Well my days in Apulo always seemed to end up extremely busy and it may have been a factor too that I didn't really want to write much when it was uber hot too. My days tended to focus more on the close school and the after school classes I was having. I didn't go to the Pancino much just because it was far and out of the way and the days I said I would go there tended to get dramatically changed. I was either I went into San Salvador or more of the city or I had stayed up really late and just needed an extra two hours of sleep.
The afternoons usually consisted of me going to the school close by and helping teach. It was interesting because I actually received a surprising amount of resistance there by the teachers about volunteering there. The teachers were nice to my face but I could tell they were a bit aggrivated at my style of teaching and learning because I wouldn't take any of the copying that went on. I tried to change some of it but its hard to change something when they've been copying papers instead of doing their own work for most of their school years. There were times where I was really disappointed with my students and times that I was really disappointed and somewhat depressed about the school system but I believe that I started to make an impact on the teachers and the students while I was there. There were those few that really wanted to get better and practice and I could see that they were starting to understand the concepts. One of the hardest things to teach was studying habits, and ways of learning with such limited materials. They were so used to copying because they only had a few books for a subject so they all copied materials out of that book for homework and such.
I had an eye opening experience that I thought was very interesting in the sense of understanding a different culture. I know it seems simple to say but its hard to realized until it hits you in the face everyday but many people just couldn't learn the ways I did. They just had the hardest time understanding the concept that English is a different language with different words and a different way of communicating. When a phrase didn't translate word for word I could just see their brains being confused. The other thing was how much they thought in Spanish. I know it seems obvious to think that they speak in spanish but I would ask questions during English class like whats this and I would point to a color and they would pause and then say the color in Spanish when they knew the color in English. Especially the lower grades were hard because I could see a few kids got the concept but the majority just couldn't grasp a new language concept.
The other interesting and disappointing experience I had was how many students had a negative attitude toward school and learning. When I talked with individual students after school or while everyone was working they would go to the “no puedo ingles” reponse in like 5 seconds if they didn't get it. Or even if they knew how to say it they wouldn't want to try because they had pena or just because they had been saying to themselves that they can't speak english they actually couldn't. Its like if you say to yourself something over and over again it will eventually be true because every time you try your brain just goes to the automatic response of I can't.
It was in Apulo that I realized I don't want to be a teacher for middle school students. Especially with just being a volunteer, it was rather difficult keeping the class at bay. I was good with disipline but the hard part was that I had to earn my respect from the beginning which I think I started to accomplish but a few realized that I really couldn't give grades and a few really didn't care about school so I had to babysit those kids while at the same time trying to teach and help the kids that wanted to learn.
Its also quite interesting and quite odd but the kids make a different sound for when they are making fun of someone and they don't stop. Its really frustrating when I'm teaching because everyone is distracted by that and then the one kid who was doing something wrong gets all the attention and usually feels embarrassed. They make this whistling sound and high pitched laughing which honestly sounds like a pack of hyenas. I'm not sure how to explain it but its like when someone makes a mistake everyone starts making that noise and it makes you feel even worse. I'm rather frustrated that the noise exists here and the problem is that everyone joins in even when its their friends who did it. Its kinda like an immature way of joking with your friends.
Songs seemed to work the best for learning vocabulary like Head Shoulders Knees and Toes. They absolutely loved it and I'll post the video when I get a chance. I also did Tony Chestnut with a few of my more advanced classes. Songs made it fun and educational but unfortunately I didn't have lots of songs I could use for grammer. What I realized with grammer is that the real problem with learning another language was that their grammer in Spanish wasn't very strong in the first place. It turned out that I ended up helping individual students with English, Spanish, and Math while I was there. I taught the 9's and 10s multiplication trick to them for math (thanks mom!).
So yes I guess the ultimate lesson I learned in school was how important it is to know the basic stuff before you can move onto the hard stuff. In all the subjects many of the students had just thrown in the towel because they didn't put enough attention into the basics before hand or they hadn't had that little push from their parents about what they learned in school. This is actually where I got my idea to start up parenting classes for students and adults. I haven't actually put it into action or know how I will one day but I feel that parenting classes would be one of the best ways to change the poverty and to have their kids have success. I know that usually the parents are working all the time but I think they would take the time to have a class. The motivation is definitely there because everyone wants their baby to be the best and be better than they were and with young mothers here sometimes if they had the class available I think they would want to take it.
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