Principles, Innovations, Hopes: Dialogue Education™ in Haiti
Peter Noteboom, GLP Partner & CDET;
Marie
Paulette Payen, CAFT & GLP teacher;
Claudia Laure, CAFT & GLP
teacher
After another successful Dialogue Education™ event in Portau-Prince, the teachers – Claudia Laure, Peter Noteboom, and
Marie Paulette Payen – reflected on their current experience of Dialogue Education™ in Haiti. The reflections are captured below under the headings “Principles”, “Innovations” and “Hopes”.
Principles
The first principle is dialogue. This is so important because it builds
relationships, even intimacy, where there has traditionally been a gap between
teachers and students. These good relationships are the best predictor of
good results, a productive exchange of ideas, and learning. The respect
that is demonstrated in these relationships creates an environment where people
do not feel like they will be let down, or put down. This is where congruence
between what we say and how we act and communicate becomes so very critical.
Innovations
The Seven Steps of Design help to innovate. No matter what the
situation, we are constantly asking who is coming, why we are doing it, what we
are offering. During the learning event itself, we have found that sharing
examples, standards, and templates helps enormously in the completion of
learning tasks. No matter what the task is, we always show a model of
what we are doing: modeling and sharing clear standards and expectations help
the performance immensely. Songs too, have become important memory-aids
in the practice and use of new ideas and skills.
Hopes
We dream of seeing the application of Dialogue Education™ in the
decision-making areas of schools, families, churches. In the long-term,
the whole Haitian society can benefit, but we need to start with families
so the work takes us most frequently to schools to work with teachers, parent
groups, and children. We would like to see the changes that happen in a small
group or course take place on a large scale in the whole country - especially
mutual respect, the application of the design steps in all kinds of
planning… always to assure that the learning is for the learners.
The practice of Dialogue Education™ has been steadily growing in Haiti.
The Centre pour l’apprentissage et la formation pour la transformation (CAFT)
is a licensed provider of Dialogue Education™ in Haiti, working with a wide
range of clients and offering several courses per year in French and Creole. For
more information on Dialogue Education™ courses and consulting services in
Haiti, please contact
joan@globalearning.com, or caft.haiti@gmail.com.
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