The Pontifical Mission Educational and Cultural Center (PMECC) in Bethlehem holds a three-week-session seminar workshop to train teachers from the government schools as librarians.
The PMECC, managed by the Teresian Association members have organized the seminar-workshop on Library/Information Science in three sessions, which started on the 28th November. Twenty-one teachers from the government schools in Bethlehem Governorate eagerly signed up and have enthusiastically joined the workshop conducted by the PMECC Staff –Agnes Sleibi, Mariam Sleibi and Sahar Zreineh– all Bethlehem University graduates, under the leadership of Monnitte Monana.
Building libraries
The seminar-workshop aims to equip teachers with knowledge and skills to organize and manage their school libraries, and provides hands-on training in cataloging and classifying books. The over-all goal aligns with the povedan principle of training teachers and their empowerment in order to be self-reliant and professionally prepared in their fields of service and commitment to the education of the young entrusted to them. A special focus on building libraries in order to inculcate the value of reading and promoting literacy starting from the students' primary years.
Among the essential courses, in addition to classifying and cataloging books, are introduction to different types of libraries and the different systems of classification, exploration to, and acquisition of, management and administrative skills, and the ability to place the library at the heart of the learning process of every student.
This seminar-workshop has also garnered the support of the Ministry of Education and funding agency such as the Tamer Institute.
Valuable inputs
On the last day, 12th of December, participants had the hands-on experience of a modified and simplified classification and cataloging of books based on the basic foundation of the Dewey Decimal Classification System. These newly acquired knowledge and skills have allowed participants to familiarize and adapt any of the three options in classifying that can easily be used by them once they are back to their respective schools.
The awarding of certificates of participation took place in the presence of the Ministry of Education and Tamer Institute representatives lending credibility and strength to joint endeavors underscoring the importance of professionalism, between the PMECC and these other support agencies.
Participants who have never missed the 3-day sessions have reflected in the evaluation their expressed gratitude and appreciation of the valuable inputs given them which they found as very organized, informative, systematically and professionally delivered by the PMECC staff. During the training program they shared spirit of teamwork, cooperation, joy and interest in learning and fostering professional accountability in the field of education and teacher formation.
Text by Mellie Brodeth and photos by Monnitte Monana.
Published in News