Home Again. Reflections on my time with AM

August 23, 2012 | 1 comment

Abriendo Mentes, Costa Rica
Amara Stuehling

Since leaving Potrero and the Abriendo Mentes community just over two weeks ago now, I have had time to briefly visit my family, make a 12 hour drive back to Indiana, move into a new apartment, and start my job and school again. To say the least, I’ve been really thrown back into my life as grad student and haven’t had much time to reflect on my summer volunteering abroad. At least once a day though, I end up thinking, “I was in Costa Rica two weeks ago, speaking Spanish, teaching English, and walking everywhere on the dusty, dirt road.” Here are some of my first impressions about being back in the United States and what parts of Playa Potrero will stick with me.To be honest, I was feeling...

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PASA Workshop #2

August 23, 2012

Honduras Child Alliance, Honduras
Katherine Olden

The second day of PASA workshops focused on motivation and the processes in which children come to learn to read, write, and think mathematically. After the previous week’s in depth classroom visits, I saw that teachers seemed motivated by understanding the reasons and ways that children learn. I saw a variety of strategies that were not always motivated by a strong sense of when, why, and how to apply them. I also saw a lot of teaching from ideas for activities rather than from explicit goals for children’s learning. As a result, the second workshop focused on the different ways of learning, the different ways that children can be intelligent, how to motivate children to continue learning, as well as background on how children develop strong concepts of reading, writing,...

Municipal Building El Porvenir

Claritza working with fine motor activities

Discussion and Activity among Teachers in El Porvenir

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Progress Report #4

August 23, 2012

Honduras Child Alliance, Honduras
Katherine Olden

Visits to the Classrooms of Participating TeachersIn the first two weeks of my stay in El Porvenir, I made brief visits to many, perhaps most, of the kinder and first grade classrooms within the municipality. Over the course of the third week, between our two Saturday PASA workshops, I made more in-depth visits of at least an hour to 12 classrooms of workshops participants. It was energizing and enlightening to spend more time with the teachers and students. What I learned from my observations greatly informed the topics and the treatment of the topics for the second workshop session.My style of interaction depended on the requests and interests of the classroom teacher. In some schools, the teacher asked me to give a sample lesson. I asked the teacher what the...

Kinder Caracas

Kinder El Porvenir

Counting in Gancho

Learning about birds and mammals in Porvenir

Waiting for a Ride in Montevideo

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Un poco de mi vida con SKIP

August 21, 2012

SKIP - Supporting Kids In Peru, Peru
Megan Walker

 Hey, I am a 25 year old British Social Work student in my first year on a BA degree. My University gave the opportunity to venture to SKIP to take part in the wonderful work they provide as part of practice placement. As soon as I was able to interview I jumped at the opportunity and was one of the lucky 6 persons to be given the chance to fly over to Peru that coming March for 4 months. My time at SKIP was at times rather stressful, as well as working a full time volunteering schedule I also had University assignments to complete. However, I was supported and geared on by my fellow University colleagues and Practice educator (the Director of SKIP). I was certainly inspired by the children...

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Profe? Who is That?

August 21, 2012

Taller de Paz, Colombia
Rachell Morillo

 After 2 whirlwind weeks of planning, activism, and getting acquainted with Bogota, the rest of the Taller de Paz crew and I arrived at our first day of classes. Our first day started with a lot of laughter, confusion and joyous reunions. I was very glad to see how excited all of the students were--it only added to my own. While serving the morning refreshments, I was startled to hear "Profe" (short for professor in Spanish) being shouted by so many eager mouths only to turn and see they were referring to me. This simple gesture really helped me understand that although I was only a couple of years older than our oldest students, I was still in charge. I was the adult, but not only that, I was the...

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Final Thoughts

August 20, 2012

Escuela de la Calle, Guatemala
Alyssa Hoyle

I have been back in California for a week now, and I find myself having a hard time adjusting to what seems to be the most normal parts of everyday life. I must admit, some of these adjustments I am enjoying: hot showers with water pressure, the convenience of driving to a grocery store for one-stop shopping, and the ability to heat up left-overs in a microwave. However, while sitting around with friends the other night I couldn’t help but notice how I was the only one without one eye on an iPhone, and I missed Guatemala. There is something about a stripped-down life that makes it more vibrant, a brilliance that comes only with simplicity. This ability to truly listen and participate fully in life, whether in the mundane...

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Soludos! Saludos! A Friday Afternoon at the AGC Schoolyard Marketplace.

August 20, 2012

Summer Camp 2012 at AGC themed the Global Marketplace. Through applied math, science, language and visual arts, rising kindergarten through fourth graders explored the economics and aesthetics of the global marketplace. Campers harvested homegrown organic greens, tomatoes, peppers, tomatillos, melons, and herbs each week which became math tools as we weighed, packaged and priced each item in preparation for the community market. Campers explored the vocabulary of enterprise through experience: consumer, producer, value, profit, value –add, entrepreneur, company, marketing, market audience, etc.In addition to the schoolyard produce, campers created their own products including recycled jewelry, natural toothpaste, applesauce, and recycled crayons.Thanks to an Omprakash connection with the New-York based shoe company, Soludos, AGC received a generous donation of 40 pairs of trendy