Saturday, October 18, 2014

The Exam Week


This past week we had our state-mandated exam week for all students in grades 1 - 9. I, along with many of the volunteers, was a bit confused at the prospect of an exam week, for a few reasons. First of all, because the idea of final exams for elementary school students just wasn't something I'd encountered before. But more importantly, I had never written or given an exam to children. I had no idea what to expect or prepare for my second graders, nor did I know the point of this exercise. The entire week ended up being quite an experience.

I ended up writing easy exams and hoping against hope that my second graders would be able to pass them, despite their lacking ability to read or learn English. During the previous week, review week,  I spent each class period doing practice exams with second grade, practice exams that were literally copies of the real exam. I had to give them six exams: speaking, listening, writing, reading, grammar, and Physical Education. I prepared a study guide for my students with the exact questions that would appear on their written tests and everything they would need to know for these tests. I corrected each practice test I gave them and returned it to them with the correct answers. I literally handed out the answers to their tests.

Nonetheless, several students didn't pass each exam. Which appears to be the norm across all the grades. With a failing mark being anything under 70% in Honduras, failing English exams is not uncommon. Even when I read the reading exam to certain kids, students failed.

Some of my boys after finishing their last English exam.
Oh well. A new second grade teacher will be arriving at the beginning of November. I'm truly going to miss these kids, especially because I'm finally getting through to them. They actually respond to me now and seem to respect me, which is something I'm proud of. I'm really going to miss them.

Make-up week is next week. So I will retest each kid who failed an exam and I'll work through it individually with them. But in Honduras a student can't fail a grade due to a failing English mark, meaning that there aren't school repercussions except for on the transcript. So these exams don't mean much more than a progress report and accountability to the state.

Friday afternoon, a second grade student's parents came to talk to me. He is the smartest student in the class, but also has really rough behavioral issues. He doesn't like to ever listen to anyone, will frequently up and leave the classroom, or he'll build forts or set up massage stations in a corner of the room. He just really isn't into the whole authority thing. We don't ever address these issues with his family, however, because we know that he gets beaten at home.

When his parents came in, they wanted to know how he had done on his exams in my class. His practice exams from the week before had been returned with low marks - he had gotten distracted and stopped completing these halfway through, despite my best efforts to engage and reason with him. I know that he really likes me, and I'm the teacher with the most success getting through to him, I just can't always make it work. Anyway, his parents were concerned about the practice exams he'd brought home. Fortunately for both my student and I, he had absolutely killed his actual exams. On four exams he got 100%, and on the other two he only missed one point. I showed his exams to his parents, smiled really big, and explained how smart and wonderful their son is in my class, as well as how proud of him I am. I can't even express how relieved I was to only have good news to share.

On a completely different note, another major factor of the week was illness. I'm pretty sure that everyone in Cofradia is sick. I've spent the last week with a really bad cold, which my roommate caught a day after me. Another volunteer has been in bed with a bacterial illness all week, while two others have medical stuff going on right now. Both my aides, Isis and Dulce, were sick at school this week. In Prepa, several students were missing each day or all week, so my class of 30 kids became a much more manageable 22 bodies. Even Liz's brother, who arrived on Saturday to film CBS for a documentary, got pretty sick by Monday night.

On Friday Isis and Dulce were both too sick to be at school. It ended up a good thing, though, because I had decided I was going to teach the kids about Halloween, since we learned letter 'H' this week. Because of religion and conservative culture here, I knew the only things I could teach my kids about would be costumes, candy, and pumpkins. Friday morning Liz and I decided we'd do some third grade - Prepa bonding. Thank goodness Isis wasn't around to disapprove of the endeavor.

I explained to my kids that we had a very special activity planned for the day. We would be going to third grade. My kids had to be on their best behavior. I would be treating them like third graders, and so they had to show me that they could act the part. I explained it all in Spanish. Liz was simultaneously telling her third graders that there was to be no pushing or fighting or bad behavior in front of the Prepa kids. When it was time for us to go over to third grade, I told my kids to all stand up next to their chairs. I bent down for a second, and when I looked up, all my kids were standing, excitedly holding their chairs above their heads. We did have to carry our chairs over to third grade, but I had to explain to the kids that it wasn't safe to carry chairs that way. It was too late, though, because one girl was already sobbing after having been whacked in the face.

