I've been feeling a little less than enthusiastic lately. I
guess it's what happens when you've been somewhere for a while. It would
probably be a little different if this whole Peace Corps thing didn't have an
end date, but it does, and what may have seemed shiny and new 17 months ago has
started to show its age and lose a bit of its luster. The coffee sucks, the
Internet is worse, bugs continue to eat me up on a regular basis and I don't
know that anything I've done has helped my students learn English. The somdtam
still tastes pretty good though.
From what I've heard, the year mark is a rough one for most
people. We're not the new kids on the block anymore; in fact, we've been around
the block, and it's filled with terrifying dogs and people that yell,
“Foreigner!” at you, even after they know your name. When I first got to Lansak
a little over a year ago, I was so excited about how much I was going to be
able to develop the English program at my schools and all the projects I was
going to do in the community, teaching about HIV/AIDS and the environment,
really helping these people, you know. I might as well have put “cure cancer”
down on my to-do list.
One year later, and my expectations have changed a bit.
Honestly, I feel like I could walk away from this satisfied, if I know that my
students at least know that the letter ‘a’ has two sounds. That would be an
accomplishment.
I started this project out with two schools: Anuban Lansak
and Banbongsamsip. Anuban Lansak is huge. For grades 1-6, there are over 700
students. Plus, there are two years of kindergarten. For each grade, there are
only three teachers, meaning some classrooms have over 40 students. It’s a more
urban school, which means that most students attend every day, compared with
Banbongsamsip, where the parents of most students are farmers, so sometimes
they’re called to help in the fields. The classes are smaller, less than 20
students per class, which was nice. I say ‘was’ because we had to part ways
unfortunately.
There were a number of issues at that school. More times than
not, classes were canceled because the lawn needs mowing or kids need to
practice dance or the teachers weren’t there. I would sit in the office of the
principal (who was never there, so why would he need it?) for hours on end. The
school is also 20 km away from my house, which wouldn’t be that bad, if you didn’t add the computer I bring, no shade from 100
degree sun at 7:30 in the morning and rabid dogs all while biking uphill. Both
ways. Through the snow. I had a teacher from the school that I would meet, and
she would drive me up in her truck, but that too could be unreliable. Sometimes
she wouldn’t go, and we’d have to find someone else to come and get me. It just
got to be too much. I would’ve dealt with all of that had I felt like I was
accomplishing anything there, but I just felt completely unproductive and in
the way.
Now, I teach at Anuban Lansak four days a week. I started
this school year so fired up. I thought that I was going to be able to do twice
the amount of what I would’ve done had I still been coming here only two days
per week. My original co-teacher was doing well, and because I’m here for
double the time, I’ve started working with the teachers in grades 1-3, so they
can teach English next year in their classrooms when I’m not there. Yeah. In my
dreams.
I again had let my expectations get the better of me. I guess
during that month and a half break I developed amnesia about what really goes
down here. I figured that everyone would be dying for me to come into their
classrooms and show them what communicative and student-centered teaching
really is. Because, you know, everyone just loves being told that they’ve been
doing something wrong for the past thirty years.
The first week of school was a
definite struggle. I feel really uncomfortable going into other people’s
classrooms and running the show while putting them in a supportive role. Most
of these people are older than me, and in a society that gives such respect to
the elders, I felt awkward “bossing” them around. There were a few teachers
that just checked out of the lesson completely, leaving the room to go grade
papers or eat, and I gave my co-teacher the unfortunate task of telling them
that they can’t do that because I’m not a teacher per say, but a
trainer/collaborator, and I’m here to give the teachers the knowledge and
ability to carry on this English thing by themselves next year. Again, in my
dreams.
But, there have been some
successes. All of the third grade teachers stay in the room with me and are
really active in helping me deliver the lesson. There is one teacher in
particular who I know is going to be a great teacher and who I know will
definitely continue to teach next year.
I used to not even count these small accomplishments. For me,
if the whole program wasn’t working out, then it was just a failure, plain and
simple. Being here has changed my perspective on all of that dramatically. I
told my mom last week that there were a lot of instances where I want to pull
my hair out, but all that will do is leave me bald, and it won’t actually help
change anything, besides increasing my love of hats. This time last year, it
was all about me: what can I do here to make things better. This year, it’s
been and hopefully, will continue to be about everyone else, finding people
that see a weakness and want to change it. That’s the thing about trying to change the
world, I guess; you can’t do it alone.
No comments:
Post a Comment