Provide quality education to 1750 youth in Panama

HOLA AMIGOS! Thank you for your important contributions! 

Today more than ever, Enseña por Panamá works to promote quality education in every corner of the country. In 2021 we managed to directly impact the lives of more than 2800 students and 3200 teachers of the official system. 

With the experience and learnings of five years, we transformed ourselves to respond to new challenges through three lines of action:

• Distance education for students
• Virtual training for teachers from all over the country
• Early Childhood Education Initiative 

In this report, we would like to focus on our “educational leadership program.”

At Enseña por Panama we are convinced that strengthening our student’s social emotional skills is key for their development. Since 2017, we have been creating and strengthening our social emotional skills program and have obtained extremely positive results in our student’s personal life and academic performance. One of the most notable areas has been to develop perseverance among our students and their families. Parents who were familiar with our programs connected much more with their children and their teachers. During the pandemic, this helped us continue supporting these parents. We want to expand our program and reach more students. To achieve sustainability and scalability, we will foster and develop socio-emotional skills across Panamanian teachers who then can replicate our program with their students and their families. 

Through our educational leadership program and experience with training over 3000 teachers (40 hour plus seminars) during the COVID-19 pandemic, we have found strategies to continue guaranteeing (to the extent of the resources and possibilities of the communities) high quality education.  At the same time we have strengthened the socio-emotional skills of our fellows and restructured our social emotional learning (SEL) program to have a higher impact on teachers. They develop and strengthen their growth and determination mindsets as well as social Impact and systematic leadership mindsets.

Through his program, we have learned three key lessons:

1- The development of SEL requires teachers to go through a process of internalization and reflection:a teacher that has a hard time recognizing their own emotions, feelings and thoughts finds it difficult to create classroom environments that favors SEL. There are four challenges found in the new IDB study (2020), Educating for life: The development of socio-emotional skills and the role of teachers in the face of the new normal, that we directly address in our program: “To develop socio-emotional skills in students depends, to a large extent, on the quality of training and support those teachers receive to implement them properly. The most effective teacher training programs, in addition to training, usually include mentoring and feedback.” 

2- It is urgent that teachers implement the new strategies they learnt about classroom environment design as well as work with the communities. According to a UNICEF study (2020) carried out on young people between 13-29 years old in 9 countries of the region on the impact of Covid-19 on the mental health of adolescents and young people, “a situation that generates high concern and is a call to the national health authorities, is that 73% have felt the need to ask for help in relation to their physical and mental well-being. Despite the above, 40% did not ask for help.” Students, families, and teachers need spaces to express their emotions and have moments of connection and re-socialization. Those teachers who manage to implement them, make better decisions to continue guaranteeing comprehensive learning regardless of its modality and can better connect with their communities. 

3- In times of crisis and uncertainty, it is necessary to work on developing a growth mindset and determination; it allows students to continue setting goals even amid the challenges that this moment has brought. As the UNICEF study (2020) reports, “The general situation in the countries and their localities has affected the daily lives of young people, as 46% report having less motivation to carry out activities that they normally enjoy; 36% feel less motivated to do usual activities.” Developing a growth mindset is by far the most difficult to build but it will have a positive impact in all components of life. 

Enseña por Panama seeks to expand the impact on educational communities by implementing the "My Active Classroom" project. It will be carried out through two lines of action that seek to integrate our SEL learnings acquired through our participants and initiatives to the educational communities in which they are training and accompanying teachers, directly linked to priority # 4. They will co-create safe spaces, healthy, inclusive, and active listening (as mentioned in priority #1) that will contribute to a better connection between students and teachers, especially for those making the transition from distance education to blended and face to face learning.

At the end of the year, we will have worked directly with more than 300 teachers. In turn, they will work directly with over 4000 students. Our focus in SEL is teaching growth and determination mindset, as well as social impact and systemic leadership mindset to our students. It will not only help them academically but will build their skills to become active and thoughtful citizens, positively impacting their communities and their country. 

If you would like to reach one of our new teachers or our summer schools students, or, please access our website, www.ensenaporpanama.com or write to us at info@ensenaporpanama.com.