(Pics: 1st, The Basic English Group and teachers. 2nd, in the classroom. 3rd, Julia & me as cholitas. 4th, all of the teaching volunteers seated during the graduation ceremony.)February 19, 2009...
“Sophia, Katherine, Alanna, Michelle, Julia, Jovana, Monty, Michael, and Sebastian; you came here from overseas to this wonderful country, leaving your families, your friends, and your culture behind to share with us your youthfulness, your knowledge, your lives, your best. Like buds, we’ve seen you bloom and like rain, you’ve helped us to grow.
Now you have new families, new friends who have received you warmly, and a new culture waiting to be explored.
You’re taking home our hearts and we’ll take home beautiful memories of you: your faces, your smiles, your glances, your jokes, your accents.
These words are to thank you on behalf of my classmates and teachers who took these lessons. I want to thank you deeply, thank you for your time, your effort, your enthusiasm, your patience, and your support.
You’ll always be welcomed with open arms and hearts…this is your home and we are your family.
Thank you.”
Tania, a student in the Advanced English class, spoke these gracious words during the Teacher Training graduation ceremony. These words, her account of the preceding six weeks, made me cry. My own summary is not far off from hers.
On the very first day you feel small, faced with a classroom full of people whose native language is different from your own; who are looking at you as one might look at his life on a map—with great anticipation and predisposed exhaustion, wondering how it could be possible to get from here to there. They look to you like you are their guide on this journey. And, on that first day, you look back at them and try to smile, and try to mask your bewilderment and your own exhaustion because you know you are their guide. You feel the great weight of this responsibility: it is your duty to find the way.
As time passes, the sea of blurred faces becomes a bouquet of individual personalities, each with a name and his or her own way of making you smile. The journey has begun. They are learning and you are learning with them. As you teach them uncharted vocabulary, new tenses, and original comprehension techniques, they teach you how capable you are.
Each day, after the 8:30am to 12:30pm lesson, you return to the Projects Abroad office alongside your fellow guides and map out the next day’s work. A day at a time; slowly but surely, lesson by lesson, word by word, you and your students are getting there.
The sixth week springs on you like a jack in a box and you realize that your students are telling jokes in English. You’ve not only successfully guided them from here to there, but made new friends in the process. You finish the program knowing that you’ve left an indelible imprint on your students, as they have on you, and it encompasses more than the pronunciation of words.
Now you have new families, new friends who have received you warmly, and a new culture waiting to be explored.
You’re taking home our hearts and we’ll take home beautiful memories of you: your faces, your smiles, your glances, your jokes, your accents.
These words are to thank you on behalf of my classmates and teachers who took these lessons. I want to thank you deeply, thank you for your time, your effort, your enthusiasm, your patience, and your support.
You’ll always be welcomed with open arms and hearts…this is your home and we are your family.
Thank you.”
Tania, a student in the Advanced English class, spoke these gracious words during the Teacher Training graduation ceremony. These words, her account of the preceding six weeks, made me cry. My own summary is not far off from hers.
On the very first day you feel small, faced with a classroom full of people whose native language is different from your own; who are looking at you as one might look at his life on a map—with great anticipation and predisposed exhaustion, wondering how it could be possible to get from here to there. They look to you like you are their guide on this journey. And, on that first day, you look back at them and try to smile, and try to mask your bewilderment and your own exhaustion because you know you are their guide. You feel the great weight of this responsibility: it is your duty to find the way.
As time passes, the sea of blurred faces becomes a bouquet of individual personalities, each with a name and his or her own way of making you smile. The journey has begun. They are learning and you are learning with them. As you teach them uncharted vocabulary, new tenses, and original comprehension techniques, they teach you how capable you are.
Each day, after the 8:30am to 12:30pm lesson, you return to the Projects Abroad office alongside your fellow guides and map out the next day’s work. A day at a time; slowly but surely, lesson by lesson, word by word, you and your students are getting there.
The sixth week springs on you like a jack in a box and you realize that your students are telling jokes in English. You’ve not only successfully guided them from here to there, but made new friends in the process. You finish the program knowing that you’ve left an indelible imprint on your students, as they have on you, and it encompasses more than the pronunciation of words.
The graduation day is like no other. Held within the auditorium of the Ministry of Education, just off the Plaza de Armas, the ceremonies commence. It begins with a salute to the Peruvian flag and an unrehearsed chant of their national anthem. Immediately to follow, each of the four classes gives a performance. A song, a dialogue, a dance. Anything. This year it varies from dancing cholitas in a Peruvian song about various occupations and marriage, to a rendition of the Michael Jackson Thriller music video. There are several speeches given by officials of the Ministry of Education, Projects Abroad Staff, and students. Then, one by one, each student is called up onto the stage and you present them with their Teacher Training Course certificate. As they walk eagerly onto the stage, you reflect on the work you’ve done, on the trail you’ve blazed, and beam like a proud parent.
After the ceremonies, all sixty of you are off to a local restaurant to share a meal of chicken and chips (french fries). Here, your students present you with a gift to show their gratitude. A beautiful white alpaca sweater. Everyone, everyone, exchanges email addresses. Probably less to stay in touch and more to deny the fact that you may never see them again.
When you part ways, you find it’s true what Tania said. “You’re taking home [their] hearts…” and you’re leaving a part of yours behind.
When you part ways, you find it’s true what Tania said. “You’re taking home [their] hearts…” and you’re leaving a part of yours behind.
