I`ve gotten a few worried emails so let me affirm that we are just fine after the earthquake in Chile. An 8.8 travels a long way, but not 1,500 miles. Ecuador´s coastline (along with everything else in the Pacific) watched for tsunamis all day on Saturday, but nothing touched us. Tremors shake the ground here now and then, though never intensely enough to make you lose your balance and certainly not enough to do damage. We´re fine - keep your donations flowing to Haiti and Chile :)
Tomorrow is officially my last day before vacation! I conducted my last round of interviews this morning and will observe demo classes tomorrow before turning in a final report and LEAVING for a few weeks. I can´t wait - although I love my job, I could use a little psychological space from it. For today's interviews, I tag-teamed with my supervisor Rodolfo who asked some great interview questions - the creative kind Career Centers that prep you for that employers never ask. After sitting through three interviews in a row, I was amazed how much I could tell about people by listening to them discuss their favorite books, which historical figure they would invite for dinner, and what they would do if one student pulled another's pants down during class. This job teaches me to decode people and human interaction in a way I never expected. I love it!
My cultural learning here never ceases. In the U.S. we have our own set of old wives' tales so I don't make fun of the Ecuadorian versions, but I still take advantage of the opportunity to chuckle. On Friday I was talking with my friend Leandro about swimming. It´s refreshing, I said. Right, but it´s also dangerous, he told me, because you can't go swimming right after you eat. Right, I agreed, because you can get a cramp. Yes, he said, and you definitely can't shower right after eating either because that´s really bad for you too. ...Right... So there you have it, ladies and gentlemen - make sure to wait 2 hours before showering after dinner. It could be really bad for you.
In other news, no more ticks! For a few weeks I hunted every night, scouring the house for ticks and killing 5-30 a night. We couldn't figure out where they were coming from or how to get rid of them. Then we noticed poor Oso (the happy, floppy mutt who lives in the Rostro compound with us) wasn't moving much and would barely lift his head when we called his name. Further inspection revealed dozens of tiny ticks that look like a flat version of what we have in northern Midwest and and also plenty of oblong ticks that are a little bigger than a pencil eraser and squirt out black liquid when you kill them. Gross. Our guard took Oso to the vet for a rather unpleasant treatment, but now Oso lives! He's on his feet and playing again now that he´s not constantly donating blood. Similarly we haven't found a single parasitic pal in several days. What a relief!
So what about you? If an interviewer asked to name a book that influenced how you see the world, what would you say?
Monday, March 1, 2010
Friday, February 26, 2010
Still almost time for vacation...
While my teachers have long since vacated the school for their trips to the beach, I still spend hours a day in my office. Yet I´m not complaining - free internet and air conditioning motivate me to come in, and I´m thisclose to getting taxes and FAFSA done. My sister and parents' endless generosity in receiving, scanning, and emailing tax documents and healthcare bills makes process possible, and I take this opportunity to publicly thank them for helping me wade through confusion. I´ll pay it forward.
I mentioned that the professional fate of a few teachers was hanging uncertainly, but it looks like Ecuadorian laws and precarious financial situations made the decsions for us. Our president, Rafael Correa, is in the process of pushing for education reform, including some changes that will undermine private schools. Correa is a strongly leftist thinker and has passed several laws in his first and now second term that chip away the strength of schools like Nuevo Mundo. For example, private schools are no longer able to remove children from class or from the school if they don´t pay their tuition. For Mundo, this meant a deficit of over $400,000 in January 2010. Thankfully, we are allowed to prevent kids from taking finals exams and thus passing on to the next year if they haven´t paid. In the week before finals, the endless line trailing out of the administration office testified that people do have the money to pay that $5,000 debt they owe the school - they just don´t pay until they have to. We ended the year just barely in the black, but are also losing a lot of students due to their families´ financial constraints. Fewer students means fewer staff, and this year we cut a whopping 8% of faculty and staff.
I lost a few teachers in my department, but we didn´t downsize so I´m one of the lucky few still at school interviewing new candidates. What a job - I´m learning that writing ''Fluent in English'' on your resume does very little to attest to one's actual skills. Yikes. I did have one candidate who is fluent in English, Spanish, and Gaelic, and conversational in Thai and Khmer. Very impressive. Anyways, I should be done in a few more days - then vacation!
