Returned Volunteers
Have a story to submit? Let us know! (e-mail link here)
Hope and Hard Work – Kandice Kohler
Sunday Partner – Jessica Bruno
Water – Dan Gershman
Raising Chickens -Alicia Wilson
Learning From a Friend – Alicia Wilson
When Your Parents are Gone – Alicia Wilson
A Day in the Life of a Biology Teacher in a Third World Country – Jessie Sue Smith
Resilience – Jaime Hurlbut
Soesdyke Community High School – Taruna Sadhoo
‘Hope and Hard Work’ by Kandice Kohler [WorldTeach Guyana, 2006-2007]
After-school one very warm day Parris agreed to walk his teacher into town to show her some of the best and cheapest shops. He arrived on bike and quickly dismounted to join his teacher in walking into town. Of course the first stop was to his family’s meat shop then onto his cousin’s shop for eggs and cornflakes. The last stop was to his aunt’s house to pick up a few chicken hearts for the next day’s science lesson. Parris was studying the heart and circulatory system in class and getting these hearts would earn him some extra credit. On the long walk back to his teacher’s house conversation topics volleyed back and forth landing on personal fears. Parris asked if his teacher had any fears and she quickly responded “snakes!” His response was death. To fear death at the young age of 15 was a concern to his teacher.
Upon first working with Parris he cared very little about attending school. He was kind and considerate at the start of his grade 8 year but showed no real interest in school. It took some time for his teacher to learn that he struggled in reading and lacked confidence. With a little attention and some support from his teacher, Parris began to let go of his fears and start making some goals for his life.
As Parris finishes up grade 9 this year he strives to complete secondary school and go on to study animal science. He believes with hope and hard work anything can be possible.
‘Sunday Partner’ by Jessica Bruno [WorldTeach Guyana, 2006-2007]
hops off the bicycle,
her younger sister will go from here
she wants to run
to be free
so young, not a care
not a thought
just the long road
to wowetta
she carries a gift for her older sister
fish her mother sends with love
in a bundle on the bicycle
open road
smiling faces
freedom. youth. beauty.
simplicity
‘Water’ adapted from the journal of Dan Gershman [WorldTeach Guyana, 2006-2007]
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
The school is out of water on account of it being the dry season so I couldn’t finish an osmosis practical with my 10th grade class this afternoon.
One of my 11th graders needed to make it up as well, and all their practical work needs to be submitted by next week to recieve CSEC credit for it. The lab called for 400ml of water. By some miracle, I had exactly 400ml of water in my Nalgene so I let her use that. What are the odds? I hope her experiment works out….
‘Raising Chickens’ by Alicia Wilson [WorldTeach Guyana, 2006-2007]
Student: Miss, can you help me go to the university? It costs 40,000 Guyanese dollars.
Me: I wish I could, but I’m going into debt for graduate school and I did not make any money this year.
Student: Oh, that’s alright, I’ll figure out something.
After returning home, I received a letter from the student explaining that since he did not have the funding for college, he was raising chickens in hopes of paying for his education at the University of Guyana.
The student is still raising chickens and trying to attend the University of Guyana.
‘Learning From a Friend’ by Alicia Wilson [WorldTeach Guyana, 2006-2007]
“Miss, how do you spell osteoporosis?” asked one of my students when completing a lab report on decaying bones. “I know it’s a bone disease, but I just cannot spell it.”
“Oh, slavery, like Kunta Kente. You’ve read or seen Roots, right Miss?”
Remember this knowledge is coming from a student in very rural Guyana! This individual was one of the smartest students in my 11th grade class. In fact, his family recognized him as the child most likely to do well. Therefore, due to limited funds and a mother fighting cancer, the student was only child that the family could afford to send through all of secondary school.
Now, the student works night shift in the mines and hopes to pursue further education, but cannot afford it. The closest that the student gets to post secondary education is that one of his best friends who attends vocational school teaches him what he learned over breaks so that the student will not fall behind.
