Teacher Stories: Anei Aleer Mayen Bol - South Sudan

This story was collected as part of Teachers in Crisis Contexts (TiCC) Event Series to ensure that the voices and experiences of teachers working in crisis and displacement permeate all aspects of the event. For more stories, click here.

Our learners like the AEP because the quality is high from all the trainings

Name: Anei Aleer Mayen Bol

Role: Teacher

Location: Juba, South Sudan 

“I am an Accelerated Learning Programme (ALP) teacher in Juba, and I teach in a school for learners from IDP families. I come from Upper Nile, and I am also internally displaced. 

I have been teaching since 2013, but I have never attended a teacher training college and I was not trained before I joined this ALP. With this project I have been trained in TEPD. Before I did not know how to teach or how to plan sessions or how to keep discipline.

Now, I am capable of scheming my work, planning lessons and managing the classroom and the all the learners – the slow learners, the middle learners, and the fast learners. I feel more self-confident.

Before, I just wrote on the blackboard, and some did not understand. I did not know all the learners, and some left the classroom to make noise outside.
 
The training has taught me to keep eye contact, and I notice if some are absent, and I take note of it.

If the learners are making noise when I enter the classroom I sing a song with them, or I share a funny story, and then I tell them to sit down and pay attention. They do, and there is no more noise.

Some of the learners may not be able to listen due to stress. In that situation I go to the learner and ask questions concerning the topic and I provide advice on how to solve the problems. 

If that does not work and the learner does not understand I transfer him or her to another teacher who may be better able at talking to the learner. I know that I am not alone, so I may request someone else to counsel the learner. 

Unless the problem is easy to solve, I usually transfer female learners to a senior female teacher as it may be easier for a girl to talk to a woman about problems concerning female issues. I am aware that the female cycle may be stressful for them. 

Female learners in particular are challenged in our country, and they are at risk of dropping out of school. But some learners also drop out because they are affected by war. 

Our learners all come from different parts of South Sudan and some people want to return to their home area.  We tell them that they cannot just leave like that. We tell them that they should not go if there is still war in that area or if there is no school. 

Members of our PTA talk to their families and encourage them to continue going to school, and if they end up leaving, the ALP provides them with a recommendation that will enable them to join formal school.

Our learners like the AEP, because it is free, and we support girls with sanitary pads, and the quality of the education is high because of all the trainings, and because we have peer coaching where we share ideas, also with teachers who are not trained. 

In other schools many teachers are untrained. Now, they seek help with trained teachers.”
 

The views expressed in this blog are the author's own.