For the two weeks I have off, Jake and I were planning a trip to Peru to visit Machu Picchu. Unfortunately winter rains caused major mudslides in the Peruvian mountains and destroyed the train tracks from Cuzco to Aguas Calientes, the town at the base of Machu Picchu National Park. With no way in or out (the train is the only transport to Aguas Calientes), the Peruvian government airlifted travelers out of danger and closed both the park and the town to tourists until April 1. Looks like we´ll stay in Ecuador.
Last week was Carnaval, the Latin American version of Mardi Gras that lasts for the Monday and Tuesday before Ash Wednesday and is celebrated from coast to coast (coast to jungle, I guess). People celebrate differently in different regions, but here on the coast the big tradition is playing with water and paint. Jake ''celebrated'' Carnaval with the neighborhood boys by joining in their battle. The most common defenses appear on street corners a few days before the holiday: squirt guns, aerosol canisters of foam, bags of tempera paint to put in balloons or smear on people with your hands. When I came home, Jake was covered in red and purple paint - the true sign of a successful Carnaval. I escaped the termpera, but did get nailed with a few buckets of water.
Reserving water balloons only for friends and family is a foreign concept - children and adults alike throw buckets of water and water balloons at passing buses and I was christened more than once during a bus ride in those few days. I gave the Ecuadorians a bit of entertainment when I jumped from my seat after a water balloon exploding on my neck awoke me from a daze. The man in front of me saw it happen and started cracking up good-naturedly. He apologized ''for his people'' and gave me a good smile.
In other news, I got in to law school! Loyola Chicago and Ohio State both accepted me and Marquette sent me an email suggesting that I'm in - I'm hoping their letter just hasn´t made it through international post yet. Vanderbilt and BC are up in the air and I should hear in the next few weeks. To answer the obvious question, I don't know which is my top choice. All have their pros and cons, but I'll keep you posted.
Thanks to those who have written lately - please keep it coming and I´ll keep posting!
I mentioned that the professional fate of a few teachers was hanging uncertainly, but it looks like Ecuadorian laws and precarious financial situations made the decsions for us. Our president, Rafael Correa, is in the process of pushing for education reform, including some changes that will undermine private schools. Correa is a strongly leftist thinker and has passed several laws in his first and now second term that chip away the strength of schools like Nuevo Mundo. For example, private schools are no longer able to remove children from class or from the school if they don´t pay their tuition. For Mundo, this meant a deficit of over $400,000 in January 2010. Thankfully, we are allowed to prevent kids from taking finals exams and thus passing on to the next year if they haven´t paid. In the week before finals, the endless line trailing out of the administration office testified that people do have the money to pay that $5,000 debt they owe the school - they just don´t pay until they have to. We ended the year just barely in the black, but are also losing a lot of students due to their families´ financial constraints. Fewer students means fewer staff, and this year we cut a whopping 8% of faculty and staff.
I lost a few teachers in my department, but we didn´t downsize so I´m one of the lucky few still at school interviewing new candidates. What a job - I´m learning that writing ''Fluent in English'' on your resume does very little to attest to one's actual skills. Yikes. I did have one candidate who is fluent in English, Spanish, and Gaelic, and conversational in Thai and Khmer. Very impressive. Anyways, I should be done in a few more days - then vacation!
For the two weeks I have off, Jake and I were planning a trip to Peru to visit Machu Picchu. Unfortunately winter rains caused major mudslides in the Peruvian mountains and destroyed the train tracks from Cuzco to Aguas Calientes, the town at the base of Machu Picchu National Park. With no way in or out (the train is the only transport to Aguas Calientes), the Peruvian government airlifted travelers out of danger and closed both the park and the town to tourists until April 1. Looks like we´ll stay in Ecuador.
Last week was Carnaval, the Latin American version of Mardi Gras that lasts for the Monday and Tuesday before Ash Wednesday and is celebrated from coast to coast (coast to jungle, I guess). People celebrate differently in different regions, but here on the coast the big tradition is playing with water and paint. Jake ''celebrated'' Carnaval with the neighborhood boys by joining in their battle. The most common defenses appear on street corners a few days before the holiday: squirt guns, aerosol canisters of foam, bags of tempera paint to put in balloons or smear on people with your hands. When I came home, Jake was covered in red and purple paint - the true sign of a successful Carnaval. I escaped the termpera, but did get nailed with a few buckets of water.
