A is for Apathy : A-P-A-T-H-Y, Apathy

Little Monsters! This blog is about my darling little monsters. I mean that in the nicest way possible of course. So let me give a quick blurb on the students I work with. They have been handpicked by their teachers and the Literacy Specialist to come to me weekly for extra help with reading and writing. The difficult part is most of these kids are really behind, significantly behind their classmates (who are also behind average grade level). My students are used to disappearing, not existing, being disruptive or the class clown. Unfortunately this is nothing new to me or many of you who have spent any amount of time in the school systems. In the states they often have IEPS and receive support services or maybe even have a behavioral aide or teachers assistant to assist them throughout the week. Well I (we) don’t have that; I am the walking talking IEP as well as the person who implements it. I am the person who ensures that they receive the special attention they need to assist them in learning. Enough of that, I think you got the picture.


Things have been going so well. 90% of the time the majority of my students’ come in excited and ready to see what the hour shall bring. Maybe it is because June is here and it is the last month of school? Maybe it is because the entire country is gearing up for Vincy Mas ( Carnival) and it trickles down to the kids or maybe I have just pushed too hard. I don’t know.


My day started off so well. Woke up at 5:30A to get my exercise on, back by 7AM to journal, mediate and get my day off to a beautiful start. My morning read inspired me to “invest the energy spent in planning a better future back into the time I have TODAY. If not now, when?” YES, YES I say…today is the day! Even after getting caught in a massive downpour on the way to school which left my pants soaked and soggy I was still motivated and ready to greet my students with a smiling face and lots of energy.


About half way into the lesson finding myself exhausted from constantly redirecting and delivering verbal warning after verbal warning I was ready to throw in the towel. I felt myself getting heated. Just go back to your class I wanted to snap. They don’t even care about their own education I thought, I am up here for mere entertainment. I only have them 1 hour a day / 3 times a week. 3 hours a week! That is it! Is it too much to ask for a little reciprocity? I think not. At that point, my stream of thought was lined with pretty little curse words stifling my ability to elegantly verbalize how I felt or what I wanted from them . So I settled for, “you guys are done for the day, I can’t do this anymore. Finish up and head back to your class. We will try again tomorrow when you are more focused." *sigh*


I gave up today. I was at a loss. Why the hell am I here? What am I really doing? Have I been fooling myself this whole time to think the students were actually benefiting from the lessons I prepared? I feel like I am trying too hard. Daily the other teachers ask “are you ok? You look tired or you look stressed. Take a break.” Take a break from what?? I am used to working from 9-5 sometimes 6, 7 or 8pm if need be. I am used to dealing with the chaos of demanding clients who can’t pay their rent and face eviction, people in crisis who feel the only option is death or someone who just got fired faces losing their insurance and happens to be HIV positive. On top of that we add notes /documentation, reports, meetings, sessions, and more meetings. This is when I needed a break. What is there to take a break from? Teaching a small group of students their ABC’s and reading “Pat and Tom can run” is a piece of cake right? Not so much… I have to take a moment to give a major shout out to ALL of the educators out there who I have observed over the years pouring their hearts into their students’ day end and day out. My Mother is the perfect example of the patience, selflessness, patience, dedication and genuine care that it takes to be an effective educator. You guys have a gift, I admire you for what you do.


So back to my horrible day, I gave up today. I feel like I am trying too hard. I feel like maybe I expect or want too much from them but I know they can do better. I have seen them do better. I believe in them. I feel like I have created a safe learning environment for them , free to make mistakes, free to speak and ask questions without the fear of being humiliated on the spot or lashed with a leather whip after allowing their short attention span to get the best of them ( every time). Maybe that is it, maybe the kind of “care” I am used to and how I show it is not what they want. Maybe they have been forgotten so long in the classroom, they don’t know how to respond all the attention I give them. Maybe they are used to people giving up on them instead of pushing them to do better. Or Maybe they are just waiting for me to fulfill their expectations and give up on them like everyone else. Or maybe I just suck at teaching haha


I won’t give up, I do care. *sigh* I will start over tomorrow…from?...wherever they are, I will meet them there. How  long do continue to  you believe in someone when you don’t even know if they believe in themselves?

A love poem, for you

" I am the moon, you are the earth ( nature). I will follow you for 28 days while you travel around the sun. I will not leave your side. You are beautiful like the sky. You are violet in the morning, you are the rose in the night. You blossom all day long."

Jeremiah ( age 11) Co-leader of the Poetry club

July, make a wish...

As promised, here is the update about the program for donating books to my school. I have a separate page on my blog " Wish List" with some video clips and a list of items that the students added to the wish list.


Hands Across the Sea is a organization that donates books specifically  to schools in the Caribbean.  They work closely with Peace Corps Volunteers in effort to build sustainable librarieshttp within the schools we are attached to.


If you would like to donate to them directly please check out  the website and be sure to specify your donation is for PCV: Jessica Greathouse/ Cane End Government School.


http://www.handsacrossthesea.net/


If you have books or other materials you think may be beneficial to the school please feel free to ship them directly to me any time. ( My address is on the right side of the blog)


The wish list for Hands Across the Sea goes is due by July so it would help to have donations in before then.


Thank you in advance for taking the time to check out the Wish list!

Massive update (April)

Ok, here is my attempt to recap what has been going on over the past few weeks without writing a novel. Here goes!

Last day of Pre- Service Training: We arrived in SVG on Saturday February 5th. After 8 weeks of training we successfully completed PST.

New Apartment:
 On Saturday April 2nd I moved out of my host family’s home into an apartment below them. The apartment was being renovated since my arrival to their home so I really had NO idea what to expect. I would take a peek inside every few weeks but after seeing what I deemed as little progress I decided to quit stressing it. I am so glad I did! The apartment is perfect. The renovations turned out very well. A nice quaint space to make my own . It is nice to still be amongst "family" I will say. Although I am really enjoying my own space, coming home to a compound like environment where someone is always around makes it feel a little less foreign.

