Volunteer Time!

One of the main things I am doing here, besides venturing out to class and laying out on the beach, is volunteering. I mentioned this last time but I thought I should go into more detail. I found my volunteer job through one of my professors at the university. She is an acrobat, and teaches gymnastics classes at the SBEC International School. She took myself and one of the other students there with her, and we met with the administrators and discussed our majors and interests. Then the school tried to match these up with an unmet need they had.

SBEC is a private bilingual school, and 30 percent of the students are international. The students call the women who work there "Auntie," which is a pretty typical term for young people here to call pretty much any woman in a mentoring role, and which always gives me a warm fuzzy feeling.

I spend my time there designing workshops to teach the faculty and administration how to handle conflicts in the classroom and among themselves more effectively. The first workshop I am planning is all about communication and conflict. I am going to talk about body language and using I-statements, among other things. I am also going to be teaching some classes. On Thursday i taught third graders about national parks and about what conflict is, and then we did an example about conflicts in national parks. It was very rewarding and I actually enjoyed teaching more than I expected!

At school the other day, I was offered a snack. It came in a little baggy and looked like croutons, but tasted like shortbread cookies. It is called chin-chin. A man goes around selling these treats at the school, and the kids get very excited, like they would about an ice cream truck in America.

So far I am finding my experience out at the school to be very interesting and rewarding. Since it is French/English bilingual, all the French I am exposed to will hopefully help me to improve my own French skills. I also have a lot of independence and my ideas and thoughts are taken very seriously by the teachers and administrators. They often ask my opinion about problems with students or even ask me to assist in situations, which is really helping me to feel more comfortable with thinking on my feet. On the downside, it can be stressful because I feel like they ascribe me more expertise than I actually have. Also, sometimes I have to force myself to sit around and just visit with the teachers, because I realize that I am working harder than the people who are actually getting paid to be there!