Saved by the Bell

  In Guatemala school starts in January, in conjunction with the presidential inauguration and a visit from my parents, it was an eventful start to the year. Then came changes to Peace Corps Guatemala, followed by Semana Santa and a ton of other special events in which classes were canceled including mothers day, fathers day, school anniversaries, town anniversary, mid year break and a few soccer tournaments thrown in there and a dash of Peace Corps trainings and conferences. And here we are with one semester remaining until summer vacation. With all that said, there is not much class time for students and teachers and provided there aren’t any teacher strikes, which I have not experienced as of yet. Much of my work involves implementing a life skills curriculum into the already existing middle school curriculum.

  The first phase is teaching students directly, followed by co-teaching with the teachers in order for them to be able to teach independently, in a perfect world. It is a challenge when majority of teachers are unavailable and leave their class unsupervised for periods at a time, especially when they view their time with me as a free period.   As the year is coming to an end, I can count on two fingers how many teachers are successfully administering lessons on self-esteem, leadership, decision-making and goal setting. It was not without some challenges, some more significant than others. Prior to leaving for my trip home I organized a month long plan for each of my teachers in all three of my schools, I prepared materials, gave instructions and a drawn out calendar with what to do on what day, fool proof so I thought. I came back excited to hear back from my teachers, of the five only one followed instructions.

  One of the teachers completely ignored the calendar and materials and decided to teach sex education; only thing is that she is a social studies teacher. I was concerned so I asked the kids how they felt about the lesson and the looks on their faces said it all, terrified.  I worked with the science teacher on properly educating the students about the reproductive system and only hope that the teachers continue to properly use the manual as a resource in their courses and I plan on training all teachers about the proper use of the manual and working with teenagers due to the fact many are not trained teachers or have experience working with adolescents.  I am neither a certified teacher nor an expert on teenagers but as educators and influential adults we owe it to the youth to take an effort in their development and prepare them for the next step of their lives. Being a teenager today is so much more challenging than it was to be a teenager just 5 or 10 years ago.  

   In finding the challenges that face my students and in part of my work to educate and help the youth I am working with local government, community members and collaborating with nearby volunteers to develop summer camps focusing on topics of cultural diversity and gender based leadership camps. It may be a bit ambitious but it gives non-working students something to look forward to. Plus, it beats waking up at noon and doing nothing all summer.