Arries Weblog

How quickly things change in international service-learning as we practice it here in Nicaragua, and yet at the same time things don´t change; or maybe we just see different iterations of the same problems.

Our liaison in Masaya informed us just this afternoon that it is possible that the principal at our new school could suffer the same fate as our previous partners in Masaya and be replaced after this academic year (ends December 2008).

We hope that doesn´t happen as we haven´t in this first year of the Tisma project had a chance to develop any sort of relationship with parent groups or parent leaders, except that Lauren asked Don Jorge to introduce her to one of the families yesterday. This morning, the last day, Lauren introduced me to them as well so that next summer we can stop in, say “hello,” and so begin the process of getting to know parents and develop our community education project through them.

Cat was the star of the showat the school today. There was an “acto de despedida” at which she spoke in Spanish and thanked the principal, students and teachers for their hospitatlity. Both she and Lauren received presents, declarations of love from the children, countless hugs  - so many and so at once that at times they weren´t visible among all the children!  I recorded as much of the farewell as possible on videotape and that will eventually be viewable through a link on this sight.

My conclusion: an outstandingly successful summer, and in spite of concerns about continuing the new partnership, a remarkable learning experience for me and I suspect the other members of team 2008 think so as well.

As we continue to reflect and edit this site I will add more insights as they come,  because what I learn through international service-learning only comes with much analysis, pondering, and consulting with Lauren and  our students.  At this point, however,  I am already looking forward to being here in Managua and in Masaya with team 2009.

No Comments »
Filed under: EFL, International Service-Learning, Nicaragua

The experience of initiating contact with this school back in January or February and seeing the program here now coming to close for the year leaves me reflecting on how our group and how I changed in the process. For one, I believe this rural school is an excellent site for future W&M participants. The size is manageable, the staff is very attentive, the local community has been warm (i.e. we haven’t felt uncomfortable walking down the streets or taking the bus; quite the opposite), the principal provides ample opportunities to learn about his school and its realidades (realities; how life is really like), and the students have been very willing to participate. I believe that we could not realistically be in a better place with this site and the relationship we have established over the past 3 weeks. This is because I feel that if we had tried to do any more it would feel forced and actually push away the Nicaraguans with whom we were trying to work.

Patience has been really important. For example, just today the principal took me to meet one of the parents of the students, a woman who lives down the road from the school. Sure, we had wanted to have a large parents’ meeting, but we hadn’t been aware that this particular community was skeptical of this sort of meeting because when they gathered a while back to discuss what they thought was the rice and bean mid-morning/afternoon snack, the mayor’s office showed up with another agenda during the meeting. We learned most of these parents work long hours in the fields or in the factories (free trade zone, Zona Franca), working 10-12 hours a day. If they make it up to the school for a 6PM meeting and find out it’s not just about the snack but also about some gringos wanting to meet them, they may feel like the school wasn’t totally honest with them. Because of the fact that the government supplied rice and beans has run out, there have been urgent meetings to try to pool parents’ money to buy more. Any additional meetings at this point would only make life harder for the parents. Therefore, I was thankful just to be able to meet one mother today, knowing that we could continue this process next summer.

Pedagogically speaking, I have learned a lot about EFL from Cat and Prof. Arries. Personally speaking, I have had more time this year to reflect on the process of service-learning and was able to reread the article “Traveling for Transformation” with a new point of view, as I am in a different point in my career and life than last summer. I have met almost daily with Nica friends and past colleagues to continue maintaining other ties in the community. While at first I felt overwhelmed to begin this process again (returning to where I lived for almost 20 months), with just two days left I can say that I have done my best to maintain friendships and working relationships in the community while doing my best in my work as this program’s TA.

No Comments »
Filed under: Uncategorized

Successes: My colleague Lauren and I went to the town of Tisma yesterday morning to videotape that location in order to provide visitors to this site with a visual context for this project. We will post that after we get back to W&M and can get our hands on some editing software. The central park in Tisma is very small, but beautiful with flowering shrubs, banana and coconut trees, a small chapel, with Borda´s s image of Che Guevara overlooking the soccer games in the playground at the school next door.

After filming the square while Lauren was chatting with some school girls about their future plans (mostly university studies, something unthinkable before 1978) we caught the bus to Masaya and hopped off at Escuela Paula Lopez Bejarano, the school where Cat is teaching and found ourselves invited to participate in a teacher meeting. Lauren had the presence of mind to ask permission to videotape our conversation about the priority needs in that school, and while I frantically set up the camera and tripod she explained what our project is about: providing English lessons, by all means, but also we want to learn by observing the school, and by conversing with the principal, teachers and parentswe seek to identify projects for us to pursue that might help them meet the needs of that school community - as they define those needs. Cat arrived just on time to hear the sort of items that the teachers and principal said were of the highest priorty and yet perhaps a manageable service-learning project that next year´s students will perhaps put into action.

I videotaped Cat teaching another great class.

