"So Lucky"

Another update from Jolie Lee, WorldTeach China volunteer, who showcases here one of the students she has befriended at her school and her thoughts on her high school experience.

Shelly was one of the first students I met when I arrived. I was touched by her friendliness and willingness to show me around the school. Since that first meeting, Shelly and I have become close, even though she is not in any of my classes. We often see each other at the dining hall or during the activity period before dinner when I am running on the track. Shelly loves English and is eager to practice with me. Sometimes she comes to my house to ask me a grammar question or just to chat.

Last Sunday, we decided to enjoy the sun and sit outside on a school bench. It was a calm, quiet afternoon with most students out for the few hours that they didn't have to be in class. It was a perfect time for reflection. That afternoon the topic was what it means to be a high school student in China. So here is what Shelly told me, in her own words.

Summertime!! :: School's Out in Thailand

As the school year winds down in Thailand, WorldTeach volunteers are preparing for a HOT summer vacation including some exciting travel plans, both in-country and internationally! Below, Kate Mast shares some photos and thoughts on her last day of school for the year.

"School has officially closed for the Thai summer. Today was bittersweet as I had to say goodbye to my graduating 12th graders, yet I cannot help but be excited for them to start the next chapter of their lives... I will miss their smiling faces.

There was a feeling of celebration in the air today and everyone was relaxed and enjoying each other's company. We ate a large feast together, sang some songs, wished one another good luck and posed for a million photos.

Members of the graduating class strike a pose

Me and some of the soon-to-be 10th graders

This afternoon while sitting at home trying to figure out what to pack for my upcoming month and half off some of my 7th grade students came to my house to bring me some flowers and tell me they will miss me. How did I get so lucky?! It was the perfect end to a great day and wonderful semester. To think that when I first arrived students were too shy to even look at me, now they surprise me with a visit to my house!

Me and my flower bearers

Tomorrow I leave on a fantastic adventure! I am backpacking around Thailand until May when school starts back up again. I will be traveling with a my fellow volunteers Patricia and Valerie and cannot wait, we have quite the itinerary. First we head to Northern Thailand and then down south to island hop and play in the ocean. My mother and Jack will be meeting me here in Thailand the end of April and we will explore together as well before I bring them back to sleepy Nakhon Phanom to meet my students when school starts."

My flowers

OneWorld Classrooms in Hunan... Action!

Jolie Lee, WorldTeach China Hunan volunteer, writes about OneWorld Classrooms' recent filming of her 10th grade class.

"I've never seen my girls so nervous before. With the video camera in their faces, they giggled or stood frozen in place or even quivered around the lips. It probably didn't help calm their nerves that a tall, blonde American was behind the camera.

Videographer Ian Bennett visited our school campus yesterday to shoot my tenth graders for what would become an online Chinese lesson available to students around the world. The project is called OneWorld Classrooms, a cross-cultural model of educating students using the arts and the Internet.

"As our world becomes more interdependent and the problems we confront more global, it is critical that our young people gain knowledge, skills and attitudes that prepare them to enjoy the benefits and accept the responsibilities of global citizenship," according to OneWorld's mission statement.

My students were responsible for one lesson containing school-related vocabulary words. Ian filmed them speaking the words and using the words in sentences. My students also performed two skits using the words and demonstrated their calligraphy by writing the words. Despite obstacles -- trains going by, fireworks going off, working around the students' busy schedule and my students' sudden shyness -- I think the final product will be excellent.

And a note on shyness -- I am painfully, embarrassingly shy, but teaching has pushed me forcefully out of my comfort zone. In some students, I see the same hesitance to speak, the same wavering of self-confidence that I felt as a teen and in my early twenties. So I have made it a point to make my students (especially the girls) less shy. I think this experience will make them just a little more confident speaking in front of others and more confident in themselves. In class, I always tell my students, "Don't be shy, just try!" I really want for them to apply this to life as well."

"Cute Kid Interlude" from Rwanda

A collection of really, really cute kids from Jane Brokaw, WorldTeach Rwanda volunteer.

