Education Week

I was originally going to entitle this entry "Guayaquil," but after a little more thought, I think this represents the week better. Although I have not really entered the agricultural world of Tolte very deeply, my teacher instincts are starting to pay off in a way that might have lasting value.

The week started with me implementing an idea that i came up with last week: the new rules for computer room access is that you have to read early in the week to have minutes to spend in the computer room later in the week. This frighteningly simple idea resulted in about half of the schoolchildren coming to the library to read--or in the case of k-3, look at pictures in books, which is better than nothing. And the more they came to read, the more they liked it--although they also showed how much they need it. Two girls in the fourth grade took turns struggling through the Spanish language version of "The Very Hungry Caterpillar," a book that I would place at the first grade level. One of the most capable seventh graders (the cantonal school president) handled a book at the third grade level, but found a book at the fourth/fifth grade level too demanding. It all goes to show that this is a really necessary project, one that could make a big difference in the lives of the children of Tolte over the next couple of years. I have asked Carolina to link a book drive to the upcoming AVANTI Fiesta Navidena in Tolte, to take place on Saturday, the 17th (yes, that's next Saturday for regular readers of this space.) I don't have enough books for early readers (which encompasses about 95% of the kids) and I don't have any alphabet books. I am trying to teach a fourth grade boy to read using flash cards I made after talking with Nick the Peace Corps Volunteer in Chunchi. Things are sort of desperate.

On the other hand, the program got off to a great start. Over thirty of the 65 school children did some reading, and many averaged half an hour each day. One boy read slightly more than three hours in three days. There did seem to be some positive competition for who could pile up the largest number of minutes, and behavior was surprisingly focused and positive. We'll have to see how long this lasts, but I have high hopes. I have more and better reading material if the kids can cross over to the third or fourth grade reading level.

But the victories didn't end there. This week had me teaching the children to cont in English, generally an easier thing to teach and learn. Most of them could count to 10 already, but 11-15 are genuinely tough. I taught them to play "Bizz Buzz" (okay, so it is sometimes abused as a drinking game), where you count around the group and every time you reach a multiple of 3 you say, "Bizz" and every time you reach a multiple of 5 you say "Buzz," "Bizz Buzz" if it's both. I started with just the "Bizz" portion. The game requires a lot of attention, because if someone messes up, they're out, and the next person has to say what the person should have said. So you always have to know what comes next. The fifth graders repeatedly failed to get past 6, and I realized that this was excellent training for them in general, reaching far beyond an English lesson. It might teach them to pay attention. And, in their final try, they did get to about 15.

Where's the victory I mentioned? Well, on Friday I had two. The first was that a fourth garder who was my most difficult behavior problem, something that he apparently carried over from all of his previous years in school, won the behavior prize this week. He seemed to make a big turnaround after the Fiesta de Tolte. I described in a previous blog praising this improvement to his mother as she castrated piglets. I actually have a hope that a different child is beginning to emerge. This would be good PR, as my housemate Jose is his uncle. He and I have had a lot of conversation about Sergio, and I think it's paying off. I should add that Sergio probably has the best retention of English vocabulary of anyone in the fourth grade, so this is meaningful effort.

The second big victroy occurred after I taught the sixth graders how to respond to the question "How old are you?" I asked if anyone thought he or she could be interviewed in English. A really great kid named Rosalinda answered the call, and responded perfectly to these questions: Hi, How are you? What is your name? Where are you from? What do you do? What do you want to be? How old are you? It actually sounded something like a conversation in English. Yes, I was excited. Wouldn't you be?

The topper to all of this was the trip to Guayaquil, where a former Village School student of mine, Kelly, had arrrived with her friend Andrew. Kelly graduated from VS about 10 years ago, went on to Nassau and Stony Brook, and then spent three years teaching English to preschoolers (a process that sounds more effective than mine here, but Korea and Ecuador are not the same). She also got to travel all over Southeast Asia and parts of China, and is heading to a teacher certification program in Australia in February. To fill the time until then, she and Andrew have been backpacking from Argentina to Bolivia and Peru, and they reached Ecuador on Thursday. I have been afraid to go to Guayaquil (other than to pass through). It is reputed to be the most dangerous city in Ecuador, with all kinds of criminal shenanigans that sometimes target gringos. But I got the name of their hostel, and made a wonderfully smooth trip from Alausi to Guayaquil in far less time than it took me to get back when I went to Portoviejo. This is certainly because I used the scheduled bus direct from Alausi instead of detouring through Riobamba, which is entirely unnecessary.

So what's it like to see a former student after so much time and in an exotic environment? Startling. I don't have much of an impression that Kelly retains anything I taught her ten or more years ago, but she certainly retains the VS experience, and remains close to here classmates. We did talk about old times and old friends, but I was much more interested in how she had become the world traveler that she is, since this is so close to my own interest. Employment opportunity played a big role, I'm sure, but Kelly's ability to enjoy an unusualy situation might just reflect the VS years, and the sense of the school at the time that life should be an exciting adventure. She does have me thinking more about taking my Chinese friends up on there offer of employment, though I do wonder what my life would be like in an environment where I do not speak any of the local language. But she and Andrew speak little Korean, and managed to find a community of English teachers (There is apparently an army of them in all Asian countries). In any case, it looks like Kelly's high school experiences did her no harm, and probably plenty of good, which is more than can be said for most high school experiences. Maybe I should take some pride in those years, too--they seem to have given me some useful instincts to use in Tolte.

I'll just mention that the ride back to Alausi today was beautiful--little of the heavy fog and overcast of yesterday's trip down. And I got a great $3 haircut in Alausi. Pricey compared to my haircut in Riobamba, but pretty sharp for a guy with as little hair as I have.