The Importance of Practical, Contextualized Teacher Training:
A conversation with Jesús Darío Loeza of the Secretary of Education of Yucatán, Mexico
Did you know that our team in Latin America hosts regional thought leaders on the TU Podcast?
We are excited to have kicked off season two in May with an interview with Jesús Darío Loeza, an education expert and Coordinator of the Continuous Training and Professional Development Program of the Secretary of Education of Yucatán, Mexico.
In 2023, TeachUNITED began working with the Yucatán Ministry of Education to improve educational quality and address inequities in rural and indigenous communities. The three-year project is well on its way to improving learning outcomes for 400,000+ students.
Our team was honored to host Jesús Darío Loeza and is proud to share a few highlights from that rich conversation on teacher professional development.
TeachUNITED Coach Coordinator Mikel Webb: How has professional development and continuous teacher training affected your career and your knowledge? And how is that personal growth affecting teachers in the area?
Jesús Darío Loeza: I think the first thing, the important thing, is that we can define together what we understand by professional development. From the Secretariat, we have a national overview of what happens in Mexico. We have a national commission for education improvement, MEJOREDU, and MEJOREDU has a concept of professional development that refers to a learning process of the profession and the construction of the teacher’s identity. I find this concept very curious because it talks about learning the profession.
One would think that when one completes their training at university, at teacher training school, they have already learned everything they had to learn. In this field, in the educational realm, we must continuously learn about our profession, by gaining knowledge.
Personally, I believe that we have to lead by example, a figure who has the responsibility of working with teacher development, also has to be a person who is constantly seeking to stay up to date, learning about new perspectives in education. But it’s always a personal job for teachers.
Mikel: In your extensive experience, have you seen the impact of teachers’ professional development?
Darío: We have very, very good experiences from here at the Secretariat. In the training part, we have the direct responsibility to present trainings each year. We have to look for options that align with what they determine as their needs. We work with many institutions, foundations, and associations.
For example, we have a project with the Robotics Foundation, where we work on STEM topics, technology topics, and programming which has allowed teachers to learn how to bring technology into the classroom from their contexts, which is very important.
Of course, there are also international relations like the collaboration we have with TeachUNITED, which has permitted us to open up beyond the national level. The people who have participated have realized how things work within the country, but also that in other countries sometimes things are different. And we can question why things are done in a certain way there, or how we can improve if we do things in a different way. And also discover things we share, perhaps the same issues. The fact of sharing them, of discussing them, will lead us to important solutions.
Mikel: It is that exchange of experiences, right? I don’t know if you have heard of any experiences, perhaps with some teachers here in Yucatán, where TeachUNITED has made it possible for them to share with colleagues from other countries and see those difficulties, those similarities.
TeachUNITED training participants at a recent workshop
Darío: We have had the opportunity for a team who have taken the TeachUNITED training to participate in an international event in Costa Rica where they could interact with educators from other countries and be able to share their experience, visit schools, and discover the similarities or challenges we face together. I think it’s very interesting because it shows a real application of what they are learning.
Mikel: Considering those experiences, could you say that TeachUNITED has generated a positive impact within the training program?
Darío: Yes, yes, yes, it has been generated. Educators seek tools that can be applied in the short- and medium-term. Sometimes we focus too much on theory trainings, courses, workshops are very theoretical and do not take into account the contexts. TeachUNITED has strived to understand the local contexts, to understand how different participants operate.
Through this program, we have collaborated with directors, supervisors, pedagogical technical advisors (ATPs), technical advisors (ATs), tutors, and teachers who are integrated into the function. For each of them, there has been an effort to understand what their needs are. And I think the best part of this good experience is that they have been able to apply it. They have succeeded.
For example, there is a supervisor who is more than a supervisor, she works with school principals, but she also has to coordinate other supervisors. With the TeachUNITED tools that are presented to them, she can immediately implement them in the meeting next week. I think it is important for teachers to be trained, but if they cannot bring it to the classroom, then that intention is lost.
The TeachUNITED Team and Jesús Darío Loeza with participants at the program launch in January 2024
Mikel: What challenges have been the most difficult in the region and how have they been addressed? How have they been overcome?
Darío: I think one could be connectivity, which is a challenge that is being addressed in a state strategy. Currently, in Yucatán more than 90% of our schools have connectivity, and we are reaching full coverage. The intention is that before the end of this school year, 100% of schools have connectivity.
Another important challenge is understanding the local context. Even within the same state, what happens in one municipality or region is not the same as what happens in others. The needs are not always the same.
Mikel: What advice could you give to those teachers who are seeking better professional development?
Darío: Well, I think the most important thing is to always have that desire to continue learning. I think it’s something that a person dedicated to education usually has. But to not let that go, because sometimes it can become more bureaucratic — to seek training to obtain a score or to obtain some pass to another level. We have to be careful that the essence of the training is not lost and that we do it for personal and professional development.
I think that would be the advice: not to lose sight of that. Always seek to improve what they do, which is something that not only goes for the topic of education but for anything we dedicate ourselves to.
TeachUNITED’s government partnerships are driving sustainable impact on teachers and students in Mexico and beyond. Learn more about the effect of our work with Jesús Darío Loeza and his team at the Yucatán Secretary of Education in this blog.