School's IN for Summer

 Rotten mangos are gross, especially when one is thrown into your classroom.

This summer I have been spending three mornings a week teaching Summer School. The program is for students who are behind their peers in reading and writing. I have 20 students who have shown up over the past month. The majority of my students have attended sporadically. I sometimes ask where they have been and the responses vary from, "I was sick" to "I needed to braid my hair." The summer rain storms have not helped. One rainy week attendance was as follows: Monday - 5 students, Tuesday - 3, and Wednesday - 7.

Some of my students need more help than others; I have 3rd graders who can't write their names, 1st graders who know the alphabet, and frequently students bring their toddler siblings with them to class. Irregular attendance and skill levels has made teaching a juggling act. I regularly have three different activities going on at the same time. Needless to say, things can get a little crazy at times.

All of my students crave attention and approval. Mostly it is a lot of shouting, "Susie, Susie, look what I did." But sometimes the kids act out on each other. Last week one boy hit a girl, and while I was telling the class that they know better than to hit others, another boy smacked a different girl with a pencil. It, sadly, has become clear to me (and other volunteers in similar situations) that nothing I can say will change my student's behavior because instead of growing up with a dread of disappointing adults, they have grown up with the belt.

This week I tried the carrot approach, I didn't let the kids draw until the end of class on Monday. This worked OK until students for my next class arrived. The first class was staring to rowdy  so  I told them that their class time was over and I would see them the next day. Most American kids would immediately run out of the school with shouts of freedom. Instead, my students were upset that I was kicking them out. I suppose I should be flattered that my students were having so much fun they didn't want to leave but their actions just made me annoyed, and dare I say it, angry.

Seven students wouldn't leave the school and kept trying to re-enter the classroom. I closed the door and they shouted through the window to let them back inside and they promised not to be a distraction. I ignored their requests so they began to throw trash and leaves into the classroom (you can open the windows from the outside). One child even threw a rotting mango through the window.

I was peeved. When I walked home I told the parents of the two top offenders what their kids had been doing. That was a mistake. One grandmother told me that she would not allow her grandson to go back to school. I then tried to tell her that I wanted her grandson at school but my pleas seem to have fallen on deaf ears because neither of the two boys showed up for the rest of the week. Ooops.

On the bright side because the trouble makers were not in class I was able to give more specialized attention to the other students. However, I am sad that the boys are not at school because they are two of the students that need the most help. One of the boys was just starting to write his name without help.

Fellow Volunteer, Julie, with our orderly students from training.

If there are any teachers reading who have ideas on how I can better control my students please send me your suggestions! The director of my school told me that next time my students cause trouble I should lock them out of the school.

Outside of the classroom I have been spending my summer meeting everyone in my community. I basically walk around, stop by houses of people I have not met, introduce myself, and then chat with them for an hour or so. I am often given juice or coffee during my visit and some fruit to take with me when I leave. It's not something I could ever accomplish I the States. People back home are too wary of strangers, and generally can't pick a pick fruit off their trees. During my visits I have also been interviewing families for a community census - no one knows how many people live here.

I have so far done 119 household interviews. I only have 10-12 houses to go! Hooray! My next step will be to put all the info into Excel and pick out the important info to present at a conference I have next month. One thing I have already noticed is that most adults have not completed primary school. Until 17 years ago it was difficult to go to school past the 4th grade. Upper levels of school were all located 5km away in town, and only accessible by a dirt road. Today students still have to travel to town for high school but the road is paved and transportation is better (students still have to pay for transportation). Also, most families do not have books in the house (if they have one it is the Bible). These two factors make me wonder what is the literacy rate of adults in my community. Most adults have not been reading much since they left school. (Almost every family here farms, which isn't a job that requires heavy reading.) I, therefore, think it will be important for me to find books that are for adults but at a basic reading level. In other words, while Don Quixote is an important book I doubt that many adults in my community are up to the challenge of reading it - not many Americans would want to read it either. I need to find books that will encourage my community to continue reading, instead of alienate them.


Other things of note:
A community member has done construction work for the reality show Survivor! He has worked for the show here in the DR but also in Panama and in Istanbul. Crazy. I had to ask him to explain his job to me again just to be sure I understood him. He said Istanbul was really cool; he visited a church is Istanbul which has diamonds in the ceiling.

The DR got it's first tropical storm of the season, Chantal. She apparently caused a lot of flooding along the southern coast of the country but here in Samaná we didn't even get a full day of rain. Apparently storms don't tend to cause too much damage in the region. However, 8 years ago Hurricane George hit Samaná hard and a lot of people went hungry in the following months because all their crops were destroyed.

Gutters are useful during tropical storms

My group lost our first Volunteer, she will be missed. Peace Corps sent her packing after it received reports that she was riding motorcycles without her helmet. The DR is the only country where Peace Corps permits Volunteers to ride motorcycles so they have strict safety rules. A Dominican actually asked me yesterday if I was a volunteer because I was carrying my helmet; not many people aside from Volunteers use them here.