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Guatemala Teachers Learn to Make Classrooms Fun and Alive
FrontLines - April 2010
By Wende DuFlon
GUATEMALA CITY, Guatemala
—In 550 Guatemalan
classrooms, students bypass the
old-fashioned, regimented ways
of learning. Instead, they are
speaking up, interacting with
their teachers, and ushering in a
modern era of classroom
instruction.
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Two public school girls from Mixco, Guatemala, read books from
the new CETT library in their classroom.
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The change came through
USAID’s Centers for Excellence
in Teacher Training
(CETT), which boosts student
reading and writing skills by
teaching teachers how to
create interactive classrooms.
The program trains teachers and
supplies school materials suited
to rural classrooms.
Interactive classrooms
are key to reducing first grade
failure and repetition rates in
rural communities. Guatemala
has some of the highest rates of
repetition and failure among
first, second, and third graders
in the hemisphere.
The CETT program trains
teachers to think of themselves
as guides rather than supervisors
and to organize the classroom in
ways that children can learn
from each other and from books
as much as from the teacher.
“This is a total change in
my career,” said Violeta
Corado, a teacher at one of the
CETT schools. “The children
are creators and the teacher is
a motivator.”
Previously, students sat in
tidy rows in the 147 CETT classrooms.
But their desks have been
turned to face each other, which
encourages discussion. Youngsters
now speak up in class
without being prodded. And
there are story books where
shelves were once bare.
Teachers are urged to avoid
long rows of desks, to get used
to noisy classrooms, to move
around and interact with students,
to adapt indigenous materials as
learning tools, and to present
reading and writing as pleasurable
activities.
“These children are much
more lively and aware. They are
protagonists who do not have that
fear that children used to have of
talking in class or in the presence
of adults,” said Edgar Simón
Chalí, director of a rural school in
the outskirts of Guatemala City.
CETT started out at the 2001
Summit of the Americas as a
presidential initiative to improve
the quality of teacher training
and student learning in Central
American countries. After seven
years, the program was transferred
to the country’s Ministry
of Education.
Recent findings show that 70
percent of CETT third graders
achieved a satisfactory level
in the national reading test.
USAID’s Education Reform in
the Classroom project and the
Ministry of Education plan to
take successful elements of the
CETT model to national scale.
Moreover, Nuestro Diario, a
tabloid newspaper with a 300,000
circulation, the largest in Central
America, began distributing
CETT material in a regular weekend
supplement designed to popularize
reading and writing among
parents, students, and teachers in
the general population
★
FrontLines is published
by the Bureau for Legislative and Public Affairs
U.S. Agency for International Development
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Material should be submitted
by mail to Editor, FrontLines, USAID,
RRB, Suite 6.10, Washington, DC 20523-6100;
by FAX to 202-216-3035; or by e-mail to frontlines@usaid.gov
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