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About Me
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How I Became MYP PHE Teacher
Hello Teachers, today I'm thrilled to share a segment from 'The Dreamer,' my recently published book, chronicling my journey toward becoming an MYP PHE teacher. As an African hailing from Mozambique, the path wasn't easy, particularly coming from a non-English speaking nation where options can feel limited in comparison to my peers.
This excerpt encapsulates how I transcended challenges, transforming my dreams into reality despite hailing from a financially constrained country. Against the odds, I've not only become an international teacher but also a three-time world jump rope champion, now living and working abroad. It's a testament to resilience and determination in pursuing one's aspirations.
Grabbing All the Opportunities
Dr Edmundo created a company called Líder and I was the Technical Director. His company was to offer after-school activities for private schools, but he could not run it because he was very busy with Physical Gym and teaching at the university. Before sharing his idea with me, I had told him that I was interested in the same thing and that I already had one school, Arco Iris College. I was teaching jump rope there so after we shared ideas, he invited me to work at his company. He did not have staff for his company, and I had staff already. I had my group so, together we started to train my staff about lesson planning, basically training them how to teach. The company started a few months later.
I decided to proceed with my own idea of opening my own company, Elves Saltador. This company took me to another level. I wrote letters to more than twenty schools from Maputo and Matola provinces.
We already had some contracts with Willow Maputo and Matola, Birlik International School, and Educare College. My company was doing well but I wanted more. I had a good number of people working under my leadership and my goal was to make them work and have money.
After sending all the letters to the schools I had in mind, one of the Judo teachers we were working with at Educare College told me about a new school he wanted to try and suggested I do the same. It was Aga Khan Academy Maputo. The school is located in Matola. I decided to send the letter together with my CV, and by the time I did that, I was already a three times world champion, and that information was in my CV.
I had to give the letter to the security guard so, I was not confident. I told myself that these guys will throw my letter away, but at least I would have tried. I was wrong, they sent the letter to the right place. They proved that even in Mozambique there are exceptions and that not all security guards are corrupt or irresponsible.
The next day, I received a call from the secretary whose name was Rosa Jorge, inviting me to an interview. The principal of the junior school was Mr Nicolas. I went there confidently. I arrived at the school and Miss Rosa Jorge ushered me in and took me to Mr Nicolas’ office. The first thing Mr Nicolas asked was, “So, you are Elves? The world champion? Tell me more about that, Hooopss!!!” Well, if you ask me to talk about jump rope that would be an amazing way to start a conversation. I can start with the right leg because that is my favourite topic. So, I went on and on enthusiastically. He asked me, “So, you beat the Americans?” I said yes with a smile showing him some videos and pictures.
We started teaching Jump Rope at Aga Khan the following week. He also liked my CV and told me they also wanted a PE teacher so; he was going to talk to the person in charge of the selection process to give me more information. The school was new, but I heard that the parents were paying a lot of money. Looking at the money they were paying me for after-school activities, it was twice as much as the amount I got in Instituto Nília. Mr Nicolas had talked to the financial department to pay us fairly, the same way they paid all other teachers who teach after-school activities. Mr Nicolas also showed me the school’s principal because he was the primary school director. The school’s principal was Mr Mike Spencer, and they were all fascinated with jump rope. We did amazing work with the kids, and they loved our activities. I could not go there all the time because of Institute Nília, so I used to send the best instructors I had, Edilson Sitoe, João Riquixa and Lucas Mabica to run the sessions whenever I could not make it.
One of the days I went to teach the session by myself, I met teacher Aleixo. He was the coordinator of a program that the Aga Khan Academy had, to train teachers for the International Baccalaureate Program. He told me that Mr Nicolas suggested I participate in the program, but I would go through the process of selection like all other teachers.
After a short conversation with teacher Aleixo, I received an email with the information about the day of the exam for the program to join the Aga Khan Academy Maputo, the place, and the time. The exam was going to be on a Saturday morning at the Pedagogical University in Lhanguene. The exam started in the morning around 8 am and finished around 12 pm. I had not done a long exam like that. The night before the exam, I went to the Aga Khan’s website and started reading everything I would find, their history, teaching, and learning program, values, and mission. Because of that, I was ready, there was nothing they could ask me to do related to Physical Education that I would not do. That's how confident I was.