Challenges: We need to focus on completing the filming of the “novela” project that Cat has designed as a project in her classes and perhaps meet with some parents. This latter challenge will be difficult, but we have found that parent groups are key to a continuity and a stable community development and education project. This may in fact take another year to get underway, as there are only two real teaching days left this week in Tisma. We know that there will be a despedida for Cat Friday.

No Comments »
Filed under: Uncategorized

Yesterday (Sunday August 17), Cat, Arries, and I had a reflection session using the piece from Pedagogies for the Non-Poor, “Traveling for Transformation.” I found the time important, as it allowed us to step back and look at our experience thus far and to look forward to this, the final week of the program. 

Before Cat gave class today, Arries and I went to shoot some video and photos of the town of Tisma. Tisma is a small town about 20 minutes past our school headed towards the water. In fact, I think there is a beach front community nearby but I need to look at a map. According to the security guard at the school, families in Tisma produce cattle and milk that Parmalat buys, and it seems like some of these families do well economically. However, judging by the wooden houses supported with black plastic tarps, the money isn’t evenly distributed in the community. Plantains grow alongside the highway. The central park is clean, colorful, and sports a large mural of Che.

 While Arries was setting up the tripod and shooting the video, I ran into six 6th grade girls on their way home from a school day canceled by their teacher’s absence. In the ten minutes we talked, we went over the majors that they were interested in pursuing in college and some questions about my life in the states. When they asked me whether I was married with kids (like many women my age), it gave me the opportunity to ask them if many girls in their grade were pregnant. They told me of one 13-year-old who had a baby and other tales of abortions (which are illegal here). This is a typical conversation between young girls and me, when they plan to have children etc, as I have worked in a hospital, women’s clinic, and as a high school counselor here. It raises questions about the effectiveness of sex ed, the illegality of abortion, and the role of the public schools in the debate. By the way, when I pointed to the Che mural and asked them, “Who’s that?” the girls replied, “they say he’s a Nicaraguan hero.”

I will let Cat talk more about the meeting that we had with the school teachers and the principal, but we were able to meet with them today from 11:20-12:10 in what turned out to be a very successful meeting. Many major “solvable” needs of the school were identified by the teachers and principal, which facilitates Cat in the preparation of her third and final essay. The teachers also expressed their gratitude and we did our best to express to them the importance of our time with them. The ease of the exchange illustrates why we find this school to be an excellent partner—we have be able to reach a level of mutual understanding over the past three weeks that is not always easy to do. I credit this to the openness and willingness of the staff to receive us as well as to Cat’s captivating lessons that the staff has found beneficial both to their students and themselves, as well.

1 Comment »
Filed under: Uncategorized

I finished my teaching experience in Barrio Camilo Ortega yesterday. It was an enlightening and eventful day.  I spoke in front of a crowd of about 200 parents who came to the school to get their children´s grades, vaccincation appointments, and to hear a report from the principal.  My job was to communicate my gratitude for the opportunity to be in the school, to work with their children and the teachers by providing English lessons, and to try to understand how to promote intercultural understanding and help improve the school according to the needs expressed at the school. I mentioned the overhead projector as an example of how we work, first to observe needs, clarify priorities with the teachers and principals, and then act to help meet some of those needs.

There was a “despedida” at the school to thank me for my teaching and collaboration with the school.  That was rice and chicken, cucumber and chayote, with Coca Cola, with some Christian music.  The teacher Liliana gave a short speach expressing the teachers´gratitude.

I left my copy of “Side by Side” for the teachers to use in the school, and inadvertently also my copy of the Oxford picture dictionary.

The needs that teachers and the principal reported are these:

1) lots of markers of different colors for the white boards, both for students and teachers

2) cartridges for the HP 3420 printer

3) toner cartridges for the Lexmark E31 laser printer

4) textbooks (Side by Side) books for the teachers with a home made CD.

I arrange for a report to be sent to me by the school´s English teacher, Isaura Lopez and the principal, Martha Montalvan about the utility of the overhead projector that I delivered. I showed Isaura some “best practices” of using overhead transparencies so she could teacher her colleagues. I also showed Martha how to switch bulbs, as there is a spare built into the projector in case one burns out.

An accident on the playground revealed that there is no first aid kit in the school.

I also  inadvertently found myself a participant in a conversation between the principals and a boy who had brought a knife to school in his bookbag. He said he did so because he had to pass through an area controlled by a gang called “los Cangris” in order to get to his house and that the gang had chased him 3 times before, and he brought it to protect himself.  He showed the 15-inch knife to his cousin who told the prinipal.  The principals suspect he is in some way involved with a rival gang, “los Vatos.”

There doesn´t seem to be any organized effort to counter gang influence within the curriculum.  Both principals invoked the power of God to protect people. They kept the knife and required him to come to school on Monday accompanied by his mother.

3 Comments »
Filed under: EFL, International Service-Learning