The Latest at Abriendo Mentes

After working at Abriendo Mentes for two full weeks, I’ve made a few observations.

Counting Coins

1) The education the kids of Potrero are offered is not enough. The first day we were in Potrero we were walking around town and couldn’t figure out why there were so many kids running around.  Well, it’s because their school is too small to accommodate all of the students in Potrero.  Because of this, the kids only go to school for three hours a day so that they can fit in two shifts of classes and all of the students can go to school every day.

2) The kids don’t know their letters. This is especially worrisome to me.  After little success with spelling out words in English, the obvious alternative is to spell the words out for the kids in Spanish when they’re doing worksheets or other individual work.  It turns out that they don’t know the letters in Spanish either.  The most successful way to get words onto their papers is to write them on the whiteboard so the kids can copy them down.  Granted, the older kids do seem to have their letters down but kids up to 2^nd grade, more or less, just don’t know them at all.  We did an exercise the other day where the kids had to pick the letter we named from a set of magnetic letters, we went in alphabetical order and they were completely lost after A-B-C.  You could say “M” and a kid would had you a “Q” then another would had you an “H” and another would try with a “C” before they finally guessed it when we told them what color the “M” magnet was.  It is shocking to me that they could have made it as far as they have in school without a good grasp on letters and their phonetic sounds.  Even making the “P” sound, et cetera, doesn’t clue them in at all.  I’m not sure if the problem lies with the local school or with the national school system but there is definitely a deficit and I’m positive it has more to do with what or how students are being taught than the students’ abilities.

3) There are a lot of really smart kids who come to Abriendo Mentes’ classes. So many of the kids are really sharp.  What they lack in scholarly knowledge they make up for in enthusiasm.  What they’re being taught in class they are excited about learning.  There are a lot of kids who are presented with a concept and then know it and by the end of the lesson they can answer any question about it.  With the exception of a few very shy ones, all of the students love to be the first to shout out an answer.  There are even two boys who were considered for one of three scholarships to attend a private all-day (!) English school in another town, one was granted the scholarship and the other has a very good chance of getting it next year.  These kids have a lot of potential and it’s great to know we’re working with an organization that’s helping them tap into that.

We’re having a great time working with the kids.  They’ve really warmed up to us.  Of course we have some days that are easier than others and some students that are more challenging than others at times but that’s to be expected.  This week two new volunteers arrived, Mary and her daughter Serena from Florida and another volunteer arrives tomorrow.   Since Todd and I have been here awhile already and there are more hands on deck we’re going to split the biggest classes and Todd and I will lead one half and Meradith and Drew will continue to lead the other so that the kids can have longer classes for the next two weeks until we leave.  That should be a fun, new challenge for us and hopefully it will be good for the kids too.