Salutations Amigos!
I thought it was about time for another post or two. Sorry they haven’t been more frequent…I know
you’re probably thinking I’ve dropped off the face of the Earth, but I’m still
very much here! The past week and a half
has actually been super busy and exciting, so busy and exciting that I’m kind
of doing a two-parter post. I’ll post
this guy and wait a few days for hungry eyes to devour, then in a few days I’ll
post the second. This first one is about
my first teaching experience with Peace Corps!
Last Monday Tuesday and Wednesday (Feb. 27-29) the other
volunteers and I had our technical week, where we got our first chance to teach
in a real classroom setting. It was in
La Chorrera, a fairly large town about 30 minutes away from my site in Santa
Rita. Because school started at 7 and we
had to catch a chiva at 6, I had to get up at 5:30 those 3 days. Since I’m EST now, that means I got up at 4:30
for all of you CST people. Yeah, it
sucked but it is what it is!
The days we went to teach were the first 3 days of the new Panamanian
school year. The 8th-12th
grade students had just had their summer vacation. The Earth Science part of my brain went
haywire…I assumed that it was considered winter for Panama because it is still
in the northern hemisphere, but that’s not how it works. Panamanians basically have two seasons,
summer and winter, but more often than not they’re called the dry season and
the rainy season. So as it were, the
students’ summer vacation or “dry season” vacation had just come to a close,
and they were ready to start their first trimester.
Like most things in Peace Corps, none of the volunteers knew
what to expect. We were told to write up
lesson plans, but we didn’t have a clear starting point or any direction
whatsoever because 1) it was the start of a new school year and 2) we had only
spent a few hours talking with our teacher-counterparts the previous week. In my case, my teacher was sick the day the
volunteers met the teachers so I was completely clueless. On top of that, when I arrived at his class
on Monday morning he said he wasn’t ready for me and that Tuesday would be
better. The nerve! I sat in on another class instead and saw a
different teacher in action, so it wasn’t a complete waste of time. Tuesday and Wednesday were much better though! I introduced myself to the class in Spanish
and helped my teacher teach introduction questions (What is your full name?, How
old are you?, Where are you from?, What is your address?, etc.) For a couple of the classes my teacher had
other stuff to do so he left me to teach the class by myself. It was intimidating at first but turned out
to be a really great experience. One
student asked “Are you coming back on Thursday and Friday?” and I answered no,
then they asked “How about Monday?” and I answered no, then they simply asked
“Why?” That felt really good, to know
that the students liked having me there and wanted me to permanently stay and
teach along with their regular teacher.
During those three days I couldn’t help thinking “I’ve
become the thing I hate!” During the
morning recreo (break) I would sit in the cafeteria with other “faculty
members” (volunteers), drinking coffee and asking how their classes went. I would shuffle through my papers, uttering
phrases like “I’m free next period” and “I’ve got a double period teaching 11th
graders.” During class, when I would ask
for a volunteer and Student A would point at Student B, I would walk over and
stand in front of Student B before handing the dry-erase marking off to Student
A instead (yep, I was that kind of teacher :P).
It was crazy to experience all of that.
If back in high school I could see myself now, I would think it was some
sort of sick joke. But believe it or
not, I actually really enjoyed it and it got me really excited to see what the
school and students in my permanent community will be like. And with that bit of foreshadowing, I’ll
stick a fork in this post and call it done!
Miss you all,
Nate
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