These quotes appeared in the Spring 2018 edition of AUCToday.

Click here for the full story about AUC’s GSE-ERC educator training program.

The first cohort of AUC’s GSE-ERC program recently celebrated the completion of its professional training program, ushering in another cohort of public school teachers.
Through such collaborative initiatives, AUC encourages external entities to build programs and projects that promote positive local change. In this way, AUC acts as the nucleus of educational transformation in Egypt, both producing knowledge and effecting change through its own programs while also establishing partnerships to pioneer impactful projects using the University’s venues and resources.

“It’s a very good initiative because different companies and businessmen fund the training of public school teachers at AUC as part of their professional development,” said Heba El Deghaidy, associate professor and chair of AUC’s Department of International and Comparative Education.

Here’s what public school teachers involved in the program had to say about its impact.

“I benefited a lot from this program. We learned new strategies and teaching methods for children. We learned that students don’t have problems; it’s teachers who need to enhance their skills. If we are able to understand children’s mentality and psychology, we would be able to benefit students: developing innovative minds, opening their horizons, helping them understand how to think. We don’t all have to be doctors or engineers. We just need to know what we want and how to serve well in the fields that we are passionate about.”

– Amira Mohamed Ahmed
KG Teacher, Al Sayida Khadija
Umm Al-Mu’mineen school,
East Shubra Al Kheima

“This program developed many things in my personality. I learned how to share knowledge with my colleagues and how to exchange teaching experiences. The most useful course for me was focused on how to deal with technology and relay your material to students in an effective and up-to-date way. The way we were trained at AUC is really excellent, very different. As a teacher, I changed completely.”

– Saeed Ghoneim
English Teacher, Al Khosous
Language School, Al Khosous

“We are in an advanced, high-tech age, so we learned in this program how to help students search for information on the internet and expand their knowledge through technology. We also learned as teachers how to create collaborative initiatives between classmates and peers, as well as how to effectively divide students into groups when carrying out activities. We also understood more about learning difficulties: how to discover them and, more importantly, how to deal with them in the proper way. We learned new teaching strategies, particularly how to make use of class discussions and diversify our teaching methods so students would benefit to become effective, modernized citizens.”

– Kholoud Mohamed El Shahat
KG Teacher, Ahmed Shawki School,
Al Matareya