We left Prepa and slowly made our way to third grade, basically like a struggling, lopsided line of ants. It was one of the cutest things I've seen at school. We paired Prepa kids with third graders, explained Halloween, and then gave each kid pumpkin print-outs to turn into jack o'lanterns. Instructions were for third graders to help Prepa. All the kids had a wonderful time.

Upon return to Prepa at the end of the day, another volunteer asked one of my students how he was doing. He responded, "HALLOWEEN!"

Monday, October 13, 2014

Because We Actually Believe in CBS

Over the last couple of weeks we've been working to get CBS online. CBS has been online for years and is mentioned on dozens of sites around the internet, but we want to get CBS truly online. Like, modern social networking online. And it's been a big project.

We so want CBS to have the international publicity and support that the school truly needs. Spearheaded by Liz, we have re-evaluated our Facebook page, re-established our Twitter, and created an Instagram account. We are currently working on redesigning the school website and have also launched a volunteer blog. Paperwork to become a non-profit organization is in the works as of several months ago. And all this week, footage is being shot for a documentary about our school, to be entered in film festivals and shared on the internet.

It's a huge endeavor. And Liz has poured everything into it. Sometimes I can't remember why we are trying so hard. We're already donating our time, not to mention our savings, to teaching these children. The thing is, as volunteers, we all actually believe in Cofradía Bilingual School. We know the potential of the students, the volunteers, and the school, if only there were enough support. CBS does not have any international reputation. We are constantly trying to reach out and recruit volunteers because securing a full team for an entire year doesn't generally happen - we just don't have enough applicants or enough connections.

As volunteers, we teach our children to the best of our abilities. We give them everything we know how to give and hope that they'll get something from it. But we want to do more than that. Every volunteer here is reluctant to leave at some point, never knowing how strong the next team of volunteers will be and whether or not things will slip downhill.

The fact of the matter is, from all outside appearances, the school is a mess. None of the toilets flush and finding toilet paper is never a given. The principal doesn't have much idea what he's doing. New students enter the school at completely varying educational levels. One of the Honduran teachers does not know how to make copies. There's a water-damaged library in a corner that I did not know even existed until today. The walls between classrooms don't reach the ceilings. And the school can't fire the strange night guard because whenever they've tried to do so, things have started disappearing from school property until the moment he's re-hired.

Coming here, I knew this was what I could expect.

What I did not know was how functional that mess has become. The volunteers are the heart of the school. Amanda, the volunteer coordinator, holds everything together. The volunteers are creating both a school and an environment where kids can really learn in an incredible international and multicultural way. And with all that we have to work with, it is completely and utterly impressive that our school functions with the efficiency that it does.

That's why we are trying so hard to get CBS established on social networks. CBS has been around for seventeen years. Because each of us is aware that we won't be at the school forever, we want to feel some assurance that it will continue to function successfully without us. We are a part of the school and the community, and we can't just leave that be. We want to do everything in our power to help the school into a more sustainable position, with an increased capacity to help students and their families.

That's why we've posted class photos and teacher bios of each volunteer to the school Facebook page. That's why the Instagram account is now filled with pictures of adorable children, the school soccer team, and great teaching moments. The Twitter contains all sorts of quick school updates. We have written extensive volunteer bios for the new website, which is being sketched out by hand, while profile photos of each volunteer are taken. Our volunteer blog will be updated at least once weekly, with posts written by all of our volunteers here, regarding school happenings, life in Cofradía, and volunteer reflection. Our second blog post, published today, was written by me. And to top everything off, Liz's brother, a film-maker, arrived on Saturday to shoot footage for a documentary about CBS.

We just want to share this thing that we believe in with others. And by sharing our school with others and growing our community, we hope to strengthen our school. While we also hope to launch a fundraiser for the school later this year, we aren't there yet, especially with social media.

So this blog post, dedicated to explaining our efforts, has two intentions. I'm writing this to process what the school has come to mean to me right now. I'm also writing this because of how real these efforts feel - I truly do feel like growing our support will make a difference for the students. And that's something I hope we'll become really proud of.

If you are at all interested in checking out our networking:

Website: cofradiaschool.com
Facebook: Cofradía's Bilingual School
Twitter: @cofradia_CBS
Instagram: cofradia_CBS
Volunteer blog: volunteertoteach.com

So. That's what I've been up to.

