A Day’s Work

Inspired by my dear friend Elise’s recent list of current activities, I’ve decided to take the time to write up my own list of current activities/projects to better inform my dearly devoted readers (Hi Nana, Pop-Pop and Mom!) of my goals for the coming year.

First a little bit about what I do during school hours…

On a day-to-day basis I go to school, teach anywhere between one and six 40-minute lessons. I’m currently attempting to hold my English club twice a week, but lately the kids have been too busy to come twice a week, so we usually only meet once.

My counter-part and I recently finished purchasing all the books that we were able to buy thanks to our successful Partnership Grant (more about this in a future post!) and so in terms of big projects, we’ve now got one under our belt and as a result (of this and also my third-life crisis) lately I’ve been itching to do more. So here are the projects we’re going to be taking on in 2011!

• Camp/Club C.L.A.S (Civics, Lifestyles, And Sports*)

When I arrived at site, I volunteered to be my oblast’s facilitator for “The Collaborative,” a sort of grassroots professional development organization for volunteers in Ukraine. I’ve been extremely lucky to have a wonderful group of fellow volunteers in my oblast and we’ve able to be really productive in our work together. We meet once or twice a semester and discuss professional development issues and last semester we decided to work together to plan a healthy-lifestyles themed club that would eventually result in a summer camp for kids in our oblast. Ukraine has the highest rate of HIV/AIDS infection in Europe, there are significant problems with alcohol and smoking, and in general kids aren’t as well-informed about healthy lifestyles choices as they probably ought to be. So our goal is to educate our students about how to make the smart choices necessary for living healthy lives.

The idea is to develop healthy lifestyles lessons to be taught once or twice a month at our individual sites. All the students involved in clubs across the oblast will be learning the same general information. Then we plan to organize a day-workshop for all students involved so they can meet one another and spend a day learning in-depth about some of our topics (physical health, mental health, sexual health, etc.) and playing some fun sports (baseball, basketball, hopefully even lacrosse!) as well.

Then, in the summer, we’ll host a week-long camp in Chortkiv for students who’ve been participating in the club throughout the semester. It’ll be a more intensive version of the day-workshops, with an additional emphasis on leadership/civics and sports. My counter-part and I are gearing up for the camp by applying for a 5-day PEPFAR (U.S. President’s Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief) training, where we’ll learn everything we can about HIV/AIDS and HIV/AIDS education so that we can effectively introduce and teach the topic at our summer camp.

• Community Youth English Clubs

While I am extremely devoted to my school, I sometimes feel like I should do more for the community at large. There are at least seven secondary schools in Chortkiv and although my site-mate (Shelby) works at the local gymnasium (a language-arts specialized school), the other schools don’t have as much of an opportunity as our schools do. Volunteers bring a great deal of resources (grants, educational opportunities, workshops, conferences, connections, and so on) to their schools, and so lately I’ve wanted to try to bring some of those resources and opportunities to other schools in my community. At the same time, I don’t want to neglect my own students and school, since that is my primary site.

The solution I came up with was to help my students organize and run English clubs for children at our community schools. The way I see it, this project is much more sustainable and educational than simply running a kid’s English club myself. If my students are involved, not only will they get a chance to practice their own English, but they’ll have a great opportunity to learn how to organize and run a club of their own. Plus, if I can get a few of my first- and second-year students really involved, the project will have a much greater chance of continuing after I’m gone.

I’ve talked with the district methodologist and she’s committed to helping me communicate and coordinate with the local schools’ English teachers and so next semester, I’m going to rally my students and help them learn how to organize and run a club for kids. I’m especially excited to spend a little more time around the kiddos myself. I love my students but I sometimes miss playing with and teaching little kids. I’ve always thought that if I didn’t teach older students, I’d want to teach pre-schoolers or first- and second-graders. Their enthusiasm and energy is refreshing. This is the project I’m most excited about.

• English Specialist Community Workshop

Shelby and I are working together to coordinate a visit from an American English-Language Specialist. We’re applying through a State Department program that would potentially send an English specialist to Chortkiv to lead a professional development workshop we’ll help organize for our colleagues and other community teachers on different teaching methods, developing curriculum and resources, using games in the classroom, and other various points of interest.

• Environmental Working Group – Camp IKnow

Last summer, I took two students and a Ukrainian friend to Camp IKnow, an environmental education camp held in a village a few hours away. We spent the week camping, learning about different environmental issues, and planning a community-improvement project. We all had a great time and I think we all walked away with more passion for environmental issues and a desire to live more consciously. After the camp, I decided to join Peace Corps Ukraine’s Environmental Working Group and this year I’m part of the planning committee for the two camps that will take place in the summer. Last year’s camps were pretty successful, so I doubt we’ll do much to change an already-working model, but I’m looking forward to helping coordinate and plan for the camps this year.

***

So those are my big, upcoming projects. Of course, I’m still always scheming up ways to make my lessons more interesting and educational and I’m sure I’ll come up with other various and assorted projects during the year, but these are the big ones. There were a few weeks there when, after I’d more or less completed the English Resource Center project, I felt a little helpless and unhelpful. I always like having a list of things to do and projects to chip away at–I love having a specific reason to get up each morning and now that I’ve spent a full year at site, I feel pretty confident in my abilities to plan effective, long-term projects.

I’ve never been huge on New Year’s resolutions (although I like resolutions in general, plenty of proof of that here and here…), and so I don’t intend to make a list of resolutions specifically  for the upcoming year. Having this list of projects, however, feels like a much more reasonable and exciting way to start a year and although I’ve never started a new year with a list of projects before, I suppose I might bend the rules and allow myself one New Year’s Resolution–to start every new year from now on with a list of projects.

I’ll certainly keep you updated on my progress!

 

*In Ukrainian, klasno (класно) means “cool” and is often simply shortened to klas, so our clever little acronym has a double meaning.

P.S. If you can think of a better word than “and” for the ‘A’ in C.L.A.S, I’d be much obliged!