Volunteer Vacation Reports

March 2012, from Richard H. Atlanta, Georgia

Katie Leigh

Key West, FLORIDA

Muñoz School.

Introduction.

The first day I arrived at the one-room school (located in the church), the teacher introduced me to the class and asked if I would talk to the older group of students while she worked with the younger group. I decided to teach them English. Once I began the lesson, the teacher stopped what she was doing to listen in. Soon she decided all the students should be involved and had the younger students turn their desks around to listen to me. Within 15 minutes of arriving in the classroom, I was in charge of the class.

I did my best teaching English to the group of 30 students ranging in age from 4 to 18 for about an hour before turning the class back over to the teacher. After break, I was again asked to teach the entire class while the teacher sat in the back and listened. I tried this for about 15 minutes before asking if I could just work with the older students. She agreed, but instead of teaching the younger students, she just left them to do what they wanted and continued to listen to my lesson. Logistics.

School begins at 8:30 a.m. Students who are late are not admitted into the class per Haitian tradition. There is a half hour break from 10-10:30 a.m. at which time some students go home and others sit outside the classroom. This is the time for morning snack and most students come with a few pesos to buy water, crackers, bread, or a hunk of salami. Class lets out at noon.

The pastor started the school because he realized many of the children were not allowed in the Dominican school because they did not have papers (birth certificate). Some students do have papers and attend the Dominican school in the afternoon, but attend the Haitian school in the morning to learn French.

The school has about 30 students, all of Haitian descent, ranging in age from 4 to 18. The teacher doesn’t have many resources and can’t really handle this group herself. The younger students spend a lot of their time running around rowdy. The older students are very well behaved and anxious to learn.

Customs of the Haitian school system are applied in the school. Students wear uniforms. The instructor teaches in Creole or French and doesn’t speak Spanish very well. Discipline is very important. Students must have their shirts tucked in neatly, mouths clean, no food or gum are allowed in the classroom, etc.

Projects.

Text Books: Students have their own notebooks and pencils and copy most lessons from the blackboard. A Canadian man wanted to donate something to the school, so we purchased writing and mathematics books for all levels. We decided to photocopy the books rather than buy one for each child. The originals stay with the teacher.

Photocopies: Donated money was used to make photocopies of the purchased books for student use.

Story books: A variety of children’s story books were also purchased for recreational reading. I would read aloud from the books to the younger students to begin the day. With the older students, we practiced silent reading and reading aloud. For some of the students this was the first time they had read a story for pleasure.

Posters: We purchased a couple laminated maps and arithmetic charts to hang up in the classroom. Unfortunately, there is no place to leave them on the wall at the moment.

Juice and crackers: A friend of mine from the United States sent a $100 donation. With this money, we purchased juice and crackers for the children during break time. These items could be purchased in bulk ahead at the supermercado in Puerto Plata or from the colmado right next to the classroom. Powdered milk could also be purchased instead of juice.

Supplies: The rest of the money was spent on photocopies and supplies. I purchased one small box of crayons for each of the younger children (approximately 20 students). I also purchased colored construction paper, five pairs of scissors and five glue sticks. The children took their crayons home and were asked to bring them back each day.

Needs:

1. Cupboard or closet with lock to hold and organize supplies,

2. Desks that are flat so crayons and pencils don’t slide off,

3. Supplies: crayons, scissors, glue, drawing paper, colored construction paper, pencils, chalk, erasers,

4. Books: Reading, History, Science, French, Spanish, English, etc. (We already have math and handwriting),

5. A book of children’s games and songs in Spanish (or French or Creole)

Recommendations:

1. Split up the class into two or three groups: one permanent teacher and one or two volunteers.

2. Volunteers can help younger students learn to write numbers and letters. They can also help with projects such as coloring, drawing, cutting and pasting (creating).

3. Older students want to learn English or French. Can also practice reading in Spanish or French.

4. Summer school should include more activities and less sitting in the classroom. Examples are: sports (baseball, soccer, kickball); games (duck-duck-goose, Red Rover, ring-around-the-rosey, other ideas from book of Spanish songs and games); music; arts & crafts (cutting, pasting, tracing, drawing, coloring: can use dried macaroni or beans, cotton balls, cardboard rolls from toilet paper or paper towels, photographs, etc.)

5. Figure out some way to distribute supplies so students always have access to crayons, paper, pencils, etc. in class. Currently anything that is for classroom use gets stolen or lost almost immediately. When I asked students to take the supplies home and bring them back to class everyday, that didn’t work, either.

Conclusion.

After the first day of volunteering, I made some decisions about my participation. I told the teacher I would work with only half the class at a time. I would teach English to the older students and help her in whatever way she needed with the younger students. This worked very well for the first two weeks. The older students loved learning English and the younger students loved having a little atention.

There was no way I could have handled the group alone, but luckily I had the help of my Haitian friend, Luisito. He was an unbelievable asset in terms of speaking their language and discipline. We split the class between the two of us, each working with the older students for half the class and the younger students for the other half. Luisito would teach French, Creole, math and writing with both groups. I continued with English for the older group and writing, drawing and coloring for the younger students. During these last two weeks, we ended school at 11:30 a.m. and cancelled classes on Fridays. We had help from another volunteer, my friend Jill Wolfe, for the last week of class. She helped teach English, read stories to the class and played “Bingo” with the intermediate and older students.

The last day of class, we took the older students to the beach. The pastor gave us a ride to Bergantin and we enjoyed a beautiful day.

REFERRALS: Please let us know if you want to communicate with any of our volunteers. They will be glad to answer your questions and share their experience with you.