Young teachers for the kids in North East Bulgaria

On September 15th, nine Teach For Bulgaria teachers entered the classroom in the northeastern region of Razgrad. This year, five new teachers began their Teach For Bulgaria journey in the town of Kubrat and two villages near Razgrad- Iasenovets and Ravno. The teachers will cover the following subject areas: English, German, Bulgarian and Literature, and afterschool programming by interests. With diverse backgrounds and shared motivation, the teachers in the region are excited to embark on the second year of Teach For Bulgaria's presence in that part of the country. The second-year teachers organized summer schools in Razgrad and worked in the nonprofit and corporate sectors over the summer. In September they attended Teach For Bulgaria trainings specilized for second year teachers, which focused on contextualization. Teachers worked in groups with colleagues from the same region in order to analyze that the focus of their work in their second year of teaching should be. Unanimously, teachers chose to focus on building relationships with parents, involving and engaging them in the learning process and asserting a sense of ownership for students' aspirations and achievements. Our teachers in the northeast region have already planned and executed home visits and parent-teacher meetings at the start of the 2016-2017 school year in order to continue building on the successes of last year.