Learning from Our Community: Stories and Strategies from the Classroom

On 2 July 2026, the Learning Community did something different. The first two workshops had a facilitator at the front. This one handed the floor to the teachers. Four members of the community shared stories from their own classrooms: what they tried, what worked, and what proved hard. It became, by common agreement, the strongest session the community had held.

What we explored

The theme was theory meeting practice, the ideas from the first two workshops tested against real classrooms in Senegal, Uganda and beyond.

Adama Djimera took his twelfth-grade class outside onto the new campus lawns to write poetry in groups. With only a loose brief, be inspired by what is around you and write two quatrains – the students organised themselves, chose their own note-takers, debated topics, and produced four poems they could scarcely believe were their own. His reflection: change the environment, trust the students, and thinking becomes visible in the disagreement itself.

Ferdinant from Uganda teaches in a school inside a refugee settlement, in classes of eighty to a hundred, with neighbouring schools running classes of three hundred. His answer to the impossible class size was Think, Pair, Share: a minute to think alone, then a pair, then a larger group. The shy child who will never speak to the whole room will speak to one partner, and gain the confidence to go wider from there. Every learner takes part, even when the teacher cannot reach each one.

Between the stories, the community reflected together, drawing out the threads of collaborative learning, student ownership, and the vulnerability a teacher shows when they say, in front of the class, “I don’t know, and I learn from you too.”

Watch the full session

The complete workshop, with every contributor’s story and the discussion around it, is on our YouTube channel.

Voices from the room

“I am not a policeman. I am a big brother, an uncle for some, a teacher. I never hesitate to say I don’t know, because you are not the only one learning. I learn from you too.”
Adama Djimera, Senegal

“The shy learner will speak to one partner when they will not speak to the room. That is where the confidence begins.”
Ferdinant, Uganda

Next in the series

The Power of Our Words: how what we say shapes what students believe they can do
Wednesday 3 September 2026 · free · live on Zoom
16:30 WAT · 17:30 CAT · 18:30 EAT · 15:30 GMT · 10:30 EST

Teacher language, teacher feedback, and the words that build a learner – or quietly take them apart. This is the only page in the series that points to a live event, so it carries the registration call.

Register free → Click Here