By Petrina Francis, Education ReporterPEACE AND Love in Schools (PALS), a decade old peace programme, has broadened its mandate and has expanded to the Caribbean nation of Montserrat, according to Michael Forrester, training manager for PALS.
He told The Gleaner that PALS was taken to Montserrat as a result of "an initiative from a teacher who was doing a study on conflict resolution". Montserrat's director of community services learned of PALS and the contact was made for the programme to go in and train a staff of 22 teachers and the principal of the country's only secondary school between July 12-25.
CONFLICT RESOLUTION
A number of issues were addressed at the workshop: conflict resolution, knowledge skills, classroom and behaviour management among others.
"This provided an opportunity for PALS to test its methodologies in a new environment and we found that we have a strong methodology in the West Indies", boasted Janilee Abrikian, General Manager for PALS. "This helps us to improve on our content and delivery. We see it as a regional collaborating activity", she added.
While the level of violence in Montserrat's secondary school is not as high as the schools in Jamaica, Mrs. Abrikian said that she sensed there was a respect issue among teachers and students. She noted that some of the problems of indiscipline might have been as a result of the dislocation of family, which stemmed from the eruption of the Soufriere volcano several years ago.
FOLLOW-UP
"We emphasised the extent to where the teacher has to be manager in his/her classroom," Mrs Abrikian explained. She said that PALS' role is to support the teachers in follow-up through communication and revisits. She added that she would like to see the programme extend to the primary schools.
Mr. Forrester told The Gleaner that the teachers responded well to the workshop. "They thought that our coming was an eye opener and are enthusiastic to start in September", he said.
"This program is useful for the overall structure of the school. It can be incorporated as a civics class that has been called for sometime now to be introduced into the system. The benefits of the program will filter into the society and make the country a more desirable place to live", said a teacher who participated in the programme.