Reserving water balloons only for friends and family is a foreign concept - children and adults alike throw buckets of water and water balloons at passing buses and I was christened more than once during a bus ride in those few days. I gave the Ecuadorians a bit of entertainment when I jumped from my seat after a water balloon exploding on my neck awoke me from a daze. The man in front of me saw it happen and started cracking up good-naturedly. He apologized ''for his people'' and gave me a good smile.
In other news, I got in to law school! Loyola Chicago and Ohio State both accepted me and Marquette sent me an email suggesting that I'm in - I'm hoping their letter just hasn´t made it through international post yet. Vanderbilt and BC are up in the air and I should hear in the next few weeks. To answer the obvious question, I don't know which is my top choice. All have their pros and cons, but I'll keep you posted.
Thanks to those who have written lately - please keep it coming and I´ll keep posting!
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Almost time for vacation...
Now for the news!
We´re wrapping up a school year here at Nuevo Mundo. Recent weeks saw me running like a madwoman to keep up with the pace. Since I review the content and grammar for ALL English language materials, finals week kept me moving. Lately I´ve had LOTS of grading to do thanks to our new, ´´experimental´´ system. We´re still working out some kinks, which means I made and graded about 225 exams in 4 days, and other teachers neither made nor graded any. Every year is another chance to get it right...right...? Also, since we´re moving to the IB system, which means lots of critical thinking work and essay-writing, I ended up with so many hours of grading (over 30!) that I recruited Jake. The vice principal Rodolfo took advantage Jake´s English fluency as well and had him grading History, Psychology, and Business exams. It´s been a crazy few weeks.
Now I´m into the somewhat uncomfortable phase in which I give feedback to teachers and make recommendations about who stays and who goes. I have at least 3 who are heading out the door, and one other I will strongly recommended we let go. I´ve never had my word carry weight in whether someone keeps or loses their job - it´s hard to be honest when I know that honesty will complicate the life of people I like personally, but don´t think can handle the job. Any tips from people with management experience?
Jake has been busy here at Mundo between grading and now teaching another weeklong prep course for incoming students. He has his hands full this time because they are Foundation students rather than morning school students. To refresh you, the morning school is composed of wealthy students, while the foundation draws from the poorer communities in Guayaquil and Duran. Understandably, the Foundation students are much less prepared, especially in English, and Jake found yesterday that even his simplest English and best acting couldn´t communicate his point. We´re forbidden from speaking Spanish, so he´ll have quite a week.
The weather here is getting insufferable (for a Midwesterner). Now, it´s even hot and sticky at night. We´re very lucky to have an air conditioner in one room of our house and this past week we finally gave in and turned it on. What a wonderful indulgence! Bugs have been awful - we get lots of ´´grillos´´ which are enormous crickets that find their way into the house no matter how well we close it. Then they hide in our clothes and sing all night to wake us up, so we spend 10 minutes every morning killing bugs. I´m not particularly squeamish, but even I´ll say it´s pretty gross, especially when you find them in your shoes in the morning.
The rains have held off here to the point that we´re experiencing water shortages. This doesn´t effect us because we´re repeat clients who empty an entire tanker of water into our cistern every time we call, so we´re a more profitable investment than the neighbors who ask for only a barrel or two. Even when the neighbors can´t get water, we can (it makes me a little uncomfortable to think about white privilege, but I also really like the fact that I´m not as vulnerable as my neighbors. It´s confusing to feel both of those). Again, to refresh, our neighborhood does not have running water and large tanker trucks full of non-potable water continuously circle through to fill up the buckets and barrels people place outside their houses and bring in, bucket by bucket, for showering and diswashing. We´re lucky enough to have a large, underground cistern and a pump that brings water to the tap in our house. Drinking water is available at the corner store and we buy it in large, company-water-cooler-size jugs. And when I say we, I mean Jake because I can barely carry that much liquid for three blocks and he chivalrously rises to the occasion. What a gentleman.
