{"id":204554,"date":"2014-06-04T10:36:09","date_gmt":"2014-06-04T14:36:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=204554"},"modified":"2023-09-11T10:39:04","modified_gmt":"2023-09-11T14:39:04","slug":"neag-alumna-using-education-to-improve-teacher-training-math-curriculum-in-zambia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2014\/06\/neag-alumna-using-education-to-improve-teacher-training-math-curriculum-in-zambia\/","title":{"rendered":"Neag Alumna Using Education to Improve Teacher Training, Math Curriculum in Zambia"},"content":{"rendered":"

Carly Buehler isn\u2019t daunted by the idea of working with limited resources under challenging situations. The Neag alumna has been a volunteer teacher at a community school for orphans and other vulnerable, at-risk children in Lusaka, Zambia, since graduating from the Neag School\u2019s Integrated Bachelor\u2019s\/Master\u2019s Teacher Education program in 2012. And there, she is using her education and expertise to make a real difference.<\/p>\n

Named Chikumbuso, meaning \u201cremembrance,\u201d the school is a grassroots project designed to provide children with a free education, as well as to provide widows with the job skills they need to support themselves and their families.<\/p>\n

\u201cI fell in love with Chikumbuso when I visited there for two weeks during my senior year in high school, working on a project called \u2018The Stigma of AIDS.\u2019 I told myself I would go back again,\u201d said Buehler, who was introduced to the school by Connecticut family friend and founder Linda Wilkinson.<\/p>\n

The opportunity to go back to Chikumbuso came in 2009, when she spent three months as an intern there, helping classroom teachers and working with single mothers and widows. It was then she began considering how to use opportunities for independent study and her Neag education to be even more useful in Zambia.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe most powerful thing I took away from Chikumbuso was how eager the children were to learn,\u201d Buehler said. \u201cAs a young student, I had always taken my education for granted. But in Zambia, most children don\u2019t have the opportunity to go to school. Throughout my studies at UConn, I always appreciated what I was learning and was always thinking about how I could use my education to improve the work being done at Chikumbuso.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Melibrarians[1]\"<\/a>Now living in Zambia and working at Chikumbuso as a full-time volunteer, Buehler\u2019s responsibilities include lesson planning and assessment, improving the math curriculum, teaching math classes, and holding training workshops for local teachers who don\u2019t have access to government support.<\/p>\n

\u201cCarly\u2019s commitment and enthusiasm for her work is inspirational,\u201d said Mary Truxaw, Neag School associate mathematics professor and Buehler\u2019s independent study advisor. \u201cI\u2019m proud that she has developed a strong stance as a lifelong learner, where she continues to push herself to learn more so that she can support the learning of others.\u201d<\/p>\n

Buehler visited UConn last December with Getrude Banda, who earned her teaching certification by working at Chikumbuso and later became the school\u2019s principal. \u201cIt was such a rewarding experience to share my unique story with the current Neag students,\u201d Buehler said. \u201cThere are so many unique teaching experiences around the world, and I was pleased that I could share my experience with those at UConn who may have not considered \u2018untraditional\u2019 teaching opportunities.\u201d<\/p>\n

Buehler\u2019s \u201cuntraditional\u201d teaching experience includes getting used to working in a place where it\u2019s hard to find a printer or copy machine, \u00a0power outages occur at least once a week, and bad internet connections are common.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve learned how difficult it is to create an engaging and fun lesson with very limited supplies,\u201d Buehler said. \u201cIt is difficult, but not impossible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another challenge for Buehler has been the community\u2019s unfamiliarity with books. Reading has not always been an important part of the lives of those who attend, and live near Chikumbuso\u2014something Buehler is working to change. Toward this end, she created a school wide reading competition and encouraged teachers to use library books in their classrooms and read aloud to students. The school only received its first books three years ago.<\/p>\n

\"Teacher<\/a>\u201cCarly has clearly been touched by the Chikumbuso project,\u201d said Thomas Levine, Neag School assistant professor in Curriculum & Instruction, who helped arrange her recent Neag visit. \u201cShe has gained invaluable experience working on curriculum, professional development for teachers, and in teaching, despite the challenges she has faced.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter teaching in Zambia, I feel I could walk into any school district and make the best of what supplies are available to me,\u201d said Buehler, who plans to one day teach in the United States and provide her students with a focus on global awareness. \u201cI\u2019ve gained a lot of strength and confidence and know, first-hand, how important it is for children to be exposed to different cultures, traditions and family structures. It can change a student\u2019s outlook on life, just like it did to me.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Carly Buehler isn\u2019t daunted by the idea of working with limited resources under challenging situations. The Neag alumna has been a volunteer teacher at a community school for orphans and other vulnerable, at-risk children in Lusaka, Zambia, since graduating in 2012.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":190,"featured_media":204555,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1855],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[2455],"class_list":["post-204554","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-neag"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-06 09:44:47","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204554","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/190"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=204554"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204554\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":204557,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204554\/revisions\/204557"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/204555"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=204554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=204554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=204554"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=204554"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=204554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}