domingo, 30 de agosto de 2009
jueves, 6 de agosto de 2009
mi mama me ama
Things have been going very well down here.
Last Friday the masons finished the last floor of the houses!!! We had a celebration afterward which was a lot of fun. Spending so much time with all of the villagers has been so great and we are very comfortable with each other.
This past weekend we went on a really fantastic excursion to Lago de Yojoa and went to a waterfall and walked in and around it.
But that is not what this blog is about.
This blog is about my class (again).
Like I mentioned my class is made up of 5th and 2nd graders. The past few school days I have been working with my 5th graders, which has given my 2nd graders a lot of one on one time with their teacher. I have seen some definite improvements in those students. There is one story that sticks out in particular:
When I was working with my 2nd graders I realized two of my favorite kids who are twins didn't even know their alphabet. That about broke my heart.
During recreo the teacher and I spoke about the differences between the abilities of students in all the classes, and I mentioned how it is unfair for teachers to send kids to the next grade when they aren't ready for it because they just sit in a class unable to participate because they don't have the basics down, or the rest of the class has to go slower so that the child can be on time. I noticed that the teachers have been paying close attention to what Leila and I have been doing in our classes, and even in this conversation I could tell she was taking mental notes.
When all the students came back from break I resumed my class on "Animales Vertebrales" picking back up with telling the students all about amphibians then suddenly I am interrupted by the teacher and she calls me over to her desk. Kevin, one of the twins, was standing there with his notebook out. She showed me how pretty his letters were, but writing down letters was never the problem, it was understanding what he was writing.
Then the most amazing thing happened: He read a sentence aloud to me "mi mama me ama", and then another, and then another. Not only that he also wrote down a sentence that was dictated to him write before my eyes.
This is why we need an education center. An opportunity to have one-on-one attention for these kids and even adults is all that is needed to get this community moving in the right direction.
Today was a great day.
martes, 28 de julio de 2009
i love teaching.
Yesterday I went to the school and taught my classes. Yesterday I focused mainly on the 5th grade class, and the teacher worked with the second grade class. I really want to know who made the decision to put those two grades together because there is NO overlap.
Anyway.
Yesterday we worked on decimals. It was very difficult for them to understand that you have to line up the decimal points. All of the teachers in Honduras go to the same school to learn how to be a teacher. Its a national program.
Today I worked with my second graders on adding numbers in two columns. Example:
17
+ 41
Most of the kids got that, but if they didn't I was able to give them serious one-on-one attention because the 5th graders had an exam on the math topics ive been working with them on! That was very exciting.
Anyway, my second graders are great. They are kids from Siete moving to Villa. Most of them are behind, but I know them really well from winter camp or I know their parents.
I really can't explain how much I love teaching these kids. They are so eager to learn that I just want to do it all day.
Then we walked with the kids to Villa so they can catch our bus to go back to Siete. This is another one of my favorite activities just talking with the villagers. They are all so funny and have really interesting perspectives on life.
I can't put into words how much i love it down here.
Anyway.
Yesterday we worked on decimals. It was very difficult for them to understand that you have to line up the decimal points. All of the teachers in Honduras go to the same school to learn how to be a teacher. Its a national program.
Today I worked with my second graders on adding numbers in two columns. Example:
17
+ 41
Most of the kids got that, but if they didn't I was able to give them serious one-on-one attention because the 5th graders had an exam on the math topics ive been working with them on! That was very exciting.
Anyway, my second graders are great. They are kids from Siete moving to Villa. Most of them are behind, but I know them really well from winter camp or I know their parents.
I really can't explain how much I love teaching these kids. They are so eager to learn that I just want to do it all day.
Then we walked with the kids to Villa so they can catch our bus to go back to Siete. This is another one of my favorite activities just talking with the villagers. They are all so funny and have really interesting perspectives on life.
I can't put into words how much i love it down here.
domingo, 26 de julio de 2009
official intern blog #1
I have now been in Honduras for 2 weeks. It feels like I never left, and yet so much has changed.
Our summer internship consists of two main projects: Field studies, and a Research Project.
Our Field Projects are what I was really looking forward to coming down here. We are conducting family profiles and surveys on all of the families moving to Villa Soleada which is really fun because we get to know more about these families. One thing that I think gets looked over by a passerby on the worksite is the amount of work done by women. The masons are all men, who do a lot of really great work, but the women do so much of the grunt work, and never stop.
The first woman that my group interviewed is someone who I’d worked with a lot over the winter break. I had seen her nearly everyday for a month. She is so soft spoken and humble and I had always wanted to know more about her. This was the perfect opportunity. Having a full on conversation with Sylvia about her life, and how she feels about Honduras, moving to Villa Soleada, her children, and the work that SHH has done for the community was refreshing to hear. The same goes for Josefa. There is only one word I can use to describe her “luchadora” or fighter. She is a single mother of eight children. Her two youngest children are twins whose father left while she was pregnant. The pregnancy was very difficult for her, and the babies were born unhealthy. They have been living in the Nutrition Center for the past few months and will probably be there in total for a whole year. Josefa can’t afford the cost of proper care so she works there one full day every week to cover the costs. These are just two of the many interviews that have really stuck out to me.