We´re both getting back into the swing of things. Going home and seeing friends and family was wonderful, but a little disorienting. It feels like THIS is the place I should be visiting, and THERE is the place I belong. Seeing you all for a brief vacation and then returning ´´home´´ to Ecuador felt strange and left me in limbo for a while. Finally, a few weeks later, my spirit is catching up to my body.
One of the volunteers, Steve, hosted his family here this week. What a treat to have other English speakers around! Jake and I are lucky to have the volunteers, but having new people with new stories is such a novelty. It´s strange to think that it´s a luxury to have companions you can easily communicate with but in a foreign country, it absolutely is.
Take care all, and feel free to comment here of via email!
We´re wrapping up a school year here at Nuevo Mundo. Recent weeks saw me running like a madwoman to keep up with the pace. Since I review the content and grammar for ALL English language materials, finals week kept me moving. Lately I´ve had LOTS of grading to do thanks to our new, ´´experimental´´ system. We´re still working out some kinks, which means I made and graded about 225 exams in 4 days, and other teachers neither made nor graded any. Every year is another chance to get it right...right...? Also, since we´re moving to the IB system, which means lots of critical thinking work and essay-writing, I ended up with so many hours of grading (over 30!) that I recruited Jake. The vice principal Rodolfo took advantage Jake´s English fluency as well and had him grading History, Psychology, and Business exams. It´s been a crazy few weeks.
Now I´m into the somewhat uncomfortable phase in which I give feedback to teachers and make recommendations about who stays and who goes. I have at least 3 who are heading out the door, and one other I will strongly recommended we let go. I´ve never had my word carry weight in whether someone keeps or loses their job - it´s hard to be honest when I know that honesty will complicate the life of people I like personally, but don´t think can handle the job. Any tips from people with management experience?
Jake has been busy here at Mundo between grading and now teaching another weeklong prep course for incoming students. He has his hands full this time because they are Foundation students rather than morning school students. To refresh you, the morning school is composed of wealthy students, while the foundation draws from the poorer communities in Guayaquil and Duran. Understandably, the Foundation students are much less prepared, especially in English, and Jake found yesterday that even his simplest English and best acting couldn´t communicate his point. We´re forbidden from speaking Spanish, so he´ll have quite a week.
The weather here is getting insufferable (for a Midwesterner). Now, it´s even hot and sticky at night. We´re very lucky to have an air conditioner in one room of our house and this past week we finally gave in and turned it on. What a wonderful indulgence! Bugs have been awful - we get lots of ´´grillos´´ which are enormous crickets that find their way into the house no matter how well we close it. Then they hide in our clothes and sing all night to wake us up, so we spend 10 minutes every morning killing bugs. I´m not particularly squeamish, but even I´ll say it´s pretty gross, especially when you find them in your shoes in the morning.
The rains have held off here to the point that we´re experiencing water shortages. This doesn´t effect us because we´re repeat clients who empty an entire tanker of water into our cistern every time we call, so we´re a more profitable investment than the neighbors who ask for only a barrel or two. Even when the neighbors can´t get water, we can (it makes me a little uncomfortable to think about white privilege, but I also really like the fact that I´m not as vulnerable as my neighbors. It´s confusing to feel both of those). Again, to refresh, our neighborhood does not have running water and large tanker trucks full of non-potable water continuously circle through to fill up the buckets and barrels people place outside their houses and bring in, bucket by bucket, for showering and diswashing. We´re lucky enough to have a large, underground cistern and a pump that brings water to the tap in our house. Drinking water is available at the corner store and we buy it in large, company-water-cooler-size jugs. And when I say we, I mean Jake because I can barely carry that much liquid for three blocks and he chivalrously rises to the occasion. What a gentleman.
We´re both getting back into the swing of things. Going home and seeing friends and family was wonderful, but a little disorienting. It feels like THIS is the place I should be visiting, and THERE is the place I belong. Seeing you all for a brief vacation and then returning ´´home´´ to Ecuador felt strange and left me in limbo for a while. Finally, a few weeks later, my spirit is catching up to my body.
One of the volunteers, Steve, hosted his family here this week. What a treat to have other English speakers around! Jake and I are lucky to have the volunteers, but having new people with new stories is such a novelty. It´s strange to think that it´s a luxury to have companions you can easily communicate with but in a foreign country, it absolutely is.
