As schools with SELI Young Writers clubs begin each new academic year, some are faced with the need to enlist the help of more teachers willing to give of their extracurricular time. The Dankawalie Secondary School club this year welcomed English teacher Mr. Jawara who will be serving as a facilitator along with Mr. Kamara, since Mr. Sesay has left the school.
All organizations but especially schools need effective orientation mechanisms for new staff. New teachers must hit the ground running, and we need them running in the right direction—aligned with the school's (or in this case, club's) set of beliefs and pedagogies. This is particularly important when, as in SELI clubs, the expected outcomes of club attendance depend on following beliefs and pedagogies that differ from traditional rote learning practices.
SELI sees the club facilitators' time spent in the clubs largely as practical training. They become good writing teachers and acquire experience carrying out student-based instruction, which the MBSSE says it supports. For SELI to offer multi-day workshops for new facilitators with follow-up mentoring, which has been our go-to type of orientation, is not always feasible. A major reason is budget constraints, with clubs spread so widely across the country.
For the very reason that the clubs are examples of student-based instruction, new facilitators learn by simply participating in the meetings. However, this can lead to cutting corners. To prevent that, I am looking into developing an orientation handbook for new club facilitators, or perhaps a recorded video presentation, that I could follow up with periodic in-person or WhatsApp video discussions with each new facilitator. Better yet: how many junior secondary schools, I wonder, would be willing to require all their new staff to participate in an orientation on teaching writing in the classroom?
