First Lady meets ‘early childhood’ educator to explore partnership
Georgetown, Guyana – (July 25, 2016) First Lady, Mrs. Sandra Granger, today, met with Ms. Dorrie Thomas-Crawford, a United States-based early childhood education specialist and teacher, who has been hosting a training workshop for teachers in the Buxton community for over seven years. The meeting was intended to explore the possibility of expanding that training in order to help improve learning outcomes in Guyana.
In an invited comment, the First Lady said Ms. Thomas-Crawford had mentioned her interest in hosting this kind of workshop and as such, the educator’s sister, Ms. Joycelyn Thomas-Wilson facilitated and accompanied her to the meeting at State House.
First Lady, Mrs. Sandra Granger (centre) is flanked by, from left to right, Ms. Joycelyn Thomas-Wilson and Ms. Dorrie Thomas-Crawford at her State House office
“…Given her ideas and experience in early childhood education, we were discussing how best we could share her skills and those of her colleagues, who want to contribute, some [of whom are] Guyanese, with the Ministry of Education to see if we could plan for a bigger workshop next year that would help our teachers gain the kind of skills that she can bring to improve learning,” Mrs. Granger said.
Ms. Thomas-Crawford has a Master’s Degree in Early Childhood Education and 24 credits in Special Education. She teaches at the kindergarten (ages five to six years) level and has been an educator for 25 years. In an invited comment, she said that she wanted to inform the First Lady about her workshops and to invite her to observe them.
“Our workshop is entitled ‘Teaching children problem-solving and thinking skills… I want to show the teachers how they can incorporate language development and concept modelling in the classroom; not only teaching the children to write but teaching them thinking skills and problem solving skills,” Ms. Thomas-Crawford said.
Ms. Joycelyn Thomas-Wilson, First Lady, Mrs. Sandra Granger and Ms. Dorrie Thomas-Crawford at State House
The next workshop is planned for Thursday, July 28 at the Friendship Primary School.
A special session titled ‘Class’ has been designed to teach the teachers concept development and other subjects. Ms. Thomas-Crawford said she will be hosting this session in collaboration with Ms. Leticia Lake, who is a former Head Teacher of Tutorial High School and Guidance Counsellor at the Board of Education. Ms. Lake has over 40 years teaching experience, she said.
Ms. Thomas-Crawford also revealed that plans are in train to bring five teachers to host a one week long workshop.