Last Week Of Training!

Hello people! I'm starting to realize I'm not that good at this whole blogging thing. Oh well, I have two years to work on it! So what's been going on? Well, I'm currently sitting in a computer lab at a hotel in Kingston. I arrived in Kingston around 1 pm today from my site. Oh yeah...we got our site placements! For the next 2 years, I will be living in a small community very near to Mandeville in the parish of Manchester. I won't reveal the name for safety purposes. Just know that I'm in the country (said with a deep southern hillbilly accent). I love it. It's so quiet and peaceful. The weather is so much cooler in Manchester. I can hear the wind blowing outside at night, and I don't remember ever hearing the wind blow since I got to Jamaica. I will be working at the primary and junior high school in my community. It's actually one school; the primary students come in the morning until around 12:15 pm, and the junior high students come in the afternoon until around 5:15. Apparently quite a few of the public schools here are set up that way. My job, as of now, will be teaching literacy but I also plan to focus on ICT. So lets just say I'll be an ICT Literacy teacher. The grade 4 students here in Jamaica have a literacy exam coming up on June 15, so my current plan is to focus on the grade 4 students who've been identified as having reading problems. I asked each of the grade 4 teachers to give me a list those students, and one teacher gave 14 names...all boys. Apparently, there's a current trend of boys lagging behind girls in school. Are the girls just smarter than the boys? Of course not. But I've heard that some teachers here actually believe that, and of course that affects the way the boys are taught. The girls are expected to do well, and most live up to that expectation. The boys aren't expected to do well, and they likewise live up to that expectation. No this isn't the way it is everywhere in Jamaica. There are some really good schools here. And some really good teachers. A lot of the problems here can be traced to lack of resources. But you know what? I've only been here for about 2 months! So there's no way that I have a good understanding of the educational system yet. Therefore, I will continue this subject in another post in the future once I have a more informed opinion. Anyways, back to my school. There are about 600 students and 27? 28? teachers. Love the teachers. And the principal. My principal is probably one of the nicest principals I've ever met. Yeah, I've only known him for a few days. But I can tell from the way he interacts with the students and the faculty that he really does care. The students aren't even afraid to talk to him. He jokes and laughs with them. That's new to me! I have a good feeling about my school and I see a lot of potential. And it seems as if almost all of them want to find a husband for me so I won't leave Jamaica. I'll keep you posted... Since school gets out around the end of June, I've been trying to think of some potential summer projects or camps I could do. Any ideas are welcome! Oh yeah, the reason why I'm in Kingston right now is because it's our last week of training. We swear in on Friday at the embassy...yay! I'll be an official volunteer. Now, the real fun starts.