{"id":2677,"date":"2016-10-05T10:41:27","date_gmt":"2016-10-05T17:41:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/imagine1day.org\/?p=2677"},"modified":"2022-12-06T16:31:48","modified_gmt":"2022-12-06T16:31:48","slug":"dealing-with-distraction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/imagine1day.org\/dealing-with-distraction\/","title":{"rendered":"Dealing with classroom distractions"},"content":{"rendered":"

From donkeys outside the classroom to students with cellphones, teacher across the world deal with classroom distraction every day. This World Teachers Day, we\u00a0took at look\u00a0at what Ethiopian educators face.<\/h3>\n

In open air Ethiopian classrooms \u2013 built without windows, doors or even four walls \u2013 the weather presents many challenges.<\/p>\n

When the wind blows, the dust flies into your eyes. When it rains, the roof echoes so loudly you can\u2019t hear the teacher speak. When it\u2019s windy and rainy, one of the few notepads you own is going to get wet.<\/p>\n

On a calm day, it should be the perfect day to teach.<\/p>\n

\"Tsige

Tsige Mekonnen, a science teacher at Adishumhafti School.<\/p><\/div>\n

Not so, says Tsige Mekonnen, a science teacher at Adishumhafti School.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a lot of distraction. The door and windows do not have any cover, so students are distracted by anything passing by.\u201d<\/p>\n

To understand quite how serious this is; imagine a world without cars and fences. That is rural Ethiopia. It is nothing like the neighbourhoods of North America.<\/p>\n

Huts are dotted sporadically around the land and there are no fences along property lines. Animals are not kept fenced in paddocks and the school is not fenced off from the community it serves.<\/p>\n

People and their animals travel \u2013 sometimes great distances \u2013 by foot and they take the most direct route nature allows. Whether transporting goods or herding livestock, passerby\u2019s are all-too-common a distraction outside classrooms in Ethiopia.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s just one of the many distractions teachers deal with, and it\u2019s one we are helping them resolve.<\/p>\n

Where the need is greatest, we construct new classrooms. Across all our supported districts, we also invest in teachers.<\/p>\n

We give teachers \u2013 who, at teachers\u2019 college learn the curriculum but not much else \u2013 the tools to properly engage their students. That means involving students in group activities and pupil-led presentations. It means developing science experiments using locally available material, and teaching reading and writing through fun activities, like drama and storytelling.<\/p>\n

\u201cI used to use teacher-centered approach,\u201d say Tsige. \u201cThanks to imagine1day\u2019s training, now I have shifted to a student-centered approach. I was doing all the talk, but now their confidence has developed as they are given the opportunity to speak.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Tsige, and the other 6000 teachers we have trained, it means they can create a classroom interested in learning, not passing donkeys.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":4212,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,16],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/imagine1day.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2677"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/imagine1day.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/imagine1day.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imagine1day.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imagine1day.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2677"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/imagine1day.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2677\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5398,"href":"https:\/\/imagine1day.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2677\/revisions\/5398"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imagine1day.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4212"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/imagine1day.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imagine1day.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imagine1day.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}