‘When Your Parents are Gone’ by Alicia Wilson [WorldTeach Guyana, 2006-2007]
In February 2008, over half a year since I left Guyana, I received a call from one of the nicest 11th grade students that I had.
Student: “Miss, it’s your birthday, right.”
Me: Well, not exactly, but thanks for trying to remember. How are you though? I heard about your dad.
(The student’s father had died in a mining explosion in December.)
Student: Oh, how’d you hear?
Me: One of the students that had email in Georgetown.
Student: I’m holding up Miss.
Me: I’m glad to hear that, I’ve been thinking about you a lot.
Student: Miss, my mom is moving to the islands as well to work.
(This left him and his younger brother alone.)
—Later in the conversation, when spirits were a bit higher—
Me: So, what do you want to do next in life?
Student: Be a mechanic, like my father.
‘A Day in the Life of a Biology Teacher in a Third World Country’ by Jessie Sue Smith [WorldTeach Guyana, 2006-2007]
I woke Monday morning feeling incredibly under the weather. I wrote a note to my roommate to inform the headmistress and my form students that I would be coming late that morning and left it on the kitchen counter before rolling back under my mosquito net into bed. Around 10am I managed to drag myself the few yards from my house to school after an Airbrone tablet breakfast. I hadn’t been in the staff room for five minutes when a student appeared to inform me that “a man is here to see you.” The man in question turned out to be Thomas, a man that worked at the slaughterhouse in Lethem. A few weeks back I had approached him about the possibility of donating a few cow organs for dissection in my Biology class. He had promised to get back to me.
“Miss, I have your organs prepared for you,” he told me.
“Oh, that’s so great. When should I come to collect them?”
“Right now,” he answered somewhat impatiently, “I will take you there.”
I received permission to leave the compound from Headmistress Hines and Thomas drove me down to the slaughterhouse on his motorbike. As we approached the back of the building, I noted one potential problem: there were seven cows, but all of them were still very much alive with their organs very much in tact. Then and only then did Thomas inform me that the cows would be slaughtered “just now” and I was to observe the killing process as “scientific research.” Don’t forget that I was not feeling so well just one hour ago….
For the next hour and a half I witnessed the murder of seven cows in complete horror, becoming more and more nauseous with each execution. Without all the gory (literally) details, the basic scenario went something like this: each cow was roped up and held in a small holding area by several Guyanese cowboys. Its spinal cord was then severed with a few downward thrusts of a knife through the back of the head. This would not kill the cow, but cause it to lose all balance and coordination. The poor animal would then slide down from the holding area onto the concrete floor of the slaughterhouse itself, jerking defenselessly. After situating himself behind the cow, the same cowboy would then take one deep slice to open the aorta in the cow’s neck. Oh, dear God, I have never seen so much blood. To insure full deadness, the cow was given a final few stabs through the heart. Seven times I witnessed this.
Finally, and I mean finally, I was given the organs that I had requested in a very heavy and blood-dripping bag, the same kind you get at the shop when purchasing a loaf of bread. The bag contained two kidneys, two eyeballs (with a good amount of face and fuzz still attached) and the largest tongue you have ever seen. Thomas insisted on giving me a lift back to school on his motorbike, which I declined as politely as I could deciding that a brisk walk would do me good. I carried my bag full of organs, careful not to let the drips splash onto my school clothes, the mile back to the school compound. Oh, the things I do in the name of science…
The following day I was feeling much sturdier. I collected the best dissecting tools that I could find, which turned out to be a few razor blades and school scissors since proper scalpels were completely out of the question. I found two rubber-lined dissecting trays in the lab along with a somewhat dated, but nonetheless useful diagram of the eye. I brought a bar of soap with me to ensure that my students would not spend the remainder of the day covered in eye-goo. Before the morning bell (just in case someone decided to ring one that day), I prepared the lab for our dissection with all my materials laid out in two groups. A wave of pride surged through me as I arranged each eye without a single flip in my stomach.
