I start the day at 7 or 8 as I usually end the day pretty late. I would have my breakfast and go over my lesson plan, presentation slides, and training materials for the day. I get ready with all the materials and links I need to share throughout the 3-hour ZOOM session. The training starts at 9:00 am and ends at 12:00 pm, with a short break and quick energizing activities. After the ZOOM session, I collect presentation slides, ZOOM recording, and training materials for the day and send them to the participating teachers, so that they can be used as references for asynchronous tasks. Then, I reflect on the 3-hour ZOOM session and plan for the next day. I also try to be responsive on our private communication channel to help teachers with any questions they might have when doing asynchronous tasks. My working hours end around 6. However, I am still on stand by for questions and discussions asynchronously.

I encounter many challenges when doing online training. I would like to highlight two of them here. One most annoying challenge is the poor internet connection. Many teachers who attend my training have a very poor internet connection. Sometimes, they hike up a hill for about 30-45 minutes to get access to the internet. Another challenge, which I cannot do anything, is the electricity cut. Households in Myanmar only get 4-6 hours of electricity per day. Many teachers rely on their mobile phone only for all the work, including planning, teaching, assessing, meetings, training, and so on. They usually left the ZOOM training sessions because they ran out of phone battery.

I always record the ZOOM training sessions with participants' consent and share internally. At the end of the training, I share all the training materials and presentation slides again. I keep all the materials organized, so that it is easy for the teachers to go back and review when necessary. I use Flipped Learning, where the participants are giving pre-tasks (read the text, watch the video, or listen to the audio) to save time. I spend most of ZOOM sessions for practice activities and discussions. I also create private communication channel for every online training I lead and post updates to make sure that teachers feel supported even when they are not able to join the ZOOM sessions due to the challenges above.

I have been a Teacher Trainer for more than 5 years now. What keeps me doing this job is the dedication and resilience of the teachers I work with. A belief that "whatever happens, education must continue!"

Regardless, most teachers have exhausting days as they must balance their teaching responsibilities with house chores, laundry, and additional work to cover their living expenses. There is also insufficient financial support or stipends from the interim government and the community.

However, despite the crisis, instability, and limited resources, we can see that teachers remain committed to their work and dedicated to their students' education.

• I wake up at around 6:15, I then get ready and leave at 7:30 to get to school for 8:15.

• I then make sure I have all my resources ready and ensure I have got all of my power points downloaded.

• I then teach maths, followed by english and guided readings.

• we take it in turns to cover break duties.

• Then we have lunch which again teachers take it in turns to be on duty.

• After this we have another two lessons and often an assembly.

• I then stay to make sure I have tomorrows resources and the lessons are planned and do some marking

• I then head home at about 4:30.

My biggest challenges are probably managing the large differences in abilities. I manage this through providing scaffolding sheets.

What kinds of challenges do you face in your context?

• What have you done to address them?

• What aspects of your job do you enjoy the most?

  
  

To overcome these challenges, I have used a variety of digital tools and activities. These include PowerPoint presentations, flashcards through Quizlet, and interactive exercises such as providing short texts and asking students to guess meanings or ideas by drawing pictures. These strategies help maintain students’ attention and support different learning styles.

I enjoy my work the most when students show interest in my lessons, actively participate, and remain focused throughout the class. Seeing students engaged and motivated makes teaching meaningful and rewarding for me.

Even though I am not a teacher, I can relate to some of these situations as a learner. For example, I have seen how difficult it is when classes are noisy or when there are not enough materials. It affects both teachers and students.

From the stories, I learned that one helpful way to deal with these challenges is by sharing experiences with others. Teachers who talk to each other and support each other can feel less isolated. Being flexible and creative also seems very important in difficult situations.

I think it is important for teachers to have support from their community and from each other. This can help them feel more confident and less alone in their work.

