Teaching in the DR with Outreach 360
Over Spring Break 2019, I was fortunate enough to be able to travel with Poly to the Dominican Republic to volunteer with Outreach360 for a week. I had previously volunteered with Outreach360 in Nicaragua and was excited to volunteer at their original location in the DR. I had assumed that the teaching experience would prove to be very similar. I was wrong.
Don't misunderstand me though. I had a great time in the DR, I just believe that it was way less organized and structured than Nicaragua was. While it seemed like the teaching orientation in the DR took way more time to complete, I got way less out of it (i.e., I was still confused as to what exactly they wanted of us, their activities were sort of useless/ineffective at times, and I felt constrained in the ways I could teach, which I did not necessarily feel in Nicaragua). One exciting part about the DR, though, was that we were allowed to teach in the public schools in the mornings, which was something we were unable to experience in Nicaragua.
Teaching in the local public schools was a very exciting, eye-opening experience for me. The kids were full of SO much energy (as one person put it, it was like they had "merengue in the blood"). They were vivacious, sassy, spunky, and so much more, which was definitely a challenge to manage in the classroom but still tons of fun to interact with. The Poly students volunteered at John F Kennedy primary school. I was in the teaching group that taught two different second grade classrooms. All we were told before we went into our first day of teaching was that we would teach one class, have recess, and then teach another class. That was it.
Walking out of my first day of teaching, I felt like a zombie. I was completely disheartened by what I had witnessed and experienced in the two classrooms. The kids were completely uncontrollable. They yelled, ran around the classroom, and rarely did what we asked. But, my group and I rallied and regrouped. The next day, we went in with a slightly different strategy. While we were told by Outreach360 to only use English, I had witnessed numerous times the Outreach360 staff come into a classroom, rant in Spanish about how the kids needed to be more respectful of us, and then leave (which would result in the class erupting into chaos again). Since we thought it was slightly hypocritical that they used Spanish occasionally after their "only use English" messages, my group and I began to use a mix of both (around 85% English, 15% Spanish). This mix of Spanish and English really seemed to help control the kids (I think part of the problem the first day is that they really just did not understand what we were saying and were thus bored and disinterested).
The second and third days of teaching in the public schools were astronomically better than the first. By the third day, I had experienced some of the most heartwarming moments that can only come with teaching little kids. I remember how after one of our lessons on the third day, one girl was giving a sheet back to me and I told her to keep it since she had worked so hard on it. She asked, "para mi mamá?" (for my mom?) with the biggest, proudest smile on her face. In the other classroom, I gave one kid a star for his hard work and he gave me a super big smile and went to show all of the other teachers. I was then swarmed by 5-6 other little boys who wanted stars and who also were asking for "ciens!" (100%s) on all of their work. They were each so eager to be acknowledged for working hard, and I was more than happy to do so.
While my group and I finally seemed to connect with the kids by the third day, it was not without learning a few things on the way. I was really reminded that if I wanted to relate with a little kid, I needed to think (and almost act) like one more. I remember one girl was giving me so much sass during a lesson one day (I would ask why she didn't want to do anything and she would say no! or put her hand in my face), so I began to sass her right back and she finally began to listen and participate. My group and I also had to be very flexible and creative. The first and second days we found out once we got to class that several of our activities wouldn't work out very well due to a variety of reasons (in part because of the lack of clear instruction, missing materials, etc.), so we had to adapt on the spot and come up with new things to do.
Another aspect of this trip that was different from Nicaragua was the fact that the DR had both a Learning Center and a Literacy Center (while Nicaragua only had a Learning Center). Poly was sent to teach in the Literacy Center (which sort of blindsided all of us since we had not really been told about it until the day we were sent there). What further blindsided us was the fact that they separated us based on the levels of our Spanish-speaking abilities. I was in the group with the higher-level Spanish speakers, and we were told that we were going to be teaching/reading/talking with kids in Spanish (to develop their literacy in their own language before teaching them to be literate in another language). That was most definitely a shock since I thought that the whole point of the trip was for me and the group to teach English. Again, we had to be flexible and creative. Teaching in the Literacy Center was probably the biggest challenge for me because it required me to think and come up with questions and statements (something I'm not good at doing in English) in Spanish on the fly, which was made even more difficult considering my conversational Spanish is not that great/advanced.
