Wednesday, March 14, 2018

Harder than it looks: Becoming an adolescent learning facilitator

By Yu Yu Aung

At age 17, high school graduate Khum Hein Tet Soe couldn’t decide what future to pursue. Should he try to be a business man, or an information technology specialist, or something completely different?


He checked out private schools that might teach him useful skills, but he couldn’t find the right one. The schools were expensive, and the quality of teaching didn’t seem to match the cost. Distance education college wasn’t a solution either.


In early 2017, the young man spotted an advertisement seeking volunteers to take part in an adolescent-led drug awareness campaign.

It piqued his interest; he had always liked the sound of volunteer work, and he knew that drugs were a problem among youth. He decided to apply to take part in a training.

There, he discovered that drug use among children and youth was an even bigger issue than he had thought. He also learned skills in working together with others as part of a team, and he grew more comfortable speaking in front of people.

It felt good to be learning how to contribute to society, and Khum Hein Tet Soe was excited to be later assigned to shadow as a facilitator with a team conducting a 21st century skills training in Sittwe, Rakhine State.

The training was part of the UPSHIFT program that UNICEF began implementing in Myanmar in 2017, supported by Pearson.

Under the program, adolescents are mobilized into groups and provided with trainings to equip them with 21st century skills such as communication, collaboration and team work, problem solving and creativity.

Khum Hein Tet Soe admitted that he felt a bit scared when he studied the teaching materials ahead of his first experience as a shadow trainer.

In school, he had learned directly from a teacher, and from reading books. In the training, everything would be very different—teaching and learning would be carried out through games and activities, including simulated ‘real life’ encounters. 

That lively approach might make facilitation look easy, but this wasn’t true, he found.

“For example, we needed to know how to adjust the agenda to fit with the participants. We needed to help the group members be happy, so they would engage in activities. And we needed to know how to build friendships and team spirit,’’ he noted.

Being a good facilitator meant becoming the best version of himself. “I needed to behave well to win respect. I needed to choose the right words so the group members would understand everything, especially when I facilitated the learning points after an activity.”

After successfully navigating that early steep learning curve, Khum Hein Tet Soe started to work as a co-facilitator on more skills trainings in UNICEF’s Adolescent Engagement Program. 

Along the way, he is finding that he is continuing to learn and teach at the same time. “I’m not only helping others to learn—my own skills are improving too.”

It’s satisfying, he said, to see that the skills he and other adolescents are learning have results in real life—including the fact that some of those who have participated in trainings have since decided to set up an active Sittwe Adolescent Network.

In his own life, he believes that he’s better prepared now for any path in life he may choose in future, as the skills from the trainings are useful in the workplace and in every day life.

Also, his horizons have expanded. The program has given him an opportunity to meet many adolescents from different places, with different views and experiences. Listening to their thoughts, and getting insights into their lives and situations, has expanded his horizons and made him more accepting of diversity.

He is more confident to tackle anything that might come his way, even old norms that can be challenging.

In Myanmar culture, respect for seniority means that it can be hard for a young person to teach someone who is older.

Khum Hein Tet Soe worried about that once. But he has overcome that concern and other fears—by reminding himself that if he is skilled, and confident, there is no need to worry.

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