Life On The River

The "locals" above are their own advertisement for the easy lifestyle in many places in the rain forest. This series of pictures was taken in the river village of Misahualli Friday. This is one of the places the "teachers day out" included. This village was once the entry point to large Indian land area. The river had huge canoes that were used to ship things in and out. Today, it is only a small tourist town with one company giving motorized canoe trips up and down the river. It is out of the way and even the tourist trade is down from years back. The monkeys are just around town and down by the river looking for a handout.

The canoes hold 12 people. The trip down and back up the river was very pleasant under sunny skies.

Of course, a true tourist area has to have connections. The canoe people take you down river and stop at an Indian village where a good tour was given. A dollar tour goes a long ways.

You can audition for life as an Indian hunter. The guy in the red shirt tried out using a dart blow-gun. The target was a fruit pictured below. This guy may not be a perfect shot, but if the dart had poison on it, you will just have to take your chances. (I did just nip the skin of the fruit.)


Ok, it is confession time. Actually, my first shot was a little wild. I hit one of the teachers in the forehead. (See below) He is so hard headed, it didn't even phase him. Just look at his smile.

The picture above shows one white Indian that apparently has been lost for some time. We think she thinks she is some sort of "queen of the jungle". Nobody had the heart to tell her otherwise.

The scenery a long the river is spectacular looking in any direction. Misahualli is at the fork of two rivers. This means below the village the river is much larger.

Additional posting of this trip will follow.

National Teacher Weekend

This is Thursday and the end of the work week. We seem to often have four day work weeks. Tomorrow is national teacher day and the schools are closed. We will be going with our teacher group to some kind of outdoor activity near Tena. We will be taking our school bus which is more of a coach bus.
Tonight, the parent social committee is hosting a dinner at a restaurant for all teachers. The school basically shut down after 10:30 today as kids hosted parties in the individual classroom. (make that a three and a half day week)
Saturday and Sunday we still hope to make the trip to Riobamba(three hours by bus) and take the tourist train up and down the Devils Nose. The train goes back and forth on what is essentially switch backs by going forward and backward. In so doing, it climbs a steep mountain wall. This was once the railroad that connected Quito to the pacific coast cities.
It has been some time since we posted pictures. Readers who only look at pictures will be back in luck in a few days.

Beginning To Look At Conclusions

With the final weeks of our stay here beginning to appear, it is time to look at some wrap-up activities. One of those activities is our visit with the senior pastor this coming Friday evening. The agenda we have created includes questions he may have, what we have accomplished and what we believe to be next steps for improvement of the school.
Accomplishments include a staff created mission and vision statement, A process for creating academic standards, a system of monitoring high school student daily performance and a five page written discipline policy. We have been assured that a board (Junta) system of managing the school will be created with a 5 person board.

Things on the “to do list” include a more comprehensive system of communicating with parents. Most importantly the communication can be just plain information and even good things going on at the school. Communicating with parents now is only a “problem-centered approach.
An entrance exam system needs to be created. It must be more than who can afford the tuition.
We have a high percentage of dysfunctional families where the students are hindered in their school work because of family issues. We need a systematic approach to counseling.
A solid academic program for grades 7 through 10 is badly needed. Junior high and high school students are still treated as “big elementary” students.
How teachers spend their time is now a critical issue. Being required to watch parents play basketball and soccer doesn’t add academic value to students. Teachers now have much more academic responsibility and they seem to run out of time quickly.
We have no system of facilities maintenance and repair. A relatively new facility is beginning to show a lot of wear.
And finally, here even more than most places, putting words into action is a constant problem. Teachers are rightly concerned that we have written a lot of words that may go no farther. I spoke with the Director yesterday about this concern.
Any reader with talents in the above mentioned areas should contact us for continued efforts here next year.

Problem Solving & Higher Levels of Thinking

This next week we were going to review six levels of thinking for teachers. The levels begin with recall at the simplest level and extent to evaluating and creating at the highest level. We see nearly all textbooks (workbook style texts) written at the recall level. We have mentioned before we live in a rote memory culture.
With the ease of information retrieval these days on the internet (even here), how important is recall and the rote memory of facts that can be so easily looked up. Any person with a blackberry on their belt has the internet on their person all the time.
Information in the world is said to be doubling every few years. Some experts believe information will double several times each year in the near future. So under these conditions, what information should be memorized? Yet at the same time a non-reading culture like Ecuador gets more out of touch with the modern world each day. Yes, they become more dependent on the informationally advanced countries who value problem solving.
Our reason for teaching higher levels of thinking is so problem solving becomes a tool possessed by all students. In this culture it is possessed by very few. What you know is clearly in second place to who you know.
So, should we spend time attempting to teach teachers how to teach higher levels of thinking?

A change of Heart

It has been interesting to note the change of attitude of our junior high and high school students. Seems that being called to a meeting of all your teachers and your parents can bring "the fear of God" to students.
The degree of "on task" has risen significantly in the last two days. Now we will see how long this lasts. Secondly, bad class room habits are so firmly entrenched that it will take the remainder of the school year to begin to change some very bad habits.
All we can say is that it is a good start. Teachers appreciate the new attitude and can see that they do have the power to bring about change. This point is very significant because I heard tones of despair for much of the school year until now. We hope we can eventually kill the "well what can we do?" attitude of teachers.

Debriefing

Today we spent an hour visiting with teachers about their parent meetings yesterday. Reviewing how a new approach worked listing both the positives and the negatives is not done here in the school. This was done in an hour meeting which is supposed to be devoted to English instruction for teachers.
Because it was a new experience, it started off slow. As we asked some leading questions, the discussion took off and at times became fairly animated. We eventually came up with the positives, the negatives and several suggestions for changes next time. This also gave us an opportunity to congratulate the staff on a taking a new system and following it through to a successful completion. It is always good to use opportunities like this for encouraging the troops. Moreover, we hope that parents saw this experience as a positive thing to help their children. Hopefully, a debriefing will become a standard practice when new approaches are tried.

Home Run! (We Think)

With a fair amount of frustration being a part of our life on a regular basis, it is great when one feels a home run has been hit. This is one of those days.
From the beginning, we were told by teachers that confrontations with parents were too plentiful and that parents sort of ran the school. Of course, no school can be successful under these conditions. It has taken a number of months to figure out what the problem is and then to find a solution.
The old game of “divide and conquer” was far too prevalent. Teachers feeling isolated and dealing with complaining parents felt helpless. Moreover, there was no systematic documentation of student shortcomings.
During the month of April we designed a grid where the students were listed on one side and the days of the month across the top. Teachers were to note on the grid any student deficiencies in (1) homework not done, (2) books or necessary materials not brought to class and (3) any problems in class such as discipline problems or just not being at all engaged in the class. We applied this system to seventh through tenth grades.
The results were amazing. First, the collective situation was much worse than we imagined. Secondly, as I collected the information and returned a summary copy to teachers each week, they could sense a collective effort to define and document the problem.
Letters were sent to parents of the worst collective offenders to show up for a meeting with the group of teachers for their child. Also, the child was required to attend this session and explain him/herself. This series of conferences happened today.
Early reports are most encouraging. Parents were upset with their children, not the teachers. Parents were happy to see a systematic approach to a problem of poor effort on the part of their children. Teachers were encouraged to feel the support of parents and end the feelings of isolation they had long felt. We expect a much better effort on the part of all students in the future. Home run!