Although this trip was incredibly challenging at times, I learned a lot, gained many new skills (for which I am incredibly grateful), had a lot of fun, and made many new friends.
Don't misunderstand me though. I had a great time in the DR, I just believe that it was way less organized and structured than Nicaragua was. While it seemed like the teaching orientation in the DR took way more time to complete, I got way less out of it (i.e., I was still confused as to what exactly they wanted of us, their activities were sort of useless/ineffective at times, and I felt constrained in the ways I could teach, which I did not necessarily feel in Nicaragua). One exciting part about the DR, though, was that we were allowed to teach in the public schools in the mornings, which was something we were unable to experience in Nicaragua.
Teaching in the local public schools was a very exciting, eye-opening experience for me. The kids were full of SO much energy (as one person put it, it was like they had "merengue in the blood"). They were vivacious, sassy, spunky, and so much more, which was definitely a challenge to manage in the classroom but still tons of fun to interact with. The Poly students volunteered at John F Kennedy primary school. I was in the teaching group that taught two different second grade classrooms. All we were told before we went into our first day of teaching was that we would teach one class, have recess, and then teach another class. That was it.
Walking out of my first day of teaching, I felt like a zombie. I was completely disheartened by what I had witnessed and experienced in the two classrooms. The kids were completely uncontrollable. They yelled, ran around the classroom, and rarely did what we asked. But, my group and I rallied and regrouped. The next day, we went in with a slightly different strategy. While we were told by Outreach360 to only use English, I had witnessed numerous times the Outreach360 staff come into a classroom, rant in Spanish about how the kids needed to be more respectful of us, and then leave (which would result in the class erupting into chaos again). Since we thought it was slightly hypocritical that they used Spanish occasionally after their "only use English" messages, my group and I began to use a mix of both (around 85% English, 15% Spanish). This mix of Spanish and English really seemed to help control the kids (I think part of the problem the first day is that they really just did not understand what we were saying and were thus bored and disinterested).
The second and third days of teaching in the public schools were astronomically better than the first. By the third day, I had experienced some of the most heartwarming moments that can only come with teaching little kids. I remember how after one of our lessons on the third day, one girl was giving a sheet back to me and I told her to keep it since she had worked so hard on it. She asked, "para mi mamá?" (for my mom?) with the biggest, proudest smile on her face. In the other classroom, I gave one kid a star for his hard work and he gave me a super big smile and went to show all of the other teachers. I was then swarmed by 5-6 other little boys who wanted stars and who also were asking for "ciens!" (100%s) on all of their work. They were each so eager to be acknowledged for working hard, and I was more than happy to do so.
While my group and I finally seemed to connect with the kids by the third day, it was not without learning a few things on the way. I was really reminded that if I wanted to relate with a little kid, I needed to think (and almost act) like one more. I remember one girl was giving me so much sass during a lesson one day (I would ask why she didn't want to do anything and she would say no! or put her hand in my face), so I began to sass her right back and she finally began to listen and participate. My group and I also had to be very flexible and creative. The first and second days we found out once we got to class that several of our activities wouldn't work out very well due to a variety of reasons (in part because of the lack of clear instruction, missing materials, etc.), so we had to adapt on the spot and come up with new things to do.
Another aspect of this trip that was different from Nicaragua was the fact that the DR had both a Learning Center and a Literacy Center (while Nicaragua only had a Learning Center). Poly was sent to teach in the Literacy Center (which sort of blindsided all of us since we had not really been told about it until the day we were sent there). What further blindsided us was the fact that they separated us based on the levels of our Spanish-speaking abilities. I was in the group with the higher-level Spanish speakers, and we were told that we were going to be teaching/reading/talking with kids in Spanish (to develop their literacy in their own language before teaching them to be literate in another language). That was most definitely a shock since I thought that the whole point of the trip was for me and the group to teach English. Again, we had to be flexible and creative. Teaching in the Literacy Center was probably the biggest challenge for me because it required me to think and come up with questions and statements (something I'm not good at doing in English) in Spanish on the fly, which was made even more difficult considering my conversational Spanish is not that great/advanced.
Although this trip was incredibly challenging at times, I learned a lot, gained many new skills (for which I am incredibly grateful), had a lot of fun, and made many new friends.
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