By Adama Kone, Teacher Project Manager

Mr. Luck Kamaté has been teaching at Sue Taylor middle school of Diorila for seven years. He teaches French, history, geography and English. In addition to all of these subjects, he also serves as the school principal. Because of a teacher shortage in Mali, all too often our hard-working teachers also have to serve the administrative role of principal – that makes for a lot of work!

Mr. Kamaté came to Sue Taylor Middle School of Diorila as an English teacher. He only taught English for five years, but then his principal left the school. After that, he became the new principal. He is thirty-two years old and has one child. His family lives in another town about forty kilometers from where he teaches. He gets to see his family once a month, which makes his family very excited.

Mr. Kamaté likes his teaching job very much, although he has a lot on his plate all the time. He says that his village, Diorila has people who like him very much and are very respectful to him. He enjoys chatting with elders in village about education because it gives him an opportunity to sensitize parents on their kids’ future. Mr. Kamaté thinks that many parents are limited when it comes to understanding the importance of education. That is the reason why he enjoys meeting with students’ parents -- especially his school committee – to discuss school challenges. Mr. Kamaté says he does have some challenges at his school, like when students drop out of school or when girls are given into early marriage. These are some of the reasons why Mr. Kamaté likes chatting with parents to discuss his challenges.

Mr. Kamaté recently attended one of the Mali Rising teacher peer meetings, which are part of our Teacher Project. He thinks that teacher peer meetings would help him be more helpful to his students. As a French teacher, he was very excited to be with his peers and learn from them about teaching techniques, particularly ideas about the best ways to get students motivated and engaging in the classroom.

Mr. Kamaté thanked all the Mali Rising donors for his time at the peer meeting, and encouraged other teachers and principals to work hard with students and help them prepare their future. Mr. Kamaté encouraged Mali Rising to keep hosting peer meetings in order to help teachers improve their teaching skills.