You know what kids like to take advantage of? Disorganization. If things aren't planned for them to do every second of the school day, then they become psycho. They literally lose their freakin minds and cause you to do the same.
One such event occurred just this morning. About an hour ago. I had to write this now while it was still fresh in my mind. Ok, so this morning I arrived at school and went to the office to sign in, you know, like a perfectly normal day. After I signed in and signed for the computer lab keys, the principal and assistant principal informed me of something to the extent of someone coming to the computer lab, with a class, so I won't be tutoring today, but I don't have to leave, I can just stay in the lab with them. I barely understood what they said, but that's the gist of it. So I was thinking "Sweet! Free time today." Silly me.
I went to the lab, like I normally do, pulled out my laptop and started to check my email. Not too long afterward, I hear a loud rumbling noise. The sound of rambunctious muddy feet running up the stairs to the computer lab, anxious to enter my domain. All of a sudden, the doors swing open and a stampede of little monsters, I mean children, rushed into the lab, grabbing chairs, touching computers, turning on computers, turning off computers, and in the process, irritating the hell outta me. But the teacher must be behind them, right? Or at least the mystery person who's gonna be in the lab, right? Silly me again. Nope. Just the kids.
Miss? Miss? Miss? Miss? Miss? Can you turn on the computer Miss? Can I play games Miss? Does this computer work Miss? (Oh yeah, every student here in Jamaica, past and present, call the female teachers Miss. Sometimes they say the last name. But mostly it's just Miss.) So this is what I heard for what seemed like forever, in combination with the moving metal chairs. It was so awesome. Then guess what happened: another class came in. Great! Just reread the first lines of this paragraph and you'll see what happened for the next few minutes. But double it!
So I tried to calm everyone down. I yelled for everyone to sit down and be quiet, and everyone who knows me knows I don't yell. It's not like I thought it would work; I don't have a deep forceful voice, and I have this Southern American accent which everyone seems to think is so hilarious. But it worked. Temporarily. At first I told them not to touch the computers. "No, you can't play games, you're not here for that. I don't know why you're here, I'm not teaching you today." Then, as minutes rolled on, and my patience wore thin, I gave up and told them to turn on the computers. I figured playing a game would keep them quiet.
After about two minutes, this lady walks in and tells everyone to turn off the computer. Meanwhile, I'm still trying to figure out who the heck she is during all this chaos. She tells us that she's here to review for the Grade 4 Literacy Test, specifically with comprehension. Of course the kids aren't paying a bit of attention to her, so she uses my wonderful method of yelling. Not surprisingly, it worked. The kids were finally quiet.
So she passes out a few practice exams. Of course, some kids had to share...not enough for everybody. Then, she asks one of the boys to come up and read the first question. "Mi cyaan read Miss." "You can't read? Go tell teacher to write your name on a piece of paper." I'm teacher. So she proceeds to go through every single kid present. An overwhelming majority of them couldn't read the first question. She then sent for her 1st grade niece to come. She read perfectly. So then she goes into this whole lecture about how if they can't read this simple sentence, then there's no way they can pass this test. I totally agree. Then why are you here? Oh yeah, she even told them that she didn't want them to end up like Dudus, the now-captured fugitive that caused all the uproar a few weeks ago. But she also told them that Dudus was really smart when he was in school, one of the best in his class. How this helped the situation, I have no idea.
So by now, it's break/lunch time so I made every single one of them get out. I asked the lady if she was coming back after lunch and she said that she didn't see the point since they can't even read. So she left. After break, each of kids came back to see if they could come in. I politely said nope, the lady left, so you have to go back to class. The lab returned to its original quiet state. Mi happy now, although I just found out that the lady will be back tomorrow. Still don't know who she is, so for now she's just "the lady".
Fun times.
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Monday, June 14, 2010
Misrepresented
On multiple occasions during our pre-service training, we were informed, or rather warned about the attention and harassment we might receive simply because of our status as foreigners and the misconceptions and stereotypes that influence the way foreigners are viewed. For example, Americans are assumed to be rich, or at least wealthier than people here, so as a result of that assumption, Americans are begged for money and often end of paying more than the normal asking price for goods and services. We, especially the females, were warned about sexual harassment, being called different "creative" names, inappropriate touching, etc. The sessions covering these topics were absolutely necessary, even if it was just to make us aware of what might happen and prepare us for how to deal with these situations.
