December's Newsletter

December Newsletter



Greetings from the North Rupununi to one and all. I hope that everyone enjoyed their holidays and was able to spend as much time loving their friends and family as possible. I most certainly did and I enjoyed every second of it!!

School in Guyana closed on a Friday, the 7th of January, and Jess and I made it out of Annai on the 8th, but not before having a wonderful night of drinking and dancing that last night away at the Bina Hill Institute’s Christmas party! Who says dancing to the same 5 Pepe Moreno songs over and over again and again can’t be a good time?

The last week of school was spent marking final exams, which was a nice and quiet change of pace because most of the students were heading back to their villages all throughout the week. For some of my classes, it was hard to see so many of them fail and in the end, to feel like I was the one who had ultimately failed as a teacher. While I am sure that I have not become the best teacher in the world in only a few weeks of teaching, I must remember that some students just don’t see the importance of learning and their education and one can only rack their brain time and time again to somehow tell them or demonstrate it to them that we are not getting up every morning to come teach them because we think they deserve a punishment for something, but these things for their best interest. I am sure that every teacher in the whole wide world feels like this at times, so I will try to take it with a grain of salt. There definitely were certain students that do genuinely seem to like learning and they work hard, some work very hard, at their studies, and so it was nice to see my hardworking students get the grades that they deserved. All in all, I have realized that teaching is a challenge, and I was ready to take a break, regroup, and spend some time in Chicago enjoying all the luxuries I hope to never take for granted again, the most important one being my family.

We flew out of Annai on the 8th of December to head to our mid-year conference in Georgetown, which put us in Georgetown for about 4 days, which was fun because we got to hang out with all the other volunteers and hear stories about all the different sites where there are World Teach Volunteers. We met with some officials from the Ministry of Education on one of those days…. and let’s just say that it was a very interesting experience that left us all a little exacerbated…maybe a word like enraged would be better for describing how we felt. First off, the guy walks in and cuts Nancy off just to let us know that it really didn’t matter what we said, it was not their (the Ministry’s) responsibility to deal with our frustrations. After a ten-minute speech about how there is nobody at the Ministry accountable for the regional education officers (REDO) in our regions he opened the floor to us. At this point I was thinking, “Well, what is the point of saying anything or even sitting through this meeting if the energy that will go into thinking about and saying something won’t make any kind of difference, and it has already been stated that not an ounce of energy will go into fixing any sort of problem there is. Who ever said the energy that goes into a system equals the energy that goes out? Not in this case. Anyways, to be concise in order to not rile myself up about this ‘official’ again, I will just tell you that when we were talking about reading and how loads of students don’t even know how to, let alone interpret poetry from the 18th century, we were told that they are not aloud to repeat the first and second grade (think about when you learned to read) because students at this age are too sensitive and the Ministry does not want to damage them…I think most of us wanted to stand up and start letting our private thoughts become spoken words in a slightly irrational way at this point. Everyone reading this would probably (hopefully-or else I am taking you off my email group :) ) agree that not knowing how to read your whole schooling career might possibly damage a person more than holding them back one year to get a fundamental problem fixed before it goes too far and really damages a student. Would it be harder to admit that you don’t know how to read when you are young and don’t much care about an image or when you are 15 years old and really cool with a hot girlfriend? Not to mention all the years up to this age that you have sat in class pretending like you knew what was going on, while not really learning much after all this time, wasted time. This man also told us that research shows class sizes of 50+ are more beneficial to students than a smaller class would be…uh, what? Then he brought up classrooms in India and completely lost relevance then.

So after being mind-blown from my experience with the Ministry of Education, I was looking forward to letting my neurons take a break as they glided 30,000 feet in the air. Travelling home made me a bit weary, physically and mentally, after 4 flights and 3 countries in 2 days (actually 3 flights…. I had a few days between the Annai to Georgetown flight)…but I was excited, so it all very much worth it. Being home made me realize how great of a city Chicago is and how proud I am to come from there. We got to fly in going west just to the North side of the city. It was about 6:30 p.m. when I landed, and seeing all the lights was surreal considering where I was coming from. By this time I was getting ants in my pants (and a sore bumsy after all that sitting) and just wanted to get off the plane, stretch my muscles, and RUN off the plane as fast as I could to see my mama! Being home also made me realize that it is my home, the place where the people I care for the most are at, my family, my friends, my dog (I guess she would be classified under family too, huh?). Hopefully I got to see most of you, and those of you that indeed I did see, I had an amazing time with and thank you for making time to hang out with me while I was home. Becky, well we spent a massive amount of time together, I especially loved the dance party with you and Mary, Erin you were always around too, walking my dog at 3 in the morning, Michelle and Niki thanks for trekking out to the city to come and hang out, everyone I saw on New Year’s Eve, it was great and I couldn’t have been happier to ring in yet one more year with you all. Courtney and Shelbey thanks for helping me cook on Christmas and I love every moment I get to spend with you. But Mom, oh Mommy, I need to thank you the most for bringing me home and I am so happy that we got to spend so much time hanging out and thoroughly enjoying and appreciating each other’s company in a way we might never have done before. Being away from you and not being able to talk to you whenever I want rips my heart out sometimes and makes we wish time away to come back home to where you are. I love you so very much and hope that one day I can repay you for all you have ever done for me, even though I think I might be too far in debt to ever work my way out in this lifetime. The time went all to fast, but I will be home ‘just now’ as they would say in Guyana. I will fill you all in about my ventures back to Guyana and eventually Annai. Let’s just say that I wish I could snap my fingers and just be where I want to be. School is once again underway and time is once again flying. You will hear all about it in January’s newsletter, which, as you have noticed by now, will probably be ready and sent sometime in late February…Until then…. take care and take time to love the one’s you love.