a busy week - finally

School’s in session again and things are rolling along here. It’s a bit of a shame I leave on Monday for two weeks vacation (have I mentioned here that I’m meeting my sister in Buenos Aires???), because now that class schedules are settled down it’s really time to get momentum going with the teachers. But even so, I feel like I’ve gotten off to a great start with a couple key projects:

With the preschool teacher called a parents meeting and then scheduled an afternoon to make materials. Since preschool is new this year (kindergarten is standard throughout the country, but towns on their own have to come up with the funds to pay preschool teachers and this is the first year parents have demanded that Tacuati do so), there is a lack of materials for the kiddies, so we asked parents to bring in any recycled materials, especially bottles to make musical instruments, matchboxes to make little nametags, caps to bottles and detergents and such to make a big box of caps that kids can separate by color and size, etc. The ideal is that the kids spend some time every day playing independently in little "corners," like the communication corner or drama corner. While some of the parents were a little pushy about making materials for THEIR kids only, and we used the wrong kind of paint so some of it is chipping already, it was overall a successful afternoon and we’ve set another date to make more materials next month (and I plan to talk w the teacher in advance to plan exactly what needs she has and how she’ll actually USE the materials with the kids – my nightmare is that teachers get pretty materials and then never use ‘em with the kids).

Was invited to do a quick talk or charla at the parents meeting at the high school, and spent about half an hour talking about How I Can Support My Daughter or Son in This School Year. Specifically we did an activity on the importance of self-esteem and why you shouldn’t call your kids stupid, and then we talked a little about learning styles and how some kids need to make flashcards or make posters with colors to learn. It went over really well and I’ve already been invited back to their next meeting. I spoke maybe 20% of the time in basic Guarani, which was exciting, and I think important too – even though most parents understand Spanish well, they don’t like to talk in it and are I think intimidated by the formality of Spanish. By speaking Guarani I can show that I’m attempting at least to learn the language and be part of the culture here, and it’s always good for comic relief when I try to say something hard and mess it up J Anyway, I want to talk with some parents who are friends of mine to find out what kinds of topics they’d like me to cover in future meetings, but I’m already thinking that themes like positive discipline (ie. don’t hit your kid) and diversity or something, how every kid is different with different abilities and needs. I absolutely loved presenting to the parents, because it was such a unique audience – they were all there because they WANTED to be there and because they already BELIEVED that their involvement is important. Teachers, on the other hand, are often forced to come to workshops or do so just to get out of school for a day, and view my presentations as encroaching on their freedom and as me just wanting them to do more work. I already have parents presentations scheduled at the central school at the end of the month, and have talked with two other principals about planning parents meetings there too.

Also have kind of bullied the high school principal into letting me come to a staff meeting to ask the teachers if I can help them with anything, and I’m itching to present on such topics as classroom structure/discipline and interactive lessons, including group work and pretty much anything that isn’t bookwork. And with one of the teachers I’ll start a computer class for the high school seniors at the end of the month, team teaching with her so that she’ll learn as we go and eventually be able to take over the class on her own. Sustainability!

And today with three young women from my youth group I went to Concepcion for a workshop on Sexuality, HIV-AIDS and STDs. The concept was 1x100, that every youth who came would go back home and share what they learned with 100 others. The girls were really excited to talk with some of their teachers to see if they could present the activities we did to their peers in school. We were able to pay bus fare to get to the workshop with money received from the municipality, and it’s nice to be receiving support like that from the mayor. I’m not sure exactly where the youth group will go from here – our membership has stagnated at six, but they’re all pretty committed young women so that’s nice.