Technical Day

Welcome to Caritas Technical Secondary School First Technical Day - Open House in Kimbe, PNG, July 29, 2018

The day showcased the Technical skills of our students, or I should say, the potential skills. It did not magically happen. The first Caritas Technical Secondary School in PNG is in the Capital city of Port Moresby (POM for short) and they just completed their 26th year while Kimbe is only 2 years old and this was our first. The students really didn’t have a real idea what they were doing. A video presentation was given to them of the POM Technical Day held a few weeks earlier and two teachers were flown in from POM to help teach the Technical skills in one week- then the students were supposed to practice.

They learned such skills as how to set a table, how to decorate a table, napkin folding, cake decorating, fruit carving, floral arrangement and dress me up. Then competitions were held to find the best students and then they performed such tasks on stage in front of their peers and parents and, of course, the judges.

Dress me up was the most interesting. There was one bolt of fabric and using only pins, they were to pin it on the student model in less than 15 minutes. They were beautiful. Not sure who won the competitions, but it really didn’t matter, what mattered was that both parents and fellow students were amazed to see such activities on stage.

Besides the competitions, we also had our student choir, dance group, drama, and my favorite part was the Queen walk, students representing their village by wearing and describing their tribal outfits. I was in charge of drama and my grade 11 students put on a play called ‘Love Letter to the World’ about St. Mother Teresa’s life. It was good and Brother Boniface wrote an original song, but in the future, the drama will be a comedy. It would seem more fitting for an open house. 

We held this event in our brand new gymnasium that is still not complete - but worked well for our venue. The first two weeks of term 3 were set aside for Technical Day activities and no real academics were taught. Some teachers tried, but soon gave up because the students’ minds were on their activities. I just decided to make my activities fun while still teaching the English language- just not using their textbooks. I had each class write a fourth verse of their Caritas hymn to represent their individual classes. And had them find words using each letter in CARITAS that would describe their class. Then had them design something around the words.  I just thought of the first two weeks as play weeks. Each class displayed their class projects around the perimeter of the gym.

Overall the day was successful because the parents and students were amazed. Many never saw a production like it and I’m sure these same parents will promote Caritas to potential students and our school will grow. Now it’s back to academics.

One sad note, Bishop Bill had a relapse of his stoke and had to be airlifted to POM. From there, he will be airlifted to Australia, then back to America for a complete recovery. I want him to return - I have 2 and1/2 years left...  Please keep him in your prayers.

Thank you again for your prayers and support. I pray for you in return. Please comment and let me know about you.

God bless.