Today was the first day of our teacher training programme although the grand opening is not until Tuesday. “Values” was the workshop topic and overall is the theme for the NSA 2011 programme. Our framework of Quality Education has Ethics & Values at it's core since we strongly believe that Nepalese education at primary level needs a strong dose of “morality” in the light of recent political events across the nation. The basis of the workshop was a classical psychologist's view that values drives behaviour as well as the reverse that inferences about values can be made from observed behaviour. Across the day, as well as a number of inputs on values definitions and types there were lots of exercises and activities in which our teachers identified their own values, associated behaviours, identified components of citizenship in their schools and the values they wish to teach. One extremely funny exercise was an episode from Jason Buckley's series of Alien Adventures based on a crash landed spaceship and the use of a helium pipe to breathe in a threatening atmosphere. I am grateful to Jason for sharing this activity with me and for teaching me all I know about P4C! In general this was an excellent day and is showing just how much progress our schools have made. The thought of trying to have run this session three years or even two years ago is quite frightening, but the Head teachers have gone away today with an enthusiasm and commitment to repeat all the exercises with their non English speaking staff immediately. The follow up to this session will occur on 19th April when everyone will be taught the process of P4C to begin introducing Values education in their schools.
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