The First Ever National Youth Nitijela in the Marshall Islands

Sarah Lipson, WorldTeach volunteer in the Marshall Islands, writes below about some of her students' impressive accomplishments.

This week I cried in the national chamber of the Marshall Islands. Though the state of national affairs in the RMI is often depressing, I was crying not in sadness but in pride. This past Saturday was the first-ever Youth Nitijela (Nitijela is the RMI national parliament). As I wrote about for The Marshall Islands Journal, forty-six MIHS seniors were selected to participate in a full-day mock government session in the national chamber, debating issues of great importance to Marshallese youth before members of the RMI Parliament (senators, ministers), teachers, peers and the Majuro community. At first I was fighting back my swelling tears, mostly because I thought I was ridiculous. But as I listened to the voices of my students, debating issues with passion and eloquence, I saw in them the future leaders of this country. Sitting in the seats of current leaders, dressed like I have never seen them (who knew they had suits?). Proposal, rebuttal, retort. The booming voices were a far cry from the barely audible responses that many shy Marshallese students offer in traditional classroom settings. The RMI’s real National Speaker noted that “Saturday’s session was one of the smartest sessions I’ve ever attended”. This was not a useless exercise; not just something to fill time on this tiny island.

At the end of a long and impassioned day, the Nitijela session adjourned. The students stayed in their seats and several students offered reflective speeches about their experience preparing for and participating in the Youth Nitijela. When Stella raised her placard and was called on to speak, she paused and began crying, her voice quivering over heartfelt words. The emotion will be lost in any attempt at retelling but needless to say, her teary words of appreciation and admiration for her peers resonated with me. As she sat in her seat, behind the name plate for the Minister of Justice, wiping tears from her eyes, dressed to the nines, I looked around to see the other forty-five students shaking hands, high-fiving or wiping away tears. Any success I had in high school pales in comparison to the accomplishments of last Saturday, not in product but in context. I am grateful that, years later, I am a spectator, if not a small part, of this triumph.

Below is a selection of student names and their proposals.

Minister in Assistance – Neptali Gallen

Minister of Internal Affairs – Gabriella Hitchfield (her bill proposed establishing an annual Youth Nitijela)

Minister of Justice – Stella Marie Kibin (her bill proposed enforcing student attendance policies through patrolling efforts to combat student truancy)

Minister of Resources – Peterson Larry (his bill proposed banning reef dredging in the RMI)

Speaker – Cartina Carter (her bill proposed requiring mandatory sex education classes before high school graduation)

Vice Speaker – Niten Anni (his bill proposed the establishment of an NGO to transport waste off-island)

Senator – Stephen Clark (his bill proposed the establishment of an anonymous call center for victims of spousal abuse and increased penalties for domestic violence)

Senator Roselina Loren – (her bill proposed implementing a cultivation program for eroded island areas)

Below is Cartina, or Madam Speaker, in the national chamber. Cartina was honored for her tremendous effort at the Youth Nitijela.

Based on their performance at the Youth Nitijela, nine MIHS students were selected to represent the RMI at an international conference in North Carolina this summer sponsored by the YMCA: Stephen Clark, Jemima Lorak, Stella Marie Kibin, Peterson Larry, Darrel Saimon, Paul Andres, Niten Anni, Cartina Carter and Gabriella Hitchfield. Saturday’s Youth Nitijela session will be re-broadcast on the national radio; I only wish my friends and family understood an entirely foreign Malayo-Polynesian language and had access to Marshallese airwaves.

Questions for America

Jane Brokaw, WorldTeach Rwanda volunteer, shares with us the letter that her class wrote to an American classroom in Claremont.

"The following is a verbatim email my S4 MCB class drafted to American students:

Dear Claremont prep Students,

How are you? We are very glad to write to you. We are Rwandese students in senior 4 science. We would like to ask you some questions about your life in the USA. here are our questions.

Questions:

1)How old do you have to be date ?