To overcome this, I taught myself how to create lesson plans by watching YouTube videos and planned my lessons one week in advance. I also downloaded pictures and practiced explaining definitions in simpler terms. However, every challenge was worth it because my students were very bright, and they improved a lot from when they first started attending the classes. Now, they are using what they have learned to build a better future for themselves.

^{I would like to share some of my experience as a teacher at Minmahaw School. As teacher assistants who have not yet finished the GED, we have to focus on both lesson planning and how to demonstrate effectively lesson to the students and our own self-study. My every week as a teacher assistance is full of tasks and homework. Another challenge is having to find new activities for the students' morning well-being sessions every Monday morning. However It must exhausted but i got a lot of new encountered in my life. Not only got new experience but also i can share my knowledge to my students effectively to use both in their academically and realistically.}

I teach Thai and support students in developing both their language and communication skills. Over time, I have seen clear improvement in my students. At the beginning, many of them struggled to speak confidently in English. However, through daily practice, group work, and interactive activities, they have become more confident, more active in class, and better able to express their ideas.

Teachers play an important role in creating safe spaces in these contexts. We create a safe learning environment by building trust, respecting students, and encouraging participation without fear. We also support students emotionally, especially those who come from difficult backgrounds. By listening to them and treating them with care, we help them feel secure and valued.

In my community, schools have some basic guidelines to protect learners, teachers, and school infrastructure. These include maintaining discipline, ensuring respectful behavior, and creating clear rules for safety. However, these guidelines are not always strong or fully enforced, especially in migrant or informal school settings.

The best way to advocate for safe schools is through awareness and collaboration. Teachers, school leaders, and community members need to work together to raise concerns, share experiences, and push for better protection policies. It is also important to communicate with local authorities and organizations to improve school safety.

Our school starts at 8 a.m. The school day begins with assembly and singing songs. After that, we continue with our classes. Like a normal school, we have break time and lunchtime, and the school day ends at 3 p.m. Sometimes we have extra classes, so it continues until 4 p.m.

After school, students also have group duties again, so I have to participate with them. After that, we take a shower and have dinner. This is my everyday routine, and I am happy to spend my time with the children, even though life is not easy due to the low salary.

For every school day, I walked for an hour to reach the school and back to home. Sometimes bringing my lunch box, and sometimes not. I observed and overcame challenges such as dealing with an individual student's different behaviors and trying to motivate them. There are so many struggles with many different tasks for a in a camp with limited resources and overcrowded classroom. Sometimes, there are some students who lost their concentraion in their study and some show disobedient. In that situation, understanding and empathy for a teacher's life grew stronger in me.

I taught multiple subjects, and Mathematics was the most challenging subject for most of the students. However, I was satisfied to prove the students that Mathematics could be really fun and not as much stressful as they thought.

Every evening and night, I was planning the lessons and checking homeworks or completed exercises for almost 100 students' tasks. Then, had to work house works. As a young teacher, I also had to focus on my personal growth and fulfill my passion about learning for the higher education as well.

Overall, these exhausting days are truly hard, but each day is worth it as it reminded me that regardless of these challenges, there are still so many children who rely on us, the teacher, for a better future as they believe in the power of education. The best part of being a teacher is that seeing a motivated, hardworking, and dedicated student who really values education. Even if there is only one student like that in a classroom, it is still worth it to endure all of the burdens for that one specific reason.

I didn't have many challenges at this school except for some extreme cases. Our school rooms didn't have electricity and we did not have textbooks, but the latter was by design so that the students could record their learning through experience with the help of the teacher. We didn't need electricity because we had plenty of sun and the beautiful outdoors. We often had science experiences outdoors.

I especially like when my students ask me challenging questions that showcase their higher order thinking skills. Teaching is a rewarding job. I enjoy interacting with my students and witnessing their progress and growth throughout their learning journey.

I tried to observe and learn from the teachers in the settings and interacted with them to feel more confident in front of them.

The aspects of education I enjoy the most are: interacting with children, positively impacting future generations, and knowing my daily hard work matters to society.