Enrollment at Moriah School at a High Mark
Enrollment is at 250 students at Moriah School as the 2022-2023 school year begins. In the 2021-2022 school year, no early childhood students were enrolled because parents still feared Covid. Now there are 29 early childhood students, with new students still joining Classrooms are spread out over three buildings to accommodate the high enrollments.
Early Childhood Education Center at Moriah - US Team - Training and Collaboration
New teaching philosophy and concepts are being implemented in the new Early Childhood Education Center (ECEC) with the assistance of the US Mentor Team. We want to share recent successes of our ECEC initiative, in which our goal is to create an education program on par with international standards and in compliance with the India National Education Policy 2020.
Three US Educators spent five days at Moriah in May 2022. The sweltering heat in Guntur, Andhra Pradesh didn’t get in the way of work accomplished during a whirlwind trip. These volunteers prepared eight Early Childhood classrooms and trained several faculty members for the upcoming school year.
Two days of work involved cleaning and repurposing the rooms to be useful for the youngest scholars of the new ad improved ECEC. Old furniture was removed and new furniture and equipment was unpacked and paced in rooms.
Three days were spent engaged in training and discussions about the new ECEC program. Laughs, smiles and Telugu translation for English phrases and educational terms expanded this global collaboration.
Two evenings were spent “campaigning” in the colonies served by Moriah School. All Moriah faculty and the visiting educators traveled to the colonies where students live, walked every neighborhood lane, respectful greeted current and former Moriah school families and students, and reached out to recruit new families. They did visit the families empty-handed. Dental kits for the preschool children and menstrual kits were given to the high school girls.
Weekly collaboration and training continues as the US mentors and the newly hired ECEC coordinator, Rama, and teachers meet via Zoom. Rama is a highly qualified educator who is critical to the successful collaboration between Moriah educators and the mentors as she arranges and facilitates meetings with teachers after school and follows through with the suggestions made during the training sessions. Rama is an alumni of Moriah School and has enjoyed great success as an excellent educator and administrator. She is very fluent in English and a very positive influencer of the teachers.
Early Childhood Education Center - Equipped and OPEN
Today if you visit the Early Childhood Education Center, you will see children playing in eight different rooms – building with multiple kinds of blocks, playing pretend cooking on their little stove with all the pots, pans and utensils for cooking, setting tables with plates and plastic forks and spoons, role playing with many kinds of costumes, painting and drawing, learning at their sand or water tubs to pour and measure, putting together puzzles, reading books and more. ” WHEN I PLAY I LEARN” – is a new concept for Moriah early childhood teachers and parents of these young learners.
This new paradigm for Moriah educators and students is that children learn best by playing and following their own curiosities, by solving real problems, like how to balance and stack blocks, or how to use a zipper, put together a picture puzzle and most of all, by making mistakes and trying again. Children need to grow, to learn, and to develop. This happens largely through play.
The student to staff ratio for the early childhood classes is 15:1. New teachers were hired who had appropriate credentials and teaching experience, but were not trained in the new way of teaching. They are quickly adapting with the help of the US mentors and the paradigm shift has begun.
English Language Program
Thank you friends, for your kind donation of books to Moriah School! Because of your generosity, there are story books in each of he Early Childhood Education classrooms. What a joy to share the gift of reading with our students.
We are looking forward to an uninterrupted school year! School began at the beginning of July and we are building our team of English teachers. All classes, including the Early Childhood, have English speaking teachers and are using your great resources.
Your DONATION can make a critical difference to help fund high quality teachers who can teach English along with core subjects.
Moriah Children's Home
Some students who have received their education at Moriah and lived in the Moriah Children’s Home have succeeded as doctors, teachers, pastors, nurses and in other occupations that have allowed them to rise far above the poverty level. Teja was one of those students who rose out of his circumstances and recently graduated with a Master in Business Administration degree from Sunderland University in England.
Generous donors have funded new lighting and fans in the living facilities. Also cots were donated to give the children a more comfortable place to sleep than on the stone floors.
The Gift of Water
A special thanks to a gracious donor who funded the crucial digging of a new well for the school. The well was very deep. The cost of the well was significant and unaffordable for the small school budget, so the donation was a blessing that ensured water would be available at the start of the school year.