Monday, October 6, 2014

An Apple

My Prepa kids showing off their fall trees.
Last week one of my Prepa students brought me an apple. I truly do like apples, but this was different. Because in every picture-perfect story, kids bring apples to their teachers, right? Granted as a child I never brought apples to my teachers, but still. Jeremy, the student, nonchalantly handed me this red apple, and I almost fell over. I'm not sure he had any idea what that apple meant. It must be real now - I'm a teacher.

On Wednesday, however, I realized that when the second graders all give me hugs after lunch it's not because of how much they love me. It's so that they can wipe the sweat off their heads and onto my shirt. That was a lovely realization.

If I thought that the busito ride to Copan was rough, I was mistaken. On Tuesday afternoon I went to a student's house to begin tutoring. Most students get to school on busitos, and until Tuesday, I hadn't fully realized what this actually meant. The van was smaller than the busito we take to school every morning, and as they pushed me into the front seat with five other people, I realized that there were at least 25 kids in the van. Honduras has redefined a full vehicle for me.

On Wednesday, I tried to play Bingo with Prepa. I gave them each a Bingo sheet with squares, triangles, and circles, and told them to color the shapes red, yellow, blue, or green. The majority of the class used the right colors and those that also incorporated purples, pinks, and oranges likely realized pretty quickly what they had done wrong. I explained the rules of the game, both in English and Spanish, hoping that they'd catch on quickly. I was wrong. After every shape that I called out, someone in the room would yell "BINGO!" This even after I had only called one or two or three shapes, making a four-shape bingo impossible. After hearing "BINGO!" continuously for 25 minutes, giving prizes to the kids who had actually won, and observing all the kids who were simply too frustrated with the rules to play, I was ready for our next activity. The shapes game on the patio that I knew the kids would absolutely adore then fell through when we all got out to the patio to find it occupied by sixth graders. Learning to roll even more with whatever Honduras throws my way.

On Thursday I wanted to do a fun, hands-on activity with Prepa. I decided I'd teach them about the idea of fall, especially since we are learning about the pronunciation difference between "three" and "tree." Also, I just really miss fall. I printed up an outline of a leafless tree for each kid, explained what fall was and that leaves change color. I pulled out paint and had each kid finger paint leaves on with green, red, and yellow paint. But my aide and I had some different approaches to this project. I simply opened up the paints, showed the kids what to do, and let them loose. The kids at my tables were mixing all the colors, making big brown splotches everywhere, and wearing lots of paint. The kids at Isis' table were painting on one color at a time, cleaning their fingers between each new color, and following my picture exactly. Some sort of contrast between correct and fun became apparent.

I decided to hold a birthday party for Prepa. After being asked by a parent if she could bring in cake for her son's birthday this coming week, I remembered that birthdays are supposed to be celebrated. But because six kids had already had their birthdays in August and September, it was important that we give them the chance to celebrate, too, in class. So I planned a party for us. Thursday afternoon I went to the supermarket and spent an hour deciding what cheap snacks I could purchase for them - I settled on a variety pack of cookies, three bags of microwave popcorn, and candy for the birthday kids. The class knew about the party and had been looking forward to it all week. I had told them that if they wanted to, they, too, could bring in food to celebrate. After the supermarket, I headed home to make birthday packages for each birthday kid. These included stickers, erasers, candy, and a pencil, and took more time than I care to admit to prepare.

Friday morning at school a couple bottles of Coca-Cola arrived, as well as candy and more cookies. Miss Betty, the Spanish teacher and also one of the owners of the school, explained to me that in the future Prepa kids aren't allowed to bring Coke. Clearly I had missed this memo, especially since I'd seen the kids bring in liters and liters of Coke for Children's Day. She stated that today it was okay for us to drink the Coke that the kids had brought, but to not allow that in the future, and could she please steal a glass? By the time it was my turn to teach, an entire cake had arrived as well. After doing some class work, we had our party. We sang happy birthday not once, but to every single one of the six children we were celebrating, plus an extra practice round. That got long. We ate cake and drank Coke. Then we spent the rest of the morning singing and dancing to "10 Little Monsters," an extremely fast-paced and difficult to keep up-with song about monsters that I found on Pinterest that the kids loved, since we'd made Letter M Monsters on Monday and Tuesday.

The weekend was full of lesson-planning. Exam week begins next week, so writing exams and study guides for second grade constituted a large portion of my weekend. That and fasting. I broke my fast on Saturday with fresh bread and cream cheese, so almost a bagel. Chag sameach, y'all.