Cape teacher trains others in South America, learns new appreciation for teaching here

A monthlong stay in South America working alongside teachers in overcrowded classrooms with no air conditioning is all it took for Cape Girardeau Junior High school educator Brandi Compass to realize how fortunate students are in Southeast Missouri.

Compass, a mathematics teacher, attended the "fellowship" with Poplar Bluff High School teacher Meg Daniels and teacher Jackie Riggs from South Iron High School in Annapolis, Missouri. The fellowship took place from June 17 to July 10.

The group volunteered through UK-based Limited Resource Teacher Training (LRTT) and coached teachers "how to teach" in Guyana, South America, she said.

The organization was founded by teachers and is operated by teachers "from the ground up," she said. This was Compass' second year participating in the "global teaching movement."

Last summer, Compass said she traveled to Nepal, a country in South Asia, as an LRTT "Fellow." This year she was recruited as a team leader. For the journey to Guyana, Compass said she was able to recruit and build her own team for the Fellowship.

Her team worked in the Mabaruma region -- close to the Venezuelan border. Within that area they assisted at eight schools: Northwest Secondary, Tobago, Barabina, Wauna, White Water, Kamwatta, Hosororo and Mabaruma Primary.

Some of the schools, she said, are comprised of one large room divided with portable chalkboards. And it's "very loud," she said, because of being required to keep doors or windows open during the day.

But Compass said she was mainly surprised at the little training the native teachers had.

"They can graduate high school on a Friday, and then start teaching on a Monday," she said. "They have zero training and preparation whatsoever."

Compass said the native teachers refer to themselves as "actors" until they can eventually afford additional schooling. But most of them never do, she said.

"So we're working with them to show how they can use the smallest things in their communities to use in the classroom to get that engagement going," Compass said.

She explained the beginning stages of a fellowship as the initial days of observing how the teachers control their classrooms. Compass said the goal is to look for any type of strategy the teachers might already be utilizing.

Sessions are then designed based on effective teaching principles, she said. The teachers are observed once again afterward and given feedback on their performance.

"One teacher was like, 'Hey, I don't need resources, I don't need electricity. I just need students here. And as long as they're here, I have something to share,'" Compass said.

That's powerful, she said.

"Because when you come from a country with an education where you have everything at your fingertips, you don't really think about it," Compass said.

LRTT services teachers and trains teachers in 11 countries, recruiting instructors from the U.S., the United Kingdom and Australia.

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