When I arrived there and met other physical education teachers, they were all surprised. They asked me, “Are you also here? You are everywhere, aren't you teaching at the university?” I started laughing. I could see how they were uncomfortable with my presence there, but somehow, I could not see them as competitors because I knew if it is physical education-related matters, we could discuss it the whole day.
At the beginning of that year, at the Pedagogical University-Faculty of Physical Education and Sports, they wanted a teacher for gymnastics and traditional dance. On the day of the interview, one of my colleagues, Olga Faduco, who was also running for the same vacancy as me, called me and said, “Hey, Elves. The interviews have just started. I don't see you here, what happened?” The truth is that I had not received any information about the day and time of the interview. Unprepared as I was, I stopped what I was doing and ran for that interview and luckily, I arrived on time. I did the interview, and I got the job. All the questions were related to the subjects and my competencies as a teacher.
I taught at the university for six months, and I was an assistant in other subjects. I was already working for the government and the private sector at the same time, but I did not stop trying Aga Khan especially, after hearing that they pay very well. For only after-school activities, they paid my company sixty thousand Meticais. I then asked myself, how much would they pay me if I worked there full-time?
It was around fifty teachers who wrote the exam, just to select sixteen who were going to move to the next level. When we entered the room, most of the people were strange to me except teacher Aleixo, the coordinator of that selection program and the other two teachers, Sumeya and Pinto. The role of these teachers was to tell us about their experience of being part of that program of teacher preparation. Sumeya started sharing how amazing the program was and how she moved from zero English until she was confident to teach in English. Pinto was a teacher at a public school and was working for the government, but he had left everything to join the Aga Khan Academy.
Basically, these two teachers were there to tell us of the great opportunity we were to have and that taking that opportunity for them was a positive move. A year before they were in the same position as us. They did very well in their roles, I knew them from the academy because I was already teaching jump rope there, and they used to bring their students to my jump rope sessions.
Two people who were totally strange and you could tell they were not Mozambicans were Jonathan Marsh and Tom Abuto and they were there to run the program. They were very different from each other, yet they made a good team.
Jonathan Marsh started with the first part of the exam, they distributed papers and markers, and they told us to draw anything related to learning. ‘*What? Is this serious? I came for an exam, and they are asking me to draw*!” Of course, I did not say that out loud, but I did not expect to be asked to do that. I had studied a lot for this exam to just come here and draw. I was coming from a world where I was used to replicating ideas from other people, just copying, and pasting. But these teachers were asking me to think and draw something related to learning! Before writing anything, I stopped for a few minutes to think about what I would draw that was related to learning.
My head started working when I had to think of something amazing that happened to me that I could not explain. When I am in a difficult situation, when I am forced to come up with a solution, my mind works very well. I always come up with a solution in the middle of important discussions. It's difficult to explain, but my mind doesn’t rest until I find a possible solution.
I started with my drawing, a Physical Education teacher, of course, would make something related to his subject. I drew a parent carrying his son and, in the middle, I added a skipping rope and different balls. As a caption or title, I wrote: This Is Health.
Hey! I surprised myself when that emotion came. I always managed to surprise myself, so I had done it again. Most people had drawn a classroom with students and a teacher in front as we usually see in our classes. You could see what type of teachers we were through our drawings. We were all teacher-centred.
Jonathan started asking people the reasons behind their drawings, the teacher was in front. And more confusingly, he said, “You don't need to answer, just think about it”. In each drawing, he had something to ask. They said they were not looking at the beauty of the drawing but the message in our drawings. When he got to my drawing he said, “Why is the father big and the son small?”
What? I tried to answer, but he said, “You don’t need to answer, just think about it.”
I was confused, and I could not express myself. I hated feeling like that. I always wanted to talk, and I always had something to say.
That was all for that part of the exam, we were done. We drew and he asked us one question that we could not answer even if we wanted to.
They moved us to the second room that Tom Abuto was leading, and he was amazing. It was very interesting to listen to him talk. His words were very powerful and the way he spoke, you would want to listen attentively. My English was not as advanced as it is now, but I was able to understand him. His accent was very good and soft, and he took his time when he was talking.
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