So I guess I should update everyone
on what I have been doing in terms of my service here since I have not really
updated everyone on this for a while. So as you all know I have my schedule all
set up already so I have certain places to be on certain days and all so that
is nice and I have been following this schedule for around 3 or 4 weeks I
believe. So on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays I work at the school from 8-10
and then R.B.C. from 10-12, at that point I return back to my house to eat. I
eat two meals with my host family because frankly I am too lazy to learn how to
cook (especially in Honduras, it is another whole world in the kitchen down
here. Not everything can be thrown in the microwave and heated up…) and because
why wouldn’t I want to get served delicious food for two years instead of
making terrible food for myself? On Tuesday and Thursday I work in the library,
which is conveniently right next door to me and has internet. During the
afternoons I go to the library and it is kind of like my work time though I do
not have a whole ton of work to do at this point so it is a nice time to surf
the web etc. I believe that this will change soon enough and that I will soon
be working at R.B.C. and possibly the school in the afternoons as well but that
is still up in the air. So that is my schedule more or less and what I do
basically every day.
Now a little bit about what I am
doing in each of my settings. At the school right now I have been observing all
of the classrooms to get a feel for the environment etc. I told the teachers
and all that I was observing the student’s behavior however I was really just
observing the teachers, SHH don’t tell them. The reason for all of this
observing is really two fold, the first reason being that I want to see the
methodology that the teachers use and where they can use help in working with
students with disabilities and also because the school year is ending here real
soon. The school year here is a little bit backwards as compared to the U.S.
school system in terms of scheduling. The schooling here starts in February (if
there are no teacher strikes, which usually there are…) and ends at the end of
November meaning that the “summer break” here is December and January. The
reason for this is so that the population can pick coffee during this time
which is the lifeblood of my particular region of Honduras. So I have done all
my observing and the teachers need a lot of help, so my plan for this is to
give a series of “charlas” (basically presentations) to the teachers at the
beginning of the year on how they can work with students with disabilities,
classroom management techniques, and new teaching methodologies instead of rote
memorization. Also during the break I am going to be working with some of the
other teachers on providing tutoring to some of the students who are in most
need. Once the school year starts up again, I am hoping that I can maybe start
working with the students individually by pulling them out of class for a
little bit of time in small groups and go from there.
At R.B.C. I am basically doing the
same thing that I am doing at the school for the time being. Most of the kids
do not come during the break as well so it did not really make a lot of sense
for me to get started working there right away. Also R.B.C. is an interesting
project because at this point it is really disorganized and there is a long way
to go, there is only one lady that works there and she has no background in
education (her background is health as she was a nurse). Anyways, she is really
nice and enthusiastic about wanting to learn more but at this point just has no
idea how to work with this population. Besides that, the kids just come and go
as they please. There is no sort of schedule or organization whatsoever and
that makes it really hard to work with these kids because there are so many
different kids with so many different abilities. The basic day right now for
the kids is they come in around 10 and they copy down or color different things
in their notebook while most of the kids really just play with some broken toys
that are around, like I said, there is a lot of work to do there. So my plan so
far is I want to write a manual that outlines basic special education
principles and also describes different disabilities and what exactly they need
from a teacher/classroom to be successful. I am trying to write that during the
break that we have here so I won’t be bored for two months. Once the school
starts back up I want to get R.B.C. more organized and have a sort of schedule
set up so that certain students with similar disabilities/abilities show up at
the same time making it easier to work with them. I also want to set up actual
lesson in which the students can learn life skills (hygiene, money skills,
basically all of those skills that we do without thinking but for someone with
a disability it is much harder), with this life skills program I also want to
work with the volunteer and teach her more about lesson planning and classroom
management. I think this is the project has the most amount of work but at the
same time I will be able to see lots of changes which will be nice.
My last project is the library; the
library is awesome and really well set up and run. Out of all of my projects if
I am being honest I am not sure they really need a whole lot of my help because
they are more than capable of doing their thing (but I am not complaining
because I get free internet there). The library has tons of great books in
Spanish and English, it is probably one of the best libraries that I have seen
here in Honduras. With all of these great books however, many of the teens and
children who come in to the library really only want to use the computers for
research of for surfing the web. It is great that they have that resource but
at the same time a little bit sad that all of those books are not being
utilized. Part of the reason that some of the books are not being utilized is
the fact that a lot of the children’s books are in English. So, for the past
two weeks or so I have been working on translating some of these books so that
the kids can read them and who knows maybe even learn a bit of English at the
same time. Some of the books I can translate no problem, while others I use my
new best friend, translate.google.com (free shout out to google, you are
welcome). I have been amazed at how good this translating program works and
translating programs have really come a long way since my high school years
when I would try to use these for my Spanish homework. So, if any of you out
there are in a Spanish class and need a little bit of help (to check your work
of course, not to cheat!) I would use that website. Besides translating books,
I am also a little bit like the IT person of the library whenever there is any
question about a computer they come to me and up to this point I have been able
to help them out which has been nice. During the break, we are going to be
working on a project that will encourage kids to read which I am excited about.
I am picking out a bunch of children’s books and we are setting up a
competition amongst the kids, they are going to form teams of three and as a
team they will have to read all of the books that I pick out. Once they have
read all of the books we are going to have a competition day in which the students,
as a team, will answer questions about all of the books that they have read and
compete for prizes. I am excited about this and hopefully it will encourage
people to come in to the library during the break and read.
So that is more or less what I am doing
with my life nowadays, in my free time down here I do a lot of reading (right
now I am reading Spanish books to improve my language skills, and it really
helps…), try to talk to the people as much as possible, and besides that I
watch a lot of Nickelodeon and local news with my host family. Speaking of my
host family, over the weekend my host mom had her third child a girl (so that
makes 3 host sisters…), she was named Meyta Gabrielle. In unrelated news, I
received the Blackberry that was sent to me so nicely by Bunny Boyd (Thanks so
much!). However it was a good news, bad news situation in which I got it safe
and sound however me being the idiot that I am did not specify that I needed a
Blackberry with a SIM card… sooooo the Blackberry is not going to work
unfortunately. However, I have decided that I am just going to go ahead and buy
a Blackberry down here (No worries I have been saving up my living allowance
(helps that it is dirt cheap to live here) so basically your tax dollars at
work here, thanks for the early Christmas present!) and get it all set up so
bear with me and fairly soon anyone who has a smartphone will be able to text
with me for free. Looking forward to that, hopefully I can get it all set up
fairly soon meaning before Thanksgiving. Anyways, hope everything is going well
with everyone and thanks again for following the blog!
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