Parte 3

So after escaping the kook with the glove... we head on to another current volunteer's site in the Chaco. We spent four days in the little town putting on two environmental fairs. One for the town in general and another for the school in the older part of town. It was kind of crazy, but overall I'd say it was a success. I painted faces, which was a total hit, and helped put on a puppet show. Other's in our group played environmentally themed games, recycled paper, had informational booths...

We spent two mornings in the school presenting a lesson on biodiversity and human impacts to a class of 7th graders. That was probably the most rewarding activity of the entire tech week. First off, kids love having gringos in the class room, so no matter what you do... they'll love it. But we really tried to make it interesting for them with lots of little games and outdoor activities. The teaching methodology in Bolivia is archaic to say the least. Mostly consisting of the teacher talking at the students and the students regurgitating the information back to them. There is virtually no creative, independent thinking going on. It's actually quite sad. These kids are really being cheated of a decent education. To be fair their, are good intetioned, hard working teachers out here. But talking with other Bolivians it doesn´t seem to be the norm. We spent virtually no money on supplies for the lesson. So lack of funds doesn't necessarily have to prevent teacher's from creating more interesting lesson plans. Which is a good thing to know. It´s more of changing the ways in which teahers teach. Which is no small feat, but part of the reason we´re here.

Even when presented with a simple activity (like draw your house and what you do with the trash) they just have this blank look on their face. Like they don't quite believe that's really what you want them to do. They are extremely reluctant to do anything on their own. It takes a lot of encouragement to get them going. But once they get started they love it.

The classrooms in Bolivia look straight out of 1950's (or what I imagine the classrooms in the 1950´s looked like). There's a chalk board and desks, nothing else. Just bare walls. Nothing at all for the kids to look at. I drew this poster of a mini ecosystem with plants and animals and one of the kids in the class actually brought it to his house to show his family! It's the kind of thing that is so sweet, but breaks your heart at the same time. It goes to show you how big of a deal a simple hand draw poster is to these kids. It makes you realize how good you had it in the states.

My part of the lesson was to explain biodiversity and why it's important. That everything is connected...when one species disappears, many others are affected. There was a perceivable moment where it all clicked. When the kids were like "oh yeah...if the lady bug disappears, then their will be more little bugs that will eat all the flowers and the iguanas will die" And I was like YES! (Ok... maybe not an "actual" food chain, but it got the point across.) To actually teach somebody something is a great feeling. One of the volunteers in our "teaching team" was actually a teacher back in the states. It was very encouraging to hear from him that I should definitely pursue teaching as a career.

By the time we were finished we were convinced that it was perhaps the best ever lesson taught by PC trainees ever. And our trainer agreed with us...ha.