Take care all, and feel free to comment here of via email!
Inicio
Dear friends and family,
Ok, you were all right - a blog is a better way to keep in touch. To those who kept up with my previous blog during my first tour in Ecuador, the link still works, but I haven´t updated it. Come here for news.
For a first entry, I´m posting the initial email I sent to all of you in early November as a reminder of what I´m doing (it´s a little unorthodox - I forgive you if you forgot). I´ll follow this with another post to give updates. From November:
*********
In the last few weeks, I´ve gotten enough emails saying, ´´Hey, I´ll be in Chicago soon - can we get together?´´ to make me think I haven´t properly informed most of you about my current job and recent move. So, time for a catch-up.
I lost my job in July due to State budget cuts that eliminated my position (and half of the funding for social services in Illinois, which thankfully is now almost completely restored). Less than a week later I found out that the bilingual school where I taught while in Ecuador had lost the head of their English Dept. After a few international phone calls, I packed my bags and headed to Guayaquil.
On September 28 I flew down to Ecuador with Jake, my boyfriend of a year, and have spent the last month absorbing and producing as much as possible with LOTS left to do (exciting!). Our school year ends in February, but I will likely stay in Ecuador through the winter vacation and continue at Mundo until July 2010.
And, dear friends and family, please continue to share your lives with me while I´m away. Homesickness is an ugly foe and getting updates from you softens its force, helping me to be more present both here and there. You may deem your life ´´boring´´ next to my ´´adventures´´ in Ecuador – I label your world familiar, inviting, and, most importantly, yours. I want to participate in it as much as possible. Write! About yourself! Please!
Lastly, thanks to all of you for your endless support that energizes me enough to do things (like move to Ecuador with little notice) that push me to think and grow. Every one of you had a hand in forming who I am, and I´m grateful to you.
Below I´m including a little more depth on what I´m doing here. More to come soon, including the requisite, ´´You won´t believe this crazy thing that happened to me in South America´´ stories. Peace be with you!
Un abrazo,
Chris
P.S: If I forgot anyone you know who would like to receive messages from me, please let me know.
My job. I supervise 16 teachers in Language, Business, Psychology, History, and Computer science in grades 7-12. The school, Unidad Educativa Bilingue Nuevo Mundo (or ´´Mundo´´ in all subsequent emails because the name is painfully long), just applied for and received International Baccalaureate certification, but they need some help getting curriculum and instruction up to snuff. Thus, a major part of my job is to train teachers to move beyond Remembering and Explaining questions into ones that ask students to Apply, Evaluate, and Create (any teachers out there have a background in Bloom´s Taxonomy? I´ll need ideas!). Day to day, this means I spend my time advising teachers, editing English classroom materials, observing and evaluating faculty, and somehow designing a curriculum workshop for teachers in whatever free time is left.
But Chris, you may be saying, didn´t you study Spanish and Peace Studies? Don´t you have absolutely no training in Education and only a few months of practical experience? What the hell were they thinking when they hired you?!
I agree! What nonsense! I equally doubted their good judgment (and thus my own, for accepting a job I wasn´t sure I could handle). Now that I´m here, I see (a bit) more clearly why they asked me to come. Education in Ecuador and many countries, including some schools in the US, is typically based on rote memorization and regurgitation. At best, this lets students skate by without thinking. At worst, it´s just plain boring. Sadly, ´´regurgitation tests´´ are oh-so-easy to grade that many teachers gravitate towards them. They´re also the kinds of lessons that most of our Ecuadorian-educated teachers grew up with, and asking them to teach the students to think critically is simply a non-concept. It´s not that they don´t want to try (well, some of them don´t) - it´s that they were never taught what ´´Compare and contrast...´´ and ´´Evaluate the validity of...´´ mean.
But, educated by parents and teachers who just loved Socratic questioning, I understand this by experience in a way that most teachers here don´t. My job, then, is to reflect on, read about, and analyze the pedagogy I´ve benefitted from and train others to use it as well. So yes, I´m in a little over my head, and certainly over my training. And I love it. What a challenge!
Thanks for your interest in my world. Please share yours, too.