My students arrived and were equally thrilled and disgusted by my prepared lesson. We examined the eye and identified the sclera, cornea, the optic nerve. We made a small incision, releasing the aqueous humor from behind the cornea. Inside we found the lens, vitreous humor, retina, iris and pupil. The students drew scientific drawings of their specimen complete with labels. The final cleanup mainly involved feeding the minced eyeballs to the stray dogs in the schoolyard (it would be sacrilege to let anything go to waste in Guyana) and boys throwing eye-goo on girls that they liked. A successful lesson, although I will obviously never eat red meat again.
‘Resilience’ by Jaime Hurlbut [WorldTeach Guyana, 2006-2007]
One thing that amazed me most about my students in Guyana was their resiliency. How resilient they are! When one thing after another went wrong, still they come to school, with a certain bounce. Never totally sure of what might lay ahead of them for the day. And their boldness. In a good way. My students surely would not be able to survive the system as well as they did without being bold. Village members would say, ‘if you can make it in Guyana, you can make it anywhere.’ Life is hard, raw. There are many more responsibilities in life for my students than just coming to school. Many of them had a full days work of chores to do before and after school. And still they came, with an amazing resiliency that showed bright in their exclamations of, ‘Marnin’ Miss!’ as they passed through the school compound.
‘Soesdyke Community High School’ by Taruna Sadhoo [WorldTeach Guyana, 2005-2006]
Excerpted from her newsletter, “The Golden Arrowhead”
Once students are in the sixth-grade they take an exam called the Common Entrance Exam, this exam will determine whether they will be able to attend the local secondary school or community high school. Students who fail the Common Entrance Exam are only able to enroll in their village’s community high school. Because of this, community high schools are viewed by most as schools that only house academically incompetent individuals. The Ministry of Education continues to struggle to implement solutions that will erase the negative generalizations held by its citizens.
Yes, some of my students have learning disabilities. However, most are academically behind their peers because they were never exposed to the resources needed to establish a solid academic foundation. Many of them cannot spell or write because they attended primary schools in classes of over 50 students. How can a child truly develop their comprehension and general skills and abilities in such an environment?
Physically, Soesdyke Community High School is a large house that has three large rooms divided by blackboards (there are 18 classes in total). The school measures approximately 150 ft. by 30 ft. and is surrounded by sand and garbage that has accumulated since last year and has yet to be burned. The total number of students currently enrolled is 530. Form 1 (7th grade) students are the largest group, totaling almost 200. There is a huge drop out rate between Forms 1 and 5. There are only 15 students in Form 5 (11th grade).
Currently Soesdyke Community High School does not have enough benches for all students to sit. Each day there is a constant battle over who sits where. Why should children who come to school to learn have to worry about finding a comfortable area to sit? Our parents and students are currently fundraising to acquire more seats and benches, to make up for the demand.
For the last three weeks, I have been teaching Guyanese social studies to students in Forms 1 and 2. I see these eight classes four periods each week. Each period lasts approximately forty minutes. Starting next week, I will permanently be teaching Forms 2 and 3 social studies and Form 1 four periods of reading. Life as a social studies teacher has been extremely busy – of 35 academic periods within each week, I am responsible for teaching 32 total periods of social studies. The most challenging part of teaching has been getting students to think critically about the subject matter and facilitating lively discussions. Students are most comfortable with just copying what is written on the board and doing what they are told without asking “why?”
The students I teach have many different academic needs, but they have just as much passion and drive as any other group of students I’ve had the pleasure of teaching. Most students are academically years behind their counterparts in other countries – especially the girls. Even though I am scheduled to teach SS and reading, I informally teach math, spelling, and writing. My students have enormous issues within these academic areas that cannot be overlooked. I have come to understand how connected and essential basic mastery of the core subjects are in order to build each students knowledge base in all areas. For example, it is hard to discuss my social studies topics without ensuring that they can read and spell basic social studies words such as history, government, country, or accurately grasp what is meant when I say that one of Guyana’s counties makes up 75% of the entire country’s land space.
