December 2018 | The Joseph School

Tis’ the season of year end mailings.

Many of you have probably received a December mailer from our organization, and many of you have also blessed our organization with a contribution. We count every gift we receive as a blessing, so we are truly thankful for your continued support!

How do our mailers get to your inbox?

Year end mailers can be a lot of work. Our director of engagement writes multiple letters to our supporters (because every donor is not the same) and then the real fun begins — stuffing, sealing, stamping and mailing.

This year we had help from a very spirited group of seasoned citizen from the St. Paul Senior Living Community in Nashville, TN. Our U.S. staff set up a mailer assembly line in their community room and together, stuffed and sealed more than 700 letters!

All smiles during the activity
25+ volunteers

Our staff really enjoyed spending time with this group, sharing stories about Haiti and The Joseph School mission.

Many memories were made, and TJS is very grateful for their support.

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If you didn’t receive a year end mailer (with photos and our 2018 reflections) but would have liked to, please email your address to info@thejosephschool.org. We’d love to share more with you.

From December 13th-17th, our Joseph School teachers went through an intensive teacher training with P4H, a Haitian organization dedicated solely to the professional development of teachers.

The Joseph School teachers and P4H — The Joseph School Teachers and P4H

The first day, the P4H team observed our teachers in their classrooms using a detailed rubric. They gave our education coordinator a SWOT analysis of each classroom explaining every teacher’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.

The second day, P4H started their three day intensive, hands-on training. They administered a pre-test to see where our teachers were before the training.

According to P4H, The Joseph School teachers scored the highest out of all the schools they have ever trained with an overall average of 60%.

After the pre-test, they dug into the three fundamentals of education that focus on different learning models that are centered on the students.

The third day, their main focus was classroom management and knowing your students. They learned about defining rules and procedures while also learning how to cooperate with the students instead of dominating them. Then they did a leadership activity that caused some of our teachers to rethink how they define a leader and what student leadership can look like in and out of the classroom.

The last day, P4H did multiple activities focused on collaborative learning. The teachers learned ways to utilize this in their classroom by modeling different activities they could use for their students. During this time, they were able to experience the benefits of collaborative learning by working together themselves. They also had to present a lesson plan to their fellow teachers and demonstrate different techniques to show what they had learned.

At the end of the training, our teacher’s took a post-test over the main objectives they should have learned during the training. 11 out of 17 teachers scored 100% with an overall average of 97%.

We were blessed to have the opportunity to work with P4H and look forward to creating an even bigger partnership moving forward!

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Month: December 2018

Mailers & Memories

Training Teachers to Transform Haiti