We are going to make family profiles for all of the families on the website, and a Villa Soleada yearbook, and I cannot wait for people to hear these stories.
We have also been working at the local school in Las Brisas called Centro Basico. This field work ties in with our research project for the future SHH Education Center. We are trying to gauge how the school works so we are equipped to provide proper assistance to the children of Villa Soleada, and their pupils who live in Las Brisas. This school needs a lot of work. I have really enjoyed working there with my class: about forty 5th graders and about fifteen “2nd graders” who are just children who are moving to Villa Soleada who have varying levels of ability and education. I have worked with nearly all of the children of the latter group and they are all bright. They love doing activities and learning. They sit in the classroom and get ignored. Which is why I think the Education Center will be so important because so many of these kids are getting a disservice at their school. We should support the childrens education by providing a better service with tutoring sessions, a technology center, and a library.
The library is what Leila and I are working on. We went to the local library in Progreso and were disappointed, but quite honestly not surprised. We learned a lot from that trip. We are trying to come up with a list of books and supplies that the library should have and would need. A question that I really didn’t anticipate would be difficult to answer is: What kind of books to children in Honduras read for fun? I knew that the children we were planning on working with don’t really read, especially not for pleasure, but it seems like that is not isolated solely to the poorer families of Progreso, but to the average families too. In our surveys we ask about literacy levels. We will be asking these surveys again in future years to see if there has been any progress. I can only hope that the literacy level will increase amongst children and parents alike, and that the library is put to good use.
We have also been having a lot of fun; getting to know more about Progreso, some of the people who live here, and the culture of Honduras. Last night was another Honduras v USA game and we all went down to a local bar to watch the game cheering on side by side with Hondurans. This weekend we are going to Copan and I cannot wait. I am a huge nerd and love studying about the history of this region.
Our summer internship consists of two main projects: Field studies, and a Research Project.
Our Field Projects are what I was really looking forward to coming down here. We are conducting family profiles and surveys on all of the families moving to Villa Soleada which is really fun because we get to know more about these families. One thing that I think gets looked over by a passerby on the worksite is the amount of work done by women. The masons are all men, who do a lot of really great work, but the women do so much of the grunt work, and never stop.
The first woman that my group interviewed is someone who I’d worked with a lot over the winter break. I had seen her nearly everyday for a month. She is so soft spoken and humble and I had always wanted to know more about her. This was the perfect opportunity. Having a full on conversation with Sylvia about her life, and how she feels about Honduras, moving to Villa Soleada, her children, and the work that SHH has done for the community was refreshing to hear. The same goes for Josefa. There is only one word I can use to describe her “luchadora” or fighter. She is a single mother of eight children. Her two youngest children are twins whose father left while she was pregnant. The pregnancy was very difficult for her, and the babies were born unhealthy. They have been living in the Nutrition Center for the past few months and will probably be there in total for a whole year. Josefa can’t afford the cost of proper care so she works there one full day every week to cover the costs. These are just two of the many interviews that have really stuck out to me.
We are going to make family profiles for all of the families on the website, and a Villa Soleada yearbook, and I cannot wait for people to hear these stories.
We have also been working at the local school in Las Brisas called Centro Basico. This field work ties in with our research project for the future SHH Education Center. We are trying to gauge how the school works so we are equipped to provide proper assistance to the children of Villa Soleada, and their pupils who live in Las Brisas. This school needs a lot of work. I have really enjoyed working there with my class: about forty 5th graders and about fifteen “2nd graders” who are just children who are moving to Villa Soleada who have varying levels of ability and education. I have worked with nearly all of the children of the latter group and they are all bright. They love doing activities and learning. They sit in the classroom and get ignored. Which is why I think the Education Center will be so important because so many of these kids are getting a disservice at their school. We should support the childrens education by providing a better service with tutoring sessions, a technology center, and a library.
The library is what Leila and I are working on. We went to the local library in Progreso and were disappointed, but quite honestly not surprised. We learned a lot from that trip. We are trying to come up with a list of books and supplies that the library should have and would need. A question that I really didn’t anticipate would be difficult to answer is: What kind of books to children in Honduras read for fun? I knew that the children we were planning on working with don’t really read, especially not for pleasure, but it seems like that is not isolated solely to the poorer families of Progreso, but to the average families too. In our surveys we ask about literacy levels. We will be asking these surveys again in future years to see if there has been any progress. I can only hope that the literacy level will increase amongst children and parents alike, and that the library is put to good use.
We have also been having a lot of fun; getting to know more about Progreso, some of the people who live here, and the culture of Honduras. Last night was another Honduras v USA game and we all went down to a local bar to watch the game cheering on side by side with Hondurans. This weekend we are going to Copan and I cannot wait. I am a huge nerd and love studying about the history of this region.
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