Can We See Your Chicken?

    Upon arriving in Monte Plata for technical training myself and 18 other education trainees were sent on a scavenger hunt. My group was determined to win but we could not find a rooster roaming the streets. So, we did the logical thing and followed the cries of a rooster until we determined it was in a backyard. We then asked a woman sitting on her porch if she had a rooster, and if we could take a picture of it. She did not have a rooster but she immediately got up and walked us down the street to house which did have roosters. We were instantly let into the house and lead to the backyard, which was filled with roosters. We were ecstatic, and then we became shocked. There was a shed filled with roosters in cages. All of the roosters were being trained to fight. The people of Monte Plata are a friendly and welcoming bunch, but culture differences remain. Sometimes they are amusing, such as when Dominicans point to things by pursing their lips at the object. Other times they are depressing, such as when one stumbles upon a fighting rooster farm. FYI my team did win the scavenger hunt and was rewarding with cookies! - we were nice and shared with everyone.

    While I am in Monte Plata I will be learning a lot about education, such as how to: implement a literacy program, assist teachers in improving their classroom management, increase parental involvement, and much more. Part of my training will involve working in a local school as a literacy instructor for students in the 3rd and 4th grade. This week I got a peek of what I will encounter in my school. I observed two classes for 30 minutes each. The first class (4th grade) was well run, the teacher had a well thought out lesson, encouraged student participation, and checked student work. However, it was hard to hear people talk due to the noise from the street (motorcycles), and the other classrooms. The second classroom (3rd grade) I observed was pretty bad. The class was supposed to be working on math problems but many students did not even have their notebooks on their desk, many were talking the entire time, even passing notes between the cracks in the wall to the class next door. The teacher did nothing to reprimand the students. When she called one student to solve a problem on the board he just stood there for at least 5 minutes, staring at the board. Eventually she had him sit down but did not show him how to solve the problem, and the student went back to talking with his friends. I doubt I would have learned anything in the class. Talking with other trainees they also seemed to have had a mixed bag of good and bad instruction/classroom management.

    Side note for education nerds:  I am working on literacy with 3rd and 4th grade students because in the DR it is against the law to hold a student back in the first and second grade. In theory this is supposed to prevent the student from gaining a low self-worth. In reality slower-paced students do not often receive the support they need to catch-up and reach the 3rd grade unable to read. As a result, the 3rd grade is a mix of students of varying ages and abilities. This would make instruction difficult in any situation but is made worse in the DR where teaching is one of the worst paid professions, students are in school, at a maximum, 5 hours a day, and there are often few resources,  such as textbooks, available to students and teachers. If you want more details about the education system here let me know!

    Some tidbits of life in Monte Plata:

•     Training is held in the VIP lounge of a baseball stadium
•     Corazón Valiente is on TV here! That would be the novela I watched in the US. I have not watched a whole episode but my neighbors watch it and I end up hearing the majority of the episode as I fall asleep.
•     Rain makes a lot of noise on a zinc roof.
•     I have started taking mini showers when I come home for lunch. I just pour cold water on myself to cool off. It still is not summer here.
•     My host mom told me I will not leave her house one pound less than when I arrived.