Teachers Who Write

The Sentinel English Language Institute conducts professional development through its Leading Young Writers program, which trains teachers to be Young Writers club facilitators. Half our time together is spent writing in a workshop setting. The teachers enjoy sharing and perfecting their work as much as the students do.

We encourage teachers to continue writing after they return to their schools in our belief that doing so makes them better club facilitators. A few do continue. They share their work in club content conferencing groups and send it to me for teacher editing and/or typing along with the children's. I show them children's books I have published and we talk about ways available to us to publish in Sierra Leone. And how writing is a way of life for people who realize they are writers.

We were all saddened this week to hear of the death of Paul M. Conteh at UMC Heritage High School just outside Kabala in northern Sierra Leone. As one of these teacher/writers, he had been producing regularly since he began the Leading Young Writers program; I had just returned three pieces he had submitted to me. His colleagues, friends and family but especially the students who wrote with him will miss him greatly.

By way of contrast, today I received a text from a young urban police officer who was also for a number of years a Young Writers facilitator in the Northern Province. When I asked him how his new job was going, he replied, "I really thank you for encouraging me to write. It's just a continuation here." What a beautiful testimony to the view that by becoming an active writer one gains access to ongoing worldwide conversations, from anywhere.