When Teachers Learn, Everybody Learns

Professional development is essential! And it's fun. It's great to stop being a teacher and be a student again. I was part of another CODE/PEN workshop this month with Charlie Temple, university professor and children's book writer from the US, and Mohamed Sheriff, president of the Sierra Leone PEN chapter. Our shared interest is the development of children's literature in Sierra Leone.

Sometimes an awakening occurs before the stories inside us can appear. Really good teachers can pass on the strategies that draw out our stories. They connect us. They get us listening to ourselves as we are in other contexts--to our voices in other languages and to other age groups; to our voices in music; to our behaviors as we sing and walk and talk. And somehow by their magic as teachers, they get us putting that language and those behaviors onto paper.

Charlie has a 10-string charango that he brought for us this time, and that literacy lesson really brought it home for me. It's great to take a break from being a teacher, and learn from other teachers again.