(Note for educators: As your reading this, if you think of any books that would help me do my job better, please send recommendations. Thank you!)
Ok, you were all right - a blog is a better way to keep in touch. To those who kept up with my previous blog during my first tour in Ecuador, the link still works, but I haven´t updated it. Come here for news.
For a first entry, I´m posting the initial email I sent to all of you in early November as a reminder of what I´m doing (it´s a little unorthodox - I forgive you if you forgot). I´ll follow this with another post to give updates. From November:
*********
In the last few weeks, I´ve gotten enough emails saying, ´´Hey, I´ll be in Chicago soon - can we get together?´´ to make me think I haven´t properly informed most of you about my current job and recent move. So, time for a catch-up.
I lost my job in July due to State budget cuts that eliminated my position (and half of the funding for social services in Illinois, which thankfully is now almost completely restored). Less than a week later I found out that the bilingual school where I taught while in Ecuador had lost the head of their English Dept. After a few international phone calls, I packed my bags and headed to Guayaquil.
On September 28 I flew down to Ecuador with Jake, my boyfriend of a year, and have spent the last month absorbing and producing as much as possible with LOTS left to do (exciting!). Our school year ends in February, but I will likely stay in Ecuador through the winter vacation and continue at Mundo until July 2010.
And, dear friends and family, please continue to share your lives with me while I´m away. Homesickness is an ugly foe and getting updates from you softens its force, helping me to be more present both here and there. You may deem your life ´´boring´´ next to my ´´adventures´´ in Ecuador – I label your world familiar, inviting, and, most importantly, yours. I want to participate in it as much as possible. Write! About yourself! Please!
Lastly, thanks to all of you for your endless support that energizes me enough to do things (like move to Ecuador with little notice) that push me to think and grow. Every one of you had a hand in forming who I am, and I´m grateful to you.
Below I´m including a little more depth on what I´m doing here. More to come soon, including the requisite, ´´You won´t believe this crazy thing that happened to me in South America´´ stories. Peace be with you!
Un abrazo,
Chris
P.S: If I forgot anyone you know who would like to receive messages from me, please let me know.
My job. I supervise 16 teachers in Language, Business, Psychology, History, and Computer science in grades 7-12. The school, Unidad Educativa Bilingue Nuevo Mundo (or ´´Mundo´´ in all subsequent emails because the name is painfully long), just applied for and received International Baccalaureate certification, but they need some help getting curriculum and instruction up to snuff. Thus, a major part of my job is to train teachers to move beyond Remembering and Explaining questions into ones that ask students to Apply, Evaluate, and Create (any teachers out there have a background in Bloom´s Taxonomy? I´ll need ideas!). Day to day, this means I spend my time advising teachers, editing English classroom materials, observing and evaluating faculty, and somehow designing a curriculum workshop for teachers in whatever free time is left.
But Chris, you may be saying, didn´t you study Spanish and Peace Studies? Don´t you have absolutely no training in Education and only a few months of practical experience? What the hell were they thinking when they hired you?!
I agree! What nonsense! I equally doubted their good judgment (and thus my own, for accepting a job I wasn´t sure I could handle). Now that I´m here, I see (a bit) more clearly why they asked me to come. Education in Ecuador and many countries, including some schools in the US, is typically based on rote memorization and regurgitation. At best, this lets students skate by without thinking. At worst, it´s just plain boring. Sadly, ´´regurgitation tests´´ are oh-so-easy to grade that many teachers gravitate towards them. They´re also the kinds of lessons that most of our Ecuadorian-educated teachers grew up with, and asking them to teach the students to think critically is simply a non-concept. It´s not that they don´t want to try (well, some of them don´t) - it´s that they were never taught what ´´Compare and contrast...´´ and ´´Evaluate the validity of...´´ mean.
But, educated by parents and teachers who just loved Socratic questioning, I understand this by experience in a way that most teachers here don´t. My job, then, is to reflect on, read about, and analyze the pedagogy I´ve benefitted from and train others to use it as well. So yes, I´m in a little over my head, and certainly over my training. And I love it. What a challenge!
Thanks for your interest in my world. Please share yours, too.
(Note for educators: As your reading this, if you think of any books that would help me do my job better, please send recommendations. Thank you!)
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