This morning our group went to La Carpio, a Nicaraguan refugee camp in southern Costa Rica. When we got there, we started by participating in a service project. As you can see in the picture, the main streets run along the top of the mountain. Most of the homes have been built down the mountain, basically on top of each other. Some of the volunteers at La Carpio have worked hard to build stairs for the residents; in the past they had to basically slide down the dirt or mud hill to their home and it was near impossible to get back up the hill. Half of our group worked on painting the railing for this stairway to protect it from the weather. The other half, which included me, carried buckets of crushed rock down the stairs. They will soon be using this rock as a base layer to build a wall on the side of the stairs. It will keep the dirt from washing down the hill as well as provide a place for a community garden. We also got to spend time at a preschool-like building. It was a program run by two women from the Costa Rican Humanitarian Foundation. Their goal was to get the young children in the La Carpio community ready for school in Costa Rica. We were told that many expecting moms from Nicaragua illegally cross the border into Costa Rica to ensure their child is a natural born Costa Rican. Costa Rica provides these children with free healthcare, education, and more. I found the children's development to be very interesting. When working with the 5th grader at Calle Hernandez Primary School earlier in the week, I was able to use my knowledge of Spanish to communicate effectively with him. However, when working with the child at La Carpio, I could not understand him. It is comparable to American children learning to speak English, which is not something I considered. I do not know much about early development in children, so I didn't know what to expect when going to La Carpio. I now understand that children talking gibberish is a universal stage of language growth and development. The last thing we did at La Carpio was watch a short skit about a woman who emigrated from Nicaragua. The presentation was in Spanish, but I could still understand what was going on because of the acting. I have learned more about the value of skits and acting in education. I plan on using these in my class because I have also seen how universal it can be to watch a story come alive.
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For my ELE 500 course this semester, I had to take part in an event called a "poverty simulation." After this experience, I had to write a letter to a friend to be graded. Here is that letter: Today I participated in an event called a “poverty simulation.” When I walked into the room I was assigned a character, Gerald Garofalo, a one-year-old boy, to become throughout the afternoon. I also met my 19-year-old mother and her 25-year-old boyfriend when I took my assigned seat at the homeless shelter, since the Garofalos did not have a home when beginning the simulation. The simulation consisted of four fifteen-minute “weeks” during which my family had to pay for bus passes, food, clothing, and miscellaneous expenses. My mom also was required to find us a place to live by the end of the second week and get a job by the end of the month. Once we got our house, we also had to pay our mortgage and utility bills.
Since I was only a one-year-old during the simulation, there wasn’t much I could do while in character. I spent most of my time following my mom around to the places she needed to visit, making her spend an extra transportation pass everywhere she went. It made me personally feel like I was just a burden, so I felt pretty relieved when we visited the community action table and I was placed in day care for a week. However, while in day care I just sat there at my seat not learning or interacting like I should have been doing with my mother. I also experienced hunger until finally during the last week my mother was able to afford to buy food for the family. I was also very happy when my family got our own home during the third week. One important thing I learned from following my mother around was how frustrating it can be to find the right help. The first place we visited was Quick Cash to buy transportation passes. However, since they only accepted cash, we were out two bus passes and not able to purchase anything. When we visited the community action area, they had run out of funds to assist my family with utilities, so we were referred to the social services office that also told us they couldn’t help us. The main thing I learned that will affect my teaching is about basic needs. In order for learning to occur, a child must have all basic needs met. Throughout the simulation, I was hungry, homeless, and wearing the same clothes. I also didn’t get many opportunities to interact with anyone including my own family, since my mother was too busy taking care of our living situation and finding a job. It is easy to understand that, even though my mother cared for me and wanted the best for me, other needs came before spending time with me. I hope that you will get the opportunity to take part in a similar simulation to learn about the effects poverty has on the individual. It was an enriching experience that I believe all teachers should have. |
AuthorI am an MSU graduate and 4th grade teacher in Carthage, MO. This is just a collection of things I've learned that I thought were important enough to share. Archives
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