No more teaching for me!

4-9-11


Ahhhhh... I have finally reached that point in Peace Corps where I finally feel comfortable enough to say "No" and discontinue teaching. It only took a year of worrying, learning, planning, stressing, yelling, crying, laughing, and screaming. Haha. It's been a looooong year.


I started these classes with the intentions of 1. meeting new people in the community and 2. finding ways to make the sustainable. Needless to say I have met so many great people in my classes young and old. It really is a great tool to meet people because they respect you and they will remember you long after they skip your classes, haha. (My gradation was this past week and my students were so cute that they got me a plaque. A plaque. How awesome is that? This is a prime example of the contacts you make and how much the stress and tears are worth it in the end.) As far as sustainability, my computer classes sadly did not continue but my english classes, gracias a dios, will continue with a superb, replacement teacher. Nilka is a Jehova's Witness from Puerto Rico who will be continuing my english classes to help her pay for her living expenses to continue her religious work in the DR. She rocks.


My english class made me a plaque. Sooooo nice.
To be honest, after doing all these classes I have figured out that I am an okay teacher but my only flaw is patience. Patience is super crucial for teachers so you can see how this wasn't working out for me. I always needed to prepare and have options available for my students, I always had resources for them, made sure I didn't dress bad, made sure I was on time but I just couldn't handle it when I had to repeat myself 10 times or when I saw that people weren't learning. It was hard for me. Not everyone is perfect so I am glad I have decided to end my classes and continue with my youth groups which are basically classes but not so formal and not that much prep work. I am just glad that I can say I did it. I did it, I lived it, it's over and let's move on to bigger and better things.


I am coming up on my one year mark (as a volunteer) and I feel like my time here is starting to count down. I am having to fill out my VRF (volunteer reporting form) which basically asks for all the info and data of everything that you have done. I have done 2 computer classes, an english class, some teacher training, and I have 2 youth groups. My work with the liceo (high school) has not been completed (which is sad, cause its the purpose of me being here) and I have a lot of other side projects that I want to develop before I leave (literacy, art group, boys group, basketball court). 


In retrospect I feel like I have been really busy. I was having to go to the high school everyday and teach my classes in another location, stay late for my youth groups, attend and plan conferences and on top of all this do various design projects on the side for everyone in Peace Corps. Literally. Everyone. But I am not complaining, I love to be busy. I love being asked to do design work (since I am not really using it anywhere else in my site other than my youth group) because I love to feel needed and useful. But as much as I do love to feel important the one year mark really is the time to stop being important and start passing that torch to other people. Nilka will be saving me so much strife by doing something she is good at and saving me from having to do it. It's not even like I have to do it either. It's this feeling of "crap everyone wants these classes I have to give these classes" that I am glad I can shake off. I have to admit there is a feeling of loss when you don't do these things anymore and they don't need you anymore but I guess thats the point of Peace Corps; creating sustainable projects. 


So now I have to think about how I will be remembered in my town. I've only done projects that are learning based, meaning, there is nothing physical that I have brought to my town. I feel like I've done a lot to teach my community but because there is nothing physical I know if I left today people would say I didn't do anything and the reason is because I haven't physically donated something. So the majority of my focus for the year is going to be on developing my school lab, building a library in my liceo and a basketball court in another escuela. Physical properties that are necessary. We shall see how this goes.

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