Community Service

These past two weeks we have been working with our 11th grade students (of which I am one of the advisors) in preparing them for a community service project. Having done work in Monte Plata, one of the provinces with the highest percentage of people in poverty, the last five summers, I have seen many in need in this country.  Having experienced that and then gone to teach in a private school, which consists of many wealthy families, I realized the extremes in this country.  I was really excited about being able to take our kids who live in the top tier of wealth in this country and work with them on giving back to their community.  I was definitely nervous about how the students would respond to this.
To start our activities we showed up at school at 7:45 on a Saturday morning (not my favorite activity) to head to a public school in Guachupita (the neighborhood the kids were going to work in).  Our students were partnering with the students at this school to do their community service of going into the community and informing them about tropical diseases (malaria, dengue, parasites, etc.).  Guachupita is about a twenty to thirty minute drive from our school and is very different from the community in which our students live in.  In fact, some of our students didn't even believe it was a real place. 
The day had been really well planned out.  The kids were separated into six groups each having a blend of our students and the other school's students.  They spent the first part of the day doing different ice-breakers and team building activities, and the second portion was spent planning how they were going to present the information to the different places they were going. On Monday, the Guachupita students came to our school to work with our students on preparing all the materials.  Again we were a little nervous as we heard some of our groups planning to do powerpoint presentations especially since they were going to places where electricity was not a guarantee.
Wednesday was the big day.  We all packed into the bus once again and headed out to Guachipita.  After convincing our students that for their safety they should leave their iPhones behind, we broke off into our different groups and headed to the streets. The group I was supervising went to a local middle school.  Aside from some technical difficulties and the middle school's doctor adding in comments after every disease our students talked about, the group did a great job.  We headed back to the school and then got back on the bus and went home.
The next day, I decided to use the advisory period to have the students reflect on their experiences.  They had nice answers of "I liked it because we got to meet new people and make new friends" and "I liked it because we got to see how other people live."  I had sort of hoped that it would spark in these kids a little bit more of a response to the needs of the people that surround them, but they did what was asked of them and didn't give a bad representation of the school, so what more can I expect.
After class, one of the students wanted to continue talking about his experiences.  It was a conversation that began in one place and probably went about fifty different places, but it was really interesting to hear his perspectives.  He started with his thoughts about his conversations with the students from the other school.  He had made some comment while he was with them about having a project due and that he just wanted to be done with school.  Their response was apparently in agreement and that they hated school and thought it was a waste of time.  He then told me how he had thought about it and as much as he didn't like school, he knew that it was important.  Even if his mom said he didn't have to go to school he would still go because he knows its important.  He commented that these kids from the other school see no value in school because they don't see any positive results from those that finish school.  These kids are part of a hopeless community where the dream jobs are "police, drug dealing, or government" because they see that with the corruption that is where they can make money.  He said its what they see works, and so they see that as their solution.  After some more discussion, we came to the conclusion that experience shapes their views on the world.  He started then talking about how can we know what's right and wrong and what decides that and that religion is only going to fail because the people that make religion have faults.  It led to an open door to tell him about my relationship with God and that it's not about religion its about knowing my need for a Savior and loving an awesome, true God.  Pray for this student. I know other teachers have had opportunities to share the Gospel with him, and he's definitely looking for something more than what he is living.
Overall it was a good experience and gave me more perspective into my students.  School is busy and students' behavior is becoming progressively worse as the school year gets closer to ending.  We had parent teacher conferences this week as well and there were some unhappy parents.  Hopefully there can be some parent motivation.  Also, it is getting much hotter and much more humid.