That being said, toward the end of training, I realized I was starting to develop a somewhat subconscious "harassment shield" ready to fend off any rude remarks or pick up lines that may come my way. And at first, I didn't even realize it, how every time I would pass a group of men, I would automatically expect something to be said. Or how I expected most of the Jamaican men that I came in contact with, even if they were nice, it was because they were only interested in one thing. In the back of my mind was all those stories from previous volunteers about how they've been called everything in the book and I knew I had to be prepared to handle all of this stuff that would undoubtedly occur to me.
In actuality, I honestly haven't received anything that I would consider harassment. Here is what I've been called so far: empress, beautiful, pretty, pretty eyes, pretty smile, baby, and some other ones that I can't remember. Now, it is possible that I've been called other names and simply didn't hear them or understood what they said. And it also should be noted that I am black, so therefore I blend in a little more than my white colleagues. And I've only been here for about 3 months, so there's still plenty of time left to get harassed. But my point is that it's mentally draining to walk around expecting to be disrespected or taken advantage of. And I think people can sense the fear and you become more of a target than you were before. Sidenote: There's this video of a white lady in an elevator who, after a black man enters, clutches her purse and basically cowers in the corner. Then he yells "boo" and scares her. It's pretty funny. Anyways, am I justified in behaving in a similar way simply because I'm the foreigner in a new, unfamiliar culture? Or is there something slightly racist about assuming that everyone here is a potential thief or rapist? The truth is that stuff happens. Even other Jamaicans are harassed and taken advantage of. So I'm not in any way saying that I should just completely let my guard down and be carefree because that's usually when things do happen. But I think there needs to be a balance.
There's a reason why I wrote this post. This morning I decided to go grocery shopping. On my search for a place to shop, I found out that not many of the grocery stores in Mandeville are open on Sunday morning. I figured that would be the case, but I really needed groceries. Since I don't actually live in Mandeville, I had no idea what store might be open at the time. So I walked and walked and walked and at around 8:45 am, I reached a store that opened at 9. So I waited until 9, went in and did my shopping, and probably bought a little more than what I could actually carry back to my taxi stand. By taxi stand, I mean the place where a group of taxis that go through my town populate and wait for passengers. It was only like a 20 min walk. I could handle that, right? So, after I paid, the guy that bagged my groceries walked me outside and asked where my taxi was. I told him I didn't have one and that I was going to walk. He asked how far I had to walk. I told him where and he expressed shock and said that's too far for me to walk with these bags. So he took my bags and walked with me all the way across the parking lot and down to the road and waited with me until a taxi came by. He stopped the taxi and told the driver where I needed to go and even made sure the driver didn't charge me too much since it's not his usual route. He then loaded my bags into the trunk, told me to have a nice day, and walked back to the store to continue his job. Did he ask for my number? No. Was he anything but extremely nice and helpful? Nope. He went out of his way to help this poor lost American and he wanted nothing in return. This experience along with many others has helped me realize how unfair I was in my thinking toward Jamaican men. Granted, there are some bad ones, just like in any other country. But I hate when the good ones get misrepresented. And there are definitely some good, genuine, hard-working men here who probably don't get the credit they deserve. So, I would like to say thank you to "that guy from the grocery store" since I can neither remember his name or the name of the store.
That being said, toward the end of training, I realized I was starting to develop a somewhat subconscious "harassment shield" ready to fend off any rude remarks or pick up lines that may come my way. And at first, I didn't even realize it, how every time I would pass a group of men, I would automatically expect something to be said. Or how I expected most of the Jamaican men that I came in contact with, even if they were nice, it was because they were only interested in one thing. In the back of my mind was all those stories from previous volunteers about how they've been called everything in the book and I knew I had to be prepared to handle all of this stuff that would undoubtedly occur to me.
