Developing Life Skills

By Supri Harahap

TARUTUNG (5/6/2009), the capital of Tapanuli Utara was still covered with morning dew when 15 District Facilitators (DF) started to prepare for training. As DFs they are responsible for organizing the whole school training in DBE3 partner schools. Over a period of four days these DFs conducted the Better Teaching and Learning 2 (BTL2) training.

The BTL2 training in Tapanuli Utara is part of the training conducted in five districts in North Sumatera. According to Dra. Mariani, M.Pd, Head of Education Office in Tapanuli Utara, this kind of training is very useful. Through this kind of training, teachers will be able to enhance their skills and help students in developing their life skills.

Students no longer just sit listening to theories. Instead they are given opportunities to have group discussions, solve real problems themselves and to be creative.

The materials given to teachers in this training were:
(1) Contextual Teaching and Learning for developing life skills,
(2) how to develop learning approaches to increase life skills,
(3) how to create a classroom environment which encourages students to learn,
(4) lesson preparation and teaching practice,
(5) the role of principal and school supervisor in improving the quality of teaching, and
(6) developing follow-up action plans for each school.

After the training, DFs will visit schools regularly to monitor teachers’ development and give them assistance in the implementation of their follow-up plans.

Teacher of SMA N4 and DBE3 National Facilitator. This article was taken from the newspaper ‘Harian Analisa’ (Sunday, 5/07/2009)

After Training, Participants Enlightened

TRAINING in Better Teaching and Learning 2 (BTL2) in Bojonegoro was successfully implemented. Participants, consisting of teachers from DBE3 partner schools, were divided in two batches. The first batch of training was done from May 23-25 at MTs Islamiyah Balen, with 74 teachers participating. The participants were given very useful material which should serve to improve their capacity as teachers.

The second batch of training was done, following the first one. In this batch, 71 teachers from five partner schools participated. As with the first batch of training, this batch also received a positive response from participants. Some participants said that they were enlightened after participating this training.