One of the participants in the Room to Read workshop was an
educator from the city of Hetauda, in south central Nepal. When we met, Pratibha Dangol was working in
Room to Read’s regional office in Makwanpur District, but she had plans to
leverage the experience she had gained as a classroom teacher and a literacy
worker to create an organization of her own that would promote change in her
local area. I promised to do what I
could to help her, and when I returned to Nepal in April of 2013, Pratibha
invited me to be a part of the first-ever workshop organized by the newly minted
Archini Foundation, titled “Progressive Leadership in Schools”. The participants were school leaders from
both government and private schools in the area who came together for three
days of workshops, talks and team-building exercises. For my
part, I tackled three challenging topics:
- How Do Children Learn: Using
Observation and Research to Rethink Teaching Practice
- Helping Teachers Be Their Best:
Creating A Professional Development Plan That Works
- Considering the Culture of
Classroom Management: From Punishment to Encouragement
In my next posts I will consider each of these workshops,
but first … a bit about the city of Hetauda.
I was excited about my trip there because, despite many journeys to
Nepal, I had somehow never managed to travel outside of the Kathmandu
metropolitan area. Hetauda is in
Makwanpur District, about 140 kilometers south of Kathmandu and to get there
Pratibha had booked me a seat in a Sumo, a small multi-passenger van. There is a good highway linking the two
cities and Sumos make back and forth runs continually, carrying 8-10 passengers
per trip. The drive took four hours,
with a stop along the way for lunch, and wound through lovely mountainous
countryside and villages … a pleasure to watch from my front seat window. Hetauda is at a much lower elevation than
Kathmandu (roughly 500 m v. 1300 m) and in April it was quite a bit hotter
there than in the capital. It’s a
bustling small city with a population of about 80,000, an important
intersection/stop along two of Nepal’s main highways. The city has been growing in recent years and
I saw quite a bit of construction (mostly new homes) while I was there. With Pratibha and her wonderful assistant
Bindu as my tour guides I visited local schools, colleges, shopping districts
and even a regional fair with carnival rides and a midway. I spent a week in Hetauda and I can’t wait to
return … the sooner the better.