2)How is the students life in USA?

3)which kind of food do they prefer?

4)why the USA like to send young student in Africa especially in RWANDA ?

5)what do they thing for their future after schooling ?

6)which university do they like to study in USA ?

7)what make USA student"s social be greater than RWANDAN?

8)Who was the best artist in USA in 2009?

9)IN USA do they do the ordinary level exams?

10)Do they live at school or at their home ?

11)Do all american children have their own computers?

12)What is their plan in holidays?

13)Do teachers in USA write on black board with chalks ?

14)How do they feel about Osama Bin Laden attacks on World trade center?

15)In USA do they have English courses?

Please feel free to ask us whatever you would like about us. Thank you we are looking forward to hearing from you.

Thank you and God Bless America

Best Wishes,

Senior 4mcb"

Teaching and Learning in Colombia

A big thanks today to Nicholas Kristof at the New York Times for his mention of WorldTeach in his column!

WorldTeach Colombia also recently made the local news yet again, for those of you who can read Spanish. And below, for Spanish speakers and non-Spanish speakers alike, is the latest dispatch from Angela Strader, WorldTeach Colombia volunteer.

"I don’t know how the full-time teachers here do it. How do they teach above the noise? The students yelling “prof!” every two seconds, and the other kids right outside the window screaming during recess. How do they keep from losing their voices? How do they handle the kids that insist on fixing their hair, having a snack, or listening to music in class?? How can they teach when at least once if not upwards of 5 or 6 times each class period, someone comes to the door with some kind of announcement: “Don’t forget to vote for class president!” “Hey, these snacks are left over from the fourth graders, anyone want some?” “Excuse me teacher, can you give me a second because I need to speak with these three students…” How do they maintain such composure, smiling and donning their crisp white delantals? And most importantly, how do these teachers maintain such warm-natured, friendly relationships with the students despite these obstacles?

But I can’t just look at the teachers, I also have to wonder how the students do it. How do they come to school without eating breakfast at times? And amid the aforementioned obstacles, how on earth do they manage to retain information taught within the space of what can be described as a 50-minute free-for-all? On the other hand, how do all the kids seem to be smiling and seem so loving?

WorldTeach volunteer Tara Klarr teaching in an open-air classroom

Sometimes I stand back and marvel at the sight. Although I’m in a special position being the native English teacher, the students always ask me when I will go to their class next. They want to hear my accent, they want to learn a song, they want to know how to say their name in English. They want to be my friend.

Teaching is hard. One 50-minute class with some kindergartners is enough to wipe you out. But afterward I sit down for a moment and a little muchacho with blue-rimmed glasses will walk up, look me in the eye, and without saying anything hug me around the neck and squeeze me tight.

Today a little boy brought a puppy to school hidden in his pack. His parents wouldn’t let him keep it at his house so rather than leave it on the street he brought it with him. It looked about 3 weeks old. When his teacher found out, he was told to go sit outside with the dog. I could tell he was sad. When I asked what he planned to do with it he squinted at me with worried eyebrows, and asked “lo puedes llevar?,” can you take him?

Teaching is hard. But I have it easy compared to the other teachers. And the students. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that they aren’t the only ones doing the learning..."

photos courtesy of Courtney Mather

Photo Greetings from Jaluit Atoll, Marshall Islands...

Annie Himmelsteib, our wonderful Field Director in the Marshall Islands, shares these photos from her recent site visit to Jaluit Atoll (see map below). A taste of island living for those of us left behind in the cold...

WorldTeach volunteer Rose Ekins helps her third graders with spelling on Imroj, Jaluit

Rose in front of her home, a traditional Marshallese hut on her host family's land

Volunteer Caitlin Morris and her student play on an outrigger canoe-- the fastest, cheapest transportation of choice in Jaluit Atoll

the Jaluit shoreline

Caitlin works closely with her two eighth grade students as they practice reading comprehension

Samoan Day!

Kate Mielnik, WorldTeach volunteer in American Samoa, writes below about her school's celebration of their national holiday...

