FIRST DAY OF TEACHING

We apologize for not having written in the blog for several days. We just got back from the beach and needed to make the final preparations for teaching. Bob will post about the beach soon.

It is absolutely amazing how many prep hours have gone into teaching so far. A week ago, we both spent about 5 hours at Jane and Ron’s home laminating flash cards for Sam’s 5th and 6th grade students. We then spent several more hours cutting them out.

We had a group meeting with all of the volunteers for a couple of hours. Bob made a fine presentation to the group using Rosette Stone projected on the wall.

Afterward, Sam proceeded to do the lesson plan for the first day…a couple more hours. Oh yes, did we mention that we also sharpened 24 pencils the old fashion way…by hand with a small sharpener. Sam will continue to prep for her class each week by preparing a lesson plan, making worksheets, and putting together folders for her assistants. There are a total of eleven teaching days.

When we got together with all of the volunteers, Sam noticed that her two large plastic buckets with all of her teaching materials were missing in action. Originally, Doug Lord agreed to store them at his house. In December, he and his wife decided to leave San Miguel for January and go to the beach. He was one smart man; he must have known it was going to be super cold here in San Miguel. So, in early December, Doug transferred a bunch of plastic tubs to another volunteer’s home, Billie. Billie is one terrific lady. We started our blog because of Billie. She had one that Sam read every day and became inspired. Billie has been a mentor to Sam. Well, Billie and her husband, Ned, went back to Houston for the holidays fully expecting to be back in San Miguel to start teaching. While in Houston they had some unexpected family issues and are still in Houston. In the meantime, Sam didn’t know for sure if her teaching materials were at Billie’s or not. After several emails and phone calls, Dianne and Tom (Dianne is the main coordinator for the teaching program) were able to make arrangements for all of us to go to Billie’s home in search of the buckets the morning of our first day of teaching. When we arrived at Billie’s, all of the plastic buckets were neatly arranged by the door for us. There were nine in total along with several bags of books. Yes, both of Sam’s buckets were there. She was relieved. All of the other buckets were filled with the books for the library. Billie is the volunteer librarian.

We carried all of the heavy buckets in the rain through the cobblestone streets to Tom and Dianne’s waiting SUV. It was filled to the top and very heavy. We all went back to Tom and Dianne’s. Sam went through her boxes and organized all of her materials. We had some time to relax with a nice cup of coffee and chat before all of the other volunteers arrived. All the volunteers meet at Tom and Dianne’s home and carpool to Los Ricos de Abajo. On Wednesday, we had five SUV’s with 18 volunteers.

Including Sam, there were four volunteers for the 5th/6th grade class with 18 students. She has seven 6th graders and eleven 5th graders. The students were happy to see Sam. She also has two returning volunteers, Sid and Blanche, both of whom have done a great job. This year’s 6th graders were 5th graders in Sam’s class last year and knew her routine. Within minutes, the class was divided into three teams and immediately began working in their small groups learning English.

In the meantime, Bob was Sam’s burro and made sure she had everything she needed. He was also the school photographer. Dianne and Bob went to each classroom and photographed each student individually. Sam will put the pictures on Photobucket
http://s233.photobucket.com/albums/ee21/eplbobsam/2010%20Los%20Ricos%20-%205th%20and%206th%20Graders/
http://s233.photobucket.com/albums/ee21/eplbobsam/2010%20Los%20Ricos%20-%203rd%20and%204th%20Graders/
http://s233.photobucket.com/albums/ee21/eplbobsam/2010%20Los%20Ricos%20-%201st%20and%202nd%20Graders/

and they will be emailed to all of the volunteer teachers so they can put the names and faces together. When Bob finished his photography, he had a nice long conversation in Spanish with Javier. Javier is the regular teacher for the 5th/6th grade class.

As we mentioned, it takes a lot of prep hours to teach one hour of English. Weekly, we meet at Dianne’s at 11:45 a.m. and return around 2:45 p.m. Well, one week down and 10 more to go. The time will go by much too fast.