore a sense of community - that is, shared goals and shared commitment. Educators are at the forefront of the re-building process and re-building community is key to restoring lasting stability and peace in Liberia.
As LOEP trainers worked last year to develop the training workshop for 2010 we never imagined that such a wonderful example of communituy-building and mutual support would come to us through the Craft Hope bean bag project. When LOEP submitted our request to the crafting community for help in providing classroom bean bag sets for Liberian teachers, the crafting community responded instantly and generously. Bean bag sets are coming daily from all over the world. The amazing response is a beautiful example of how a community can work together to accomplish a common goal - in this case, enhancing classroom learning for Liberian students.
Craft Hope has provided LOEP teachers with a living example of community.

International Bean Bags!

The Craft Hope project already has every appearance of being highly successful. We here at LOEP are so excited about this wonderful opportunity and yesterday we received the first bean bag delivery - all the way from Australia! We have word of more coming from that continent and of some contributions from folks in Spain, Netherlands and even, possibly, Russia!

What an extraordinary Social Studies lesson for all of us!

These are the first Bean Bag arrivals!

Meet the ToTs

Meet the TOTS!


This group is preparing to take over LOEP!

One of the main goals of the LOEP Training Team has always been to work ourselves out of a job. Yes, as much as we love to come to Liberia and hang out with our friends here, we have focused the training and planning on helping our colleagues become the trainers themselves. These eight (8) teachers (pictured here at the end of a long week of training) are the LOEP Trainers of Teachers (ToTs) who will be busy in the coming year working together using LOEP training kits to develop their own workshop sessions. Periodically throughout the year they will prepare and present to their colleagues an in-service program highlighting a concept and/or technique they have learned over the past two years in LOEP workshops. The sessions will help prepare them to train their colleagues and peers who teach orphans and vulnerable children in Liberia.

Mrs. Rosa Allen, Principal at Lott Carey Mission School, is the coordinator of the ToT group. She will be organizing regular meetings for ToTs to get together and share ideas and observations about training. Next year, the LOEP training team will be working closely with the ToTs developing workshop skills and techniques.
LOEP will continue to support the ToTs, sending training materials, providing new education resources and conducting refresher workshops.

"Train one, train many" is how one of our Liberian friends explained the LOEP concept of shared knowledge and shared vision.

Bean Bags for Liberia!

LOEP teachers will soon have a new tool in their classroom instruction toolkit thanks to Craft Hope! A wonderful network of crafters who are dedicated to making changes for the good in this world have volunteered to make bean bags for LOEP to send to classrooms in Liberia!

Check out this link
www.crafthope.com

Thanks to Craft Hope and all the great crafters who have volunteered to bring a new dimension to classroom teaching and learning in Liberia!

Teacher Tools

The typical Liberian teacher's toolkit is basically limited to chalk and blackboard. Classroom supplies and instructional materials are in very short supply in Liberia. Teachers have very few posters, books, maps or art materials and no instructional games or AV equipment to enhance their their teaching. Teachers struggle to engage children in learning, mainly through lecture and blackboard notes.

LOEP teacher training introduces some teaching tools but we are always mindful that materials are not readily available in Liberia - either too expensive or simply not available at all. Over the years we have worked with LOEP teachers in discovering ways to use basic supplies that we can provide for them. For example, LOEP teachers now make their own flash cards using index cards and/or construction paper and markers. Here in the U.S. most of us grew up with flash cards (purchased, pre-printed ones)as an instructional tool in the classroom. Now that familiar tool is becoming a regular teaching aid in classrooms where LOEP teachers work. Thanks to the generosity of LOEP supporters who shop back-to-school sales, LOEP includes large quantities of index cards and markers in all school supply shipments to teachers in Liberia. When those simple materials are inexpensively and readily available in Liberia, teachers will know exactly how to make best use and can go beyond chalk and blackboard.