"Over the past month if you had visited our LHS campus you would have frequently seen that all the students were out of class. Why is that? Samoan Day!

The original date of Samoan day was set to be Feb 11th so beginning in mid-January we were having 50 minute long practices each day to prepare. For Samoan Day, each grade was to perform a series of dances and a song that would be watched by the other classes, parents, teachers and anyone else who came to Samoan Day. The day is meant to celebrate the Samoan culture and help the kids keep close to their roots and remember the traditional dances and songs.

The practices were fun to watch (we couldn't really help with the Samoan dancing…) and they only shortened each class by about 5 minutes so it didn't have too bad of an effect on the learning. Well, at first. As we got closer to the long anticipated day the practices kept getting longer and longer. I don't mean that they would be scheduled for longer time slots; they would just let them run longer on random days meaning you would never know if you were actually going to see the class period that was scheduled for after the practice. That last week we didn't see those classes once. One day last week they just canceled the afternoon periods altogether - right before they were supposed to start!

The girls of the Tongan club performing their dance

Regardless of the frustration we felt as teachers, we were really excited for Samoan Day since our students were pumped and had some amazing dances worked out. However, the day before Samoan Day was slated to happen, we heard word that Cyclone Rene was on the way. Since it was predicted that school was going to be canceled the next day, we had an emergency assembly (as we have no PA system) to tell the students that Samoan Day was going to be moved to next Thursday.

This turned out to be good, because we spent almost all of Tuesday and Wednesday practicing. At this point, Thanh and I were banging our heads against the wall because we hadn't been able to teach in a structured setting for what felt like eternity. Finally, Samoan Day rolled around and it was totally worth it! The kids were so excited and they did an amazing job!"

Some of my sophomores showing off their guns

The freshman class

Could I share this with you? :: Images from Ecuador

Jenny Seneor, WorldTeach Ecuador volunteer, shares some breathtaking images with us from her year in-country.

"Living here, I often wish that I could only share some of the amazing and beautiful images I see in this country, from riding behind the back of a truck with 15 indigneous people in beautiful colors and smiles to horses galloping in the remote countryside. I live these moments and I think of everyone I know and I wish I could only show this to you, that you could see everything that I see, that you could share in this with me."

Laguna Quilatoa

Wild horses

Hills of sheep

Mornings in the rural world

Anywhere But Here... :: College Access in the Marshall Islands

Sarah Lipson, a WorldTeach volunteer in the Marshall Islands, writes about some of the challenges her senior students face as they pursue their hopes for college.

"After much negotiation and the support of faculty and staff at the College of the Marshall Islands, Majuro’s March 5th TOEFL registration was re-opened last week to accommodate five more Marshall Islands High School students eager to take the test. For almost all students who attend colleges and universities off-island, the financial support of the RMI Scholarship Board is essential. To be eligible for this scholarship, students must score a 500 on the paper-based TOEFL, a cut-off my seniors are perhaps all too aware of after a presentation by the Scholarship Board at College Club. This three-digit number is now associated with freedom, independence and innumerable intangibles of life and learning outside of the RMI. Yet when the Scholarship Board representative passed around a sign-up sheet with columns for student names, academic interests and desired college choice, many of the students I have been working with since September wrote simply “off-island” or “U.S.” in the third column. This lack of specificity has me worried…

Tracy, a college-hopeful senior, is fearless. I am constantly negotiating her sense of confidence with my own knowledge of university life, both social and academic.

It is perhaps acceptable in the early stages of a college search for American students to name a state or states where they are interested in future study, but to list an entire country or even worse, provide an answer that implies enthusiasm for anywhere but here, is alarming. As an aside, this is one of many reasons why access programs for first-generation college students begin in the 8th or 9th grade and further motivation for my college preparation curriculum to begin next fall at MIHS. To assuage my current concerns, I reasoned that all college decisions are made arbitrarily, to some extent. “I just had a feeling when I stepped onto this campus”, is an acceptable explanation for why someone spends four years of his or her life at a specific institution. Academic programs, geography, demographics, can only get one so far in limiting the vast options for higher education and for most, the decision is one of fit, an elusive determination often made while touring the campus quad or dormitory, asking is this the place for me? By and large, students from the Marshall Islands do not have the opportunity to tour college campuses, to calculate their future happiness with any real perspective.

