Raibow

Raibow
Rainbow over Galileo Lane, Tucson

Monday, August 12, 2013

In a world where millions are being spent by US AID and the World Bank  to include EGRA an admitted knockoff of DIBELS on African Asian and Latin Anerican children comes this wonderful announcement
We just returned from Guatemala. I am thrilled to report that the Ministry of Education purchased and distributed mini-libraries to EVERY public school in Guatemala. Non-fiction and fiction  books were obtained.
We should be  proud as the government has asked the Consejo de Lectura de Guatemala , which all of us supported, to educate the  teachers on how to  use the books.
 
Thank you  for all you have done.
 
Marcie Mondschein
Some history: Many years ago Marcie Mondschein went to Guatemala with her husband Jerry Monschein, a pediatrician, who was there with a medical aid group. Marcie is a reading professional
from Long Island (with a strong g please Longg Island).

Marcie made contacts with educators there and she and Jerry began a continuous connection and commitment to promoting literacy and literacy education in Guatemala.

She solicited the long term support of her local IRA affiliate and anyone else she could convince to join her effort. There have been three main thrusts to her work there:
1.  She assisted local educators in forming the  Consejo de Lectura de Guatemala  the national affiliate of the International Reading Association. This organization will hold its 10th bienniel International Reading Conference which regularly draws over two thousand teachers from all over Guatemala and groups who come by bus from other Central Amrican countries.
2. Marcie has brought other reading educators to work with her and her local colleagues in conducting teacher workshops all over the country. She has literally taken the best professional knowledge to the rural corners of the country.
3. With Jerry she sold crafts she buys in Guatemala at Reading conferences at US reading conferences and usedthe proceeds to put paper back libraries in rural and urban schools all over
the country. They go there at least twice a year, at their own expense. She has brought groups
of Guatemalan educators to the states for confernces.
Yetta and I are proud of having been invited to and attended almost all of the nine conferences of the Consejo,

And what a crowning achievment: to have the govenrment acknowledge this effort with commitment to extending their work.
It has been honor for us to be a part of this wonderful achievement.

Thsnks to Marcie and Jerry for their great contribution to Guatemala and the world of literacy
Bravo, Bravo, Bravo Bravissimo Bravo!

1 comment:

  1. Thanks for the historical roots of this good news story Ken. Puts our local issues in perspective and gives us some hope.
    Brian C

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