The School Staff Relaxing

The first picture shows the director and to her left, the second grade teacher.

The posting today highlights social activities of the staff from school. Once a month some kind of gathering is scheduled to, among other things, celebrate birthdays. The group is a typical one in many ways. There is always the "life of the party" and those who are more reserved. This picture series was taken at the home of one of the teachers. They had a karaoke system and the group got to singing all kinds of songs. Too bad we can't seem to get the video to download.

The picture above shows the senior pastor and to the extreme left, the director of the school.

The above group includes some of our female staff except for the second to the right. She is the wife of the senior pastor.

The above picture shows the computer teacher. He is one of the "life of the party" sort. Alex had a good time at this party.

We discovered early on that we are 20 years the senior of anyone who works at the school. So, we have the staff and then we have "the old couple". (Possibly "the odd couple".

Onward With Semester Exams!

Just about the time we think we have come to a dead end on changing approaches to education, another breakthrough comes along. After meeting with a smaller group of teachers this evening and the school director, she decided that there will be a full staff meeting at 11:00 AM next Tuesday to explain setting academic standards. This includes establishing a semester test system which will have its trial run this coming June.

We have a ton of things to do in a short period of time now. Not the least of these things is a crash course in exam writing which includes proper sampling, kinds of test questions and a dozen other things.

More on this topic after the meeting next Tuesday.

Academic Standards

We have now turned to the topic of academic standards with the teacher group. It is immediately obvious that this will be a difficult concept partly because it is more abstract and partly because of old beliefs about what an academic standard is. The textbook is not an academic standard. Student grades are not an academic standard. Both of these beliefs are widely held here.



Academic standards can only be observed when you have both the material and skills along with student exam performance on these two aspect of knowledge. Since no outside exams are available here, we have to devise an internal system where we write semester exams. This is especially difficult since teachers are not trained in test writing.

Attempting to establish a standard by setting the material to be learned along side the test performance of students on a semester by semester basis is not the ideal way to establish academic standards. We need to start some place. More reports later on this topic.

Funeral Procession

Having some recent knowledge of funeral costs and customs, it is interesting to make comparisons. While we don't know the cost of a typical funeral here, we do know that it is considerably less than in the US. The three pictures in this posting show a funeral procession moving through the down town area of Puyo. As noted in the first picture, the casket is placed in an open pickup bed. The family walks after the pickup. There is no special traffic control as the taxi cabs and few other drivers quickly observe the situation and yield until the procession passes. Of course, it is raining and the procession takes this in stride.
We are told that the body is dressed and prepared for nearly immediate burial. We are not sure who prepares the body. We understand that sometimes this is done by family members. There are cemeteries around Puyo and we notice a lot of burial above the ground in family crypts.

Cultural Differences

When living in another culture there are plenty of times when it is difficult to understand traits of the culture you are living in. Even more difficult is the explanation of things in your own culture that the local people here find strange. This last weekend, daylight time kicked in across the US. Now how do you explain that concept to people who live on the equator where each day is the same length the entire year around? Why would anybody go messing with the clock to gain something? What is it that is gained? Is it so valuable that everything from work schedules to airline schedules are disrupted twice a year? How does it "save time" as the name implies?

On this end of things we have the strange (to us) idea that the customer is responsible for having the correct change. Even the large shops with cash drawers full of change will ask if you have the odd amount of your bill so that they will not have to return change. Saturday morning this got complicated. We shopped in Puyo's largest department store. The transaction went fine. However, when I discovered I had no change to buy tomatoes from a vendor outside, I went back in to ask the store to break a $10 bill. I was refused. MJ suggested I buy something more. So, I bought a candy bar and waited in the same check out line where I was refused change. I laid the candy bar down along with a $20 bill. I stood with my hands on my hips. She became upset when I said I had no change. She made the change in a big huff, I thanked her and left the store to buy my tomatoes. (The store does not sell tomatoes).

In a future blog, we will demonstrate with pictures that sidewalks are NOT necessarily intended for walking on.

Different Vegetation in the Rain Forest

As we travel around the rain forest area, one continually comes upon beautiful plant life. The two flowers pictured here were in the courtyard of our hotel in Tena. We do not know the name, but they appear to grow from a vine. The color and design was just outstanding.

The picture above and below are of the same kind of tree. Again, we don't know the name, but the 'fruit" grows to be huge. The green "ball" below is about the size of a volleyball. The outside of the fruit was very hard. This is an example of things that the traveler should research at the time, but never gets around to it later.

The two pictures below are of the same tree. We do not know the name, but like so many trees in the rain forest, it is just huge. There are estimates as to how much bird, insect, and animal life a single tree like this supports. The estimates stagger the mind. The problem is that the several hundred year old trees are being cut and sold for very little when one considers what it takes to replace them. The tree below is in a protected park and should live a long time.

Teacher Discussions & Classes

This series of pictures show our teacher class room in action. The setting is the laundry room which is a covered shed in the middle of our compound. The group ranges from a dozen to 15 people. Watching the expression on people's faces says a lot. In the upper right you can see two people talking intensely at once. Talking over another person is not considered rude in this culture.

The picture in the upper left shows Debra, MJ's co-teacher and our chief translator at these meetings.

I spend a lot of time just waiting for the discussion to go on and finally questions in English emerge. I have tried very hard to stick with process type questions and give advice on process. The content of the discussions must belong to the group membership. I do bring a written outline to the meetings to direct discussions. My co-teacher translates for me. Without the written discussion guides, chaos has a better chance of surviving.

The picture to the lower right features the director of the school. Lidia takes a leadership role in directing discussions and responding to individual questions.