Sarah with some of her students and friends from Majuro

I often compare the size of a large college to the population of Majuro, a statistic that alarms the students. When they say they want a small college, they typically assume that this adjective would encompass no more than 200 students. I have had to readjust their expectations while balancing my biases. As the group of roughly twenty college-hopeful MIHS seniors dive further into their college application processes, I am a bit lost as to appropriate advising methods. My suggestions are often taken as the word of some all-knowing deity (if only this were true): I found a community college in California that has a program I think you will be interested in. Before the webpage loads, the student is planning his or her future at said school. Now is anything but the time to slow down though I am having to caution several of these talented students to step back, a practice I am often too stubborn and distracted to follow myself."

Home Is Where the Moyo Is*

Shannon Schaubroeck, currently a staff intern at WorldTeach's Cambridge office and a sophomore at Harvard, shares with us a reflection on her experience growing up in Tanzania, where WorldTeach has just recently opened its newest year-long program.

"My brothers and I grew up in the tiny Tanzanian village of Nshupu, which was perched on the side of Meru, an active volcano full of wild and mazy jungles. I remember when my youngest brother, Joshua, started attending a primary school on the other side of the river, and I’d walk him to class in the early mornings. After his first day at school, he came running home with a tear-streaked face, howling about the traumas of kindergarten. Apparently, he’d been mobbed by classmates who wanted to touch his hair – and his solution was to escape out the window, much to his teacher’s disapproval.

It took a few months for our family to lose our novel shine and become locals, but the people of Nshupu welcomed us into their homes with two arms flung wide open. Looking back, I can hardly keep track of all the “aunts” I had in the village, or of the hundreds of teas, dinners and wedding parties we attended inside smoky tin huts. The generosity of Tanzanian communities was overwhelming – people with only one unreliable cow would serve us milky chai; families with wilting vegetable gardens brought us tomatoes as a love-gift. The interdependency of Tanzanian life is hard to write about, but it’s palpable as soon as you’ve lived one humid, sweat-soaked, song-ridden day in the country. It’s a wholesale generosity, where the success of each individual is bound up in that of the community. Our family was no exception to the rule, which is why I’m so indelibly marked by my Tanzanian family.

Since coming to Boston for college, my longing for home has grown with each week that passes, and on certain sleety, fast-paced Cambridge days, I can’t understand why I’m so far from Tanzania. When my deep love for the country coincides with its obvious need for teachers and educators, it is sometimes frustrating to spend the bulk of my year in Massachusetts. I started working at WorldTeach last October, and at the time, I didn’t anticipate that some of my hunger for Africa would be satiated by an office-job. But while I’m still physically separated from that beloved continent – at least as long as I’m a college-kid – it’s been wonderful to be part of a larger effort to reach some of Africa’s most knowledge-hungry youth.

Not everyone has the desire or the capacity to shift for one year into a wholly different world, but WorldTeach volunteers consistently rise to that challenge with enthusiasm and courage. Our new Tanzania program brings with it a huge set of unknowns, without even the testimony of previous volunteers to dispel any pre-departure fears. But while Tanzania is not exempt from the poverty and hardships of a developing country, its people have a dignity and joy for which they are not often credited. Tanzania’s young people have minds that are too large and hungry for its understaffed education system to sustain – which is why I’m so excited that WorldTeach has decided to play a part, however small, in reaching the school-kid population.

By the way, Joshua’s hair eventually lost its entertainment value, and he became an average Tanzanian school-kid, missing shoes and all."

*"Moyo" is Swahili for "heart"

"Freestyle Fridays"

An update from Caitlyn Pisarski, WorldTeach Thailand volunteer, who shares with us some of her latest Friday adventures.

