All the books and supplies we shipped to the school finally arrived!!!!! A huge THANK YOU again to everyone who had a part in that, we were able to ship 25 boxes here because of all your support and donations! You can't even begin to imagine how much the kids here need it! It continues to get more and more frustrating for Sara and I, as we are getting to know our students more, and we are realizing more and more everyday just how little they can read, write, or comprehend English. We've definitely had a rough first few weeks. The biggest challenge has been trying to build on the skills they really needed, using only the textbooks and workbooks the school provided. As I had mentioned in an earlier posting, they do have textbooks for every subject, but all of them are way too high for any of our students to be able to read, much less comprehend. And all the while, we are being pressured to "use the textbooks, and complete the workbook pages" with the students! Trying to talk to the other teachers and administration about the importance of allowing the kids time to read books at their level, to help build on comprehension and basic reading skills adds to our frustration, they don't seem to get it! Reading and writing are not as valued as much as they should be here, and if they only understood how much the kids would benefit from slowing down, and really taking the time to master those basic skills, instead of forcing them to complete their workbooks and plow through textbooks that go way over their heads, the kids would be much better off! I guess the struggle to balance teaching kids what they really "need to know"to become better learners (coming from a teacher who is in the classroom all day working with the kids), and what other people (who know nothing about what goes on in your classroom) assume kids "should know" is a conflict teachers face even in this country! Sara and I are on our way to putting together a school library for the students, and we plan on teaching the kids how to choose and check out books appropriate for them. We still need to try to convince the principal that time should be given for these kids to read and discuss books and stories outside of the limiting pages of the textbooks. so wish us luck! I'll be sure to post more pictures of the kids and the library once it comes together. 
These are more pictures of the school. The playground, which if you look closely, you should be able to see random cinder blocks that are very dangerously placed on the ground around the play equipment, I've realized, it is too help smaller kids reach the swings and swinging bars, but I don't think they realize how scary it would be if one of the kids slipped and hit his/her head on them. Also, none of the play equipment is bolted down, not to mention that all of it is extremely rusted, thin, and bent metal. It's altogether dilapidated and very unsteady. Many of the swings are missing seats, so the only thing the kids sit on are metal bars. During my playground duty this month I was a nervous wreck, keeping a very close eye on all the kids, and constantly running after and yelling out to kids to be careful.
This is a picture of Sara and I in our dreadful uniforms, mostly dreadful because white collared shirts are not very fun to wear considering the weather here, and the fact that we have to hand wash all of our clothes only makes me dislike them more! Below is a picture of the "cafeteria" which unfortunately provides the kids with EXTREMELY unhealthy foods like candy, soda, and chips. Although they do serve pizza and beleadas (usually with beans and chicken) many of the kids choose to eat only the junk food. Apparently not much different from what they eat at home, many teachers have mentioned how much soda and candy everyone eats here.
No comments:
Post a Comment