Building Connections Through Teaching

Participating in the GLXi program is about more than just learning new teaching methods — although our teachers will tell you, there’s so much they gain on that front.

It’s also about building connections within the teaching community, and building strength in the educational world by joining forces to improve childrens’ lives. 

GLXi’s teachers seem to innately get that. Maybe that’s why they are attracted to the program in the first place. 

Take Cecilia Orozco, a GLXi teacher in Mixco, Guatemala. She joined the GLXi program in 2017 and quickly took on a leadership role, as coordinator for her school. 

While in that position, she learned new technologies and more about planning and structuring the GLXi curriculum in the classroom. She also learned project techniques that could not only apply to reading, but other subjects as well. 

Cecilia was able to bring that knowledge back to other teachers at her school, amplifying the impact of the program.

And by connecting with other educators through the training, she was also able to grow professionally, she said. 

“I loved being that part of the team,” she recalled. “Meeting other teachers from other departments during the training was a wonderful experience, because from there I cultivated new friendships.”

Sharing Teaching Techniques

From those friendships, there were so many insights gained. 

“Sharing that we have the same concerns, and sharing learning techniques,” Cecilia recalls, as just some of the many things the educators bonded over.

Those connections, and the tools she gained, would prove more useful than she could have imagined when the pandemic arrived in March 2020.

Remote learning, and all of the other challenges of the pandemic, has tested teachers like never before. 

But Cecilia had an army of other educators that she could turn to, collectively working to bring school to students when they couldn’t bring students to school. 

“During the pandemic, knowing that the (GLXi) project has never left us alone is a great help and an encouragement to continue,” she said.

Continuing to Grow As a Teacher

This year, Cecilia is contributing in new ways to the program, continuing to grow professionally and bringing her knowledge to others. 

“I carry in my heart great learnings that I am transmitting to my students,” she said. “It makes me feel like a teacher of quality and not of quantity. THANK YOU. "

No, Cecilia. We thank YOU!