Starting work as a PCV:
The first 8 weeks of training I went to my assigned school twice a week to observe the classroom. I spent the majority of my time with Grade 6 but also got to see the various teaching styles and classroom management techniques of the whole school, Grades K- 6. On Monday the 11th of April I returned to school as a fulltime PCV. Now the fun begins!! The goal is for me to work with 3 or 4 students weekly from grades 4-6. I will be working with the students that are the farthest behind as far as reading level. Since I am working with the Literacy Coordinator, I guess that makes me a literacy specialist assistant? Interesting. The first week was a bit frustrating because I just wanted to jump in and get started. I have been sitting around the past 8 weeks just watching, I'm ready to DO. But, things didn't work out that way. So I continued to watch until the time was right for me to do. I have found that a delicate balance exist between trying to be proactive and action oriented and just being a pushy American who wants things done instantly. Obviously the later is not my intention so I find myself *woosaaah'ing* quite a bit. :)

Week two went a little better. I went in with a plan but also with the awareness that at even given moment my plan will be tossed right out the window like scraps for a stray dog. In training, we were told to have a plan, kids need structure, they need to know that you took time to prepare...right? Sometimes I reflect on my days in the training class room while sitting in the real class room and I just laugh. *chuckle*


Week three was much better than week 1-2. I keep lesson plans in my folder, but I'm always ready to make adjustments which may include tossing them out into the wind for another day. I have completed the assessments for 8 of the students I will be working with. There is something extremely special about each and every one of the students I have been given. I feel like they were lost in the shuffle somewhere. With only a few weeks of school left I tell them  all  I ask of them is to give me their BEST for the time we have together. I need your eyes, ears and attention just for an hour each day. I want to discover the place where they were lost and pick up from there, piece things back together. *sigh* And off to the clouds I go again. This work , the literacy aspect is very different from my previous experience with children. It will be challenging. Baby steps.

Secondary Project:
There is an agency that I have decided to dedicate 1 day a week to. They have a program for youth ages 16-24 that dropped out of school. Its kind of like a Job Corps type program. I was lucky to sit in on the orientation day of the new group that just started. This session will last for 6 months. Just being amongst the group made me feel this sense of passion that was much different from what I experienced at the primary school. I feel like it is a great balance for me. I LOVE the kiddos, but I also enjoy being able to talk to older kids that are at the crucial point in their lives , the cross roads where they can either continue to stray or take this opportunity to dedicate their time to improving the quality of their lives. Sometimes all it takes is someone to lend an ear, a heart or a hand...
Homesick?:
I had a moment. A moment of REALLY TRULY missing my friends and family. It was some kinda deep soulful missing, a yearning for something, someone familiar. A don't think acknowledging that I miss the amazing people I was surrounded by at home takes away from the beauty of the newness I'm experiencing now. I have met some magnificent spirits along my journey already. A few of these people have touched my life greatly in just a few months, for them I am grateful beyond words for letting me fall into them at times when I needed to lean. ..but still, sometimes you just get homesick. And that is ok :)


Holidays:
SVG ( and possibly most of the EC) LOVES some holidays!!! I feel like we have had a day off for a holiday almost every week since we have been here. We have had "spring break" in March, then off Thursday - Monday for Easter break, and now we are off for May day/ Labour day. Trust me, I am not complaining at all. I thinks it’s great to be in a place where they openly embrace taking time off from work. With all these Holidays, why would you ever need to call in "sick"?? :) Time is made of moments, not money.

Rainy Dry Season:
So this was technically supposed to be the dry season, but I heard that the weather is changing . It rains, and rains...and rains, then pours...and rains some more. I have an umbrella that is rusting and an emergency poncho ( plastic bag thin) to shield me from this weather. I toyed with the idea of bringing rainboots but thought that would be "too much". I haven't seen anyone here with rainboots but I honestly don't understand why they aren't more common. I see kids wearing timberlands in 80+ degree sunny weather, why not rainboots in torrential down poor???

A few weeks ago it rained for 4 days straight and school was canceled due to landslides. Sometimes school is canceled just because it rains for awhile. At first I thought this was comical but after trying to work with students at school while its pouring down rain outside, I GET IT. Its pointless most of the time. The classrooms are nestled in nature, the rain is pretty loud on the roof and the windows aren't sealed. Most of the kids ( and myself) have to walk to and from school in the rain as well. I guess its hard to focus on your lesson when you are concerned with skipping puddles to get home.


Silver lining: Wonderful weather to fall asleep on those  nights :)


Hurricane season is from June1st- November 31st , lets just hope it doesn't actually get worse...


Dark Skin Peace Corps:
" I've never seen a dark skinned Peace Corps, where are you from?"- Pops


I think I am going to dedicate an entire post to discussing my experience as an African American PCV serving in the Eastern Caribbean. Initially, I don't think it even crossed my mind that me being a volunteer of color would be recognized as anything other than the obvious- Shes a black volunteer from the states. Nothing special right? Wrong. As the weeks go on, I am seeing how extremely different my experience here is than some of the other volunteers. I am not the only volunteer of color serving in the EC, nor am I the first. I guess its just so uncommon that when we do appear people comment on it. Overall, as far as my ability to integrate I will say hands down it is an advantage. I have not had enough time here to conceptualize the other aspects of how this will impact my service. So many layers...The EC is part of the Diaspora but their experience is very different from that of an African American living in the states. Each island has its own residual imprints from colonialism which still lingers heavily. Ok, already I've written more than I planned...tbc






I think I have touched on the major updates at this point! Hopefully I will do better in May.