My teaching schedule has become more and more irregular as the school year comes to a close. I feel like the Thai educational system is testing my students just about every week now. At the beginning of February the sixth graders were put through a series of national exams and just this past week the same happened for third graders. At my roommate Steph’s high school, her students have also gone through a series of national exams that were held last weekend! The annual Boy Scouts camp and a surprise field trip also contributed to another three days of canceled class between my two schools. On top of that, I’ve also left work early multiple days in the past few weeks for various reasons, ranging from school being suddenly canceled because the staff was invited to a village wedding celebration to my ride having to go home to take care of her husband who had fallen ill. My Fridays have been impacted the most, leaving me with some good stories to share.

Caitlyn and her students

Three Fridays ago I was invited to help with English Camp at Taworn Naudom Elementary School, a neighboring school that does not have a native English speaking volunteer. Since class was canceled at Pla Pak Noi for the Boy Scouts camp, I agreed, and spent the day completing various tasks at the request of the teaching staff. The day started off with introductions and I greeted the students, showing them my beloved state on the handy National Geographic United States map I take with me everywhere, teaching them how to say “Wis-con-sin.” Then I was asked to teach the alphabet to about 65 students of varying levels. It was an interesting 20 minutes or so but things fell apart after I tried an interactive matching game with flashcards, an activity the Thai teachers were not fully understanding either. I pulled it together eventually but it was a rough start to the day. Then I was asked to “sing a song” (a common request by students and teachers alike in Thailand), to which I first responded by saying I had no song to sing, and then gave in and stumbled through my best rendition of “If you’re happy and you know it." It ended in an unsuccessful verse of “If you’re happy and you know it, give a high-five” since the high-five is not a well-known gesture here. Despite this minor set-back I approached the afternoon with gusto because it combined two great passions of mine-- teaching and food. I was asked to hold an easy “American” food demonstration and I decided on the ultimate American culinary experience: the sandwich. Below is a nice shot of the demo.

The afternoon progressed nicely, until I was asked to read “Jack and the Beanstalk” to the students from a book that was written only in Thai. When I pointed this out to the head teacher, she asked me “Is that okay?” and then “Do you remember the story?” So yes, I sat down in front of the students and read them my made up version of “Jack and the Beanstalk” completely based on the book’s illustrations. As I turned to each new page, the story came back to me in waves like a dream you don’t remember when you wake up but recover bits and pieces of as you go about your day. It ended with an anti-climatic declaration of “…and then Jack cut down the beanstalk. And the giant fell.” Well done Caitlyn, well done.

The day ended with a ceremony congratulating the students for their participation in the camp. I was given the honor of handing out the certificates, which proved to be a bit of an awkward interaction with the students because I was instructed by the principal to shake each of their hands (another custom not common here). This really threw the students for a loop because they are accustomed to wai-ing before receiving something from persons of higher status (the practice of pressing the hands together in a lotus position and raising them to the chest, mouth, or eyebrows, depending on the status difference). Adding a hand-shake into the mix was just too much. I had some students hand-shaking and half wai-ing, others stopping mid-wai for a hand-shake, and a few just freezing completely. After 65 encounters of this nature, I was happy to thank the teachers and students and head home after a long day!

Last Friday I was invited to attend an educational field trip with Pla Pak Noi School. I accepted, of course. When I asked what I should wear for the trip one of my fellow teachers exclaimed, “Freestyle!”, hence the inspiration for my blog title. I climbed onto the bus at 8:30am and my students were awaiting me with big smiles. When I asked my daily question “How are you?” they shouted in unison, “I am WONDERFUL!!!” We spent the day touring some great sites, including Nakhon Phanom Airport, the Mekong Underwater World, That Phanom, and Our Lady of the Martyrs of Thailand Shrine.

Below are a few pictures from our adventures:

Bus arrives at NKP airport

Students at Mekong Underwater World

Visiting the temple in That Phanom