Paul Heimerdinger: Iolani School, Honolulu, Hawaii.
Reflection 2011 TABSA

I think this trip to South Africa with Teachers Across Borders was my best and perhaps my most effective. Training district supervisors to do the workshops and assisting them in the third week to put on the workshops for their own teachers, put me first in a role to show them the way, and then in a role to assist them to lead the way. I found this to be a very effective, satisfying and rewarding experience. Simplifying the materials and using recyclable things for equipment makes some labs go from impossible to very possible. This is my journal entry about the end of the second week.

July 8 Friday : Yesterday was a really full day. Our teachers are thoroughly enjoying our workshop. It is very gratifying to be able to help them. The things we are doing with them are all things they can use in their classes. They were looking forward to the house wiring project all week, and yesterday after lunch it was finally time to do it. I started out with a background informational sheet about electricity and what is electric current. The paper dispels some of the misconceptions about electricity and explains about electrical field. Today at the closing ceremony, the man thanking the TAB team for the workshop on the behalf of the teachers called me a genius (I’m really not, but it was a nice compliment.) because I helped them to better understand electricity. He thanked me for not just teaching them content, but for also making them better teachers. I was flattered. After I covered the info sheet, we started wiring the houses. They were so excited to get one, then two and three lights to work. It wasn’t easy. They needed a lot of help. I really worked hard for two solid hours. In the end, most of them were very successful, and I was exhausted. They all came back again today full of enthusiasm. They said they had never been to such a workshop before, and they thanked us over and over. We ended at noon with lots of handshakes and hugs. They were a really nice group of teachers.

Visiting schools and delivering supplies is one of the favorite parts of the trip. I’ve attached a picture of one of our school visits. I think you can tell from my smile how happy I am. I can’t wait to return.