In actuality, I honestly haven't received anything that I would consider harassment. Here is what I've been called so far: empress, beautiful, pretty, pretty eyes, pretty smile, baby, and some other ones that I can't remember. Now, it is possible that I've been called other names and simply didn't hear them or understood what they said. And it also should be noted that I am black, so therefore I blend in a little more than my white colleagues. And I've only been here for about 3 months, so there's still plenty of time left to get harassed. But my point is that it's mentally draining to walk around expecting to be disrespected or taken advantage of. And I think people can sense the fear and you become more of a target than you were before. Sidenote: There's this video of a white lady in an elevator who, after a black man enters, clutches her purse and basically cowers in the corner. Then he yells "boo" and scares her. It's pretty funny. Anyways, am I justified in behaving in a similar way simply because I'm the foreigner in a new, unfamiliar culture? Or is there something slightly racist about assuming that everyone here is a potential thief or rapist? The truth is that stuff happens. Even other Jamaicans are harassed and taken advantage of. So I'm not in any way saying that I should just completely let my guard down and be carefree because that's usually when things do happen. But I think there needs to be a balance.
There's a reason why I wrote this post. This morning I decided to go grocery shopping. On my search for a place to shop, I found out that not many of the grocery stores in Mandeville are open on Sunday morning. I figured that would be the case, but I really needed groceries. Since I don't actually live in Mandeville, I had no idea what store might be open at the time. So I walked and walked and walked and at around 8:45 am, I reached a store that opened at 9. So I waited until 9, went in and did my shopping, and probably bought a little more than what I could actually carry back to my taxi stand. By taxi stand, I mean the place where a group of taxis that go through my town populate and wait for passengers. It was only like a 20 min walk. I could handle that, right? So, after I paid, the guy that bagged my groceries walked me outside and asked where my taxi was. I told him I didn't have one and that I was going to walk. He asked how far I had to walk. I told him where and he expressed shock and said that's too far for me to walk with these bags. So he took my bags and walked with me all the way across the parking lot and down to the road and waited with me until a taxi came by. He stopped the taxi and told the driver where I needed to go and even made sure the driver didn't charge me too much since it's not his usual route. He then loaded my bags into the trunk, told me to have a nice day, and walked back to the store to continue his job. Did he ask for my number? No. Was he anything but extremely nice and helpful? Nope. He went out of his way to help this poor lost American and he wanted nothing in return. This experience along with many others has helped me realize how unfair I was in my thinking toward Jamaican men. Granted, there are some bad ones, just like in any other country. But I hate when the good ones get misrepresented. And there are definitely some good, genuine, hard-working men here who probably don't get the credit they deserve. So, I would like to say thank you to "that guy from the grocery store" since I can neither remember his name or the name of the store.
Thursday, June 3, 2010
My New Life In Manchester
In order to create some accountability, I have a decided to make a vow to myself and the 1 or 2 people that read this blog:
I promise to update my blog at least once a week.
There. It's in writing. On the internet. So I have to keep my word. We'll see...
Anyways, on May 21st of 2010, I became an official Peace Corps Volunteer! I am now on my own in my (very small) community. As I mentioned in the last post (or it may have been a facebook status) I do love the quietness of my new country life, I really do. At times. But, the honeymoon phase is sort of wearing off and I'm realizing that, wow, there's absolutely nothing to do here! I mean, there's things to do, like garden, or walk, or sit on the porch, or stay in the house and watch movies on your laptop. Stuff like that. But I'm really missing entertainment. Or maybe it's just that I don't have my group around to entertain me. I don't know, but I have to figure something out. I plan to walk around my community and actually meet more people as soon all the rain backs off. They were having a drought before we got here and now it's raining 24/7. Glad to see the drought is over, but we need to find a happy medium soon.
In case you haven't heard, there's been a little violence in the wonderful city of Kingston over the past couple of weeks. I wanna say that the body count got up to around 70? I'm not sure so don't quote me. If you want more details just google it. Everything's quiet now. During the unrest, all the volunteers were on lockdown. We had to be in our houses by 6:30 pm. Now, we've been set free but we still can't travel to Kingston.
On the subject of school...everything's great! I feel like I have a pretty good routine established. I work with 6 students a day, 2 at a time, and it seems to be working pretty well. I plan to expand to more students later, but I was asked to focus on these 12 students now, since they have the Grade 4 literacy test coming up. The first couple of days definitely involved a lot of experimentation since I had no idea what methods to use or how much help each student needed. Oh, maybe I should mention what I'm doing. I'm basically trying to help them learn to read. Not just learn how to pronounce the words, but actually get an understanding of what they read. That would be called comprehension. Yeah, reading and comprehension. That's what I'm teaching. Literacy, thats good word. I'm teaching literacy. So, as I've been working with them for about 2 weeks now, I have a better understanding of each student's level and also what methods work best for each of them. For example, a couple of days ago, I tried this program called Spelling Made Easy. Yes, learning to spell is also a part of literacy. Anyways, the program involved sitting and paying attention and listening to the little British man on the screen. These actions of sitting, listening, and paying attention proved to be quite difficult for a couple of my students. I now know that those two need activities where they're constantly active. The program worked for most of the other kids though. Those are my favorite kids. Today, I worked with two new kids. They were on the list, but for some reason, I haven't been able to work with them either because they were absent, the sessions ran over time, etc. I found that one was at about a low to medium level. He definitely needed extra help. The other one...he could probably read better than me. I'm exaggerating, but I really don't why he was sent to me. My plan for him thus far is to work on comprehension. And maybe assist me with the other students. Overall, it's back to the basics with most of the students. I don't know how much progress we'll make before the test, but I look forward to working with them over the summer and next school year.
This morning as I took a shower, I was startled by the sound of a cow outside my bathroom window. That wouldn't be unusual except for the fact that my landlord doesn't have a cow. And I don't remember ever seeing a cow on my road. Just thought I'd share that with you.
I promise to update my blog at least once a week.
There. It's in writing. On the internet. So I have to keep my word. We'll see...
Anyways, on May 21st of 2010, I became an official Peace Corps Volunteer! I am now on my own in my (very small) community. As I mentioned in the last post (or it may have been a facebook status) I do love the quietness of my new country life, I really do. At times. But, the honeymoon phase is sort of wearing off and I'm realizing that, wow, there's absolutely nothing to do here! I mean, there's things to do, like garden, or walk, or sit on the porch, or stay in the house and watch movies on your laptop. Stuff like that. But I'm really missing entertainment. Or maybe it's just that I don't have my group around to entertain me. I don't know, but I have to figure something out. I plan to walk around my community and actually meet more people as soon all the rain backs off. They were having a drought before we got here and now it's raining 24/7. Glad to see the drought is over, but we need to find a happy medium soon.
In case you haven't heard, there's been a little violence in the wonderful city of Kingston over the past couple of weeks. I wanna say that the body count got up to around 70? I'm not sure so don't quote me. If you want more details just google it. Everything's quiet now. During the unrest, all the volunteers were on lockdown. We had to be in our houses by 6:30 pm. Now, we've been set free but we still can't travel to Kingston.
On the subject of school...everything's great! I feel like I have a pretty good routine established. I work with 6 students a day, 2 at a time, and it seems to be working pretty well. I plan to expand to more students later, but I was asked to focus on these 12 students now, since they have the Grade 4 literacy test coming up. The first couple of days definitely involved a lot of experimentation since I had no idea what methods to use or how much help each student needed. Oh, maybe I should mention what I'm doing. I'm basically trying to help them learn to read. Not just learn how to pronounce the words, but actually get an understanding of what they read. That would be called comprehension. Yeah, reading and comprehension. That's what I'm teaching. Literacy, thats good word. I'm teaching literacy. So, as I've been working with them for about 2 weeks now, I have a better understanding of each student's level and also what methods work best for each of them. For example, a couple of days ago, I tried this program called Spelling Made Easy. Yes, learning to spell is also a part of literacy. Anyways, the program involved sitting and paying attention and listening to the little British man on the screen. These actions of sitting, listening, and paying attention proved to be quite difficult for a couple of my students. I now know that those two need activities where they're constantly active. The program worked for most of the other kids though. Those are my favorite kids. Today, I worked with two new kids. They were on the list, but for some reason, I haven't been able to work with them either because they were absent, the sessions ran over time, etc. I found that one was at about a low to medium level. He definitely needed extra help. The other one...he could probably read better than me. I'm exaggerating, but I really don't why he was sent to me. My plan for him thus far is to work on comprehension. And maybe assist me with the other students. Overall, it's back to the basics with most of the students. I don't know how much progress we'll make before the test, but I look forward to working with them over the summer and next school year.
This morning as I took a shower, I was startled by the sound of a cow outside my bathroom window. That wouldn't be unusual except for the fact that my landlord doesn't have a cow. And I don't remember ever seeing a cow on my road. Just thought I'd share that with you.
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