I just returned from a week of traveling, first to Baku for our Mid Service Conference and afterwards to Ganja (about 6 hours west of Baku) for the final Teacher Training. Whereas last January I savored and extended every moment away from site and, this time around I was more than ready to turn my footsteps towards the city I've called home for the past 13 months. Its been a long and anxious and awesome 13 months and this conference gave the entire AZ8 volunteer community a time to stop, pause, and reflect.
Basically MSC had two main goals: reflecting back and looking forward, the intro year is over and the final year begins. It was pretty powerful to hear what volunteers had accomplished in this past year, not specifically because it was so large or influential (not to say it wasn't), but because it was 60 variations of the same story I am in the middle of acting out as well. Simply seeing the developed confidence in each one of us was affecting, whereas in PST we had questions about every possible obstacle that might be presented to us, this conference saw a group of individuals far more confident and assured in their ability to handle whatever Azerbaijan might throw at us.
We also shifted our thoughts to the future. In this conference, the fact our service will draw to a close begins to look inevitable rather than impossible and we shift out thoughts to how we can ensure something of us is left behind. One of my managers at Apple, as I was preparing to leave as smoothly as possible, pressed me to think what the legacy is that I would be leaving, how people would remember me after I had left. I think of those conversations a lot right now.
Currently the bulk of my effort goes to training teachers in more effective methods, and a project involving delivering training sessions around the country finished this past week. It succeeded in delivering content to teachers but it always required an American to be involved and run it; it wasn't sustainable. Kelly (another volunteer and my partner in this project) and I will soon begin our second project, one that we hope will contribute to our legacy.
We're hoping this will change this next year. Beginning in March we will hold workshops around the country on how to deliver a Teacher Training on Interactive Methods, a Training of Trainers workshop, which will cover certain methods, lesson design, and presentation skills. Even better, the Azerbaijani English Teachers Association (AzETA) is partnering with us to deliver these workshops. The goal is that, come November, we will have created a network of Americans and Azerbaijani teachers around the country capable of delivering teacher trainings in their own community, thus extending the reach and encouraging greater participation and empowerment among host country nationals. I wouldn't expect this project, after one year, to be completely sustainable, but it is a step in the right direction and I would leave Azerbaijan feeling proud of having helped shift focus to a strategy of teacher training more friendly to Azeri involvement.
In my first year I was fumbling around looking for a purpose to be working towards. Now in my second year I'll be racing to achieve my goals before I must leave. Just like these past 16 months, there will be ups and downs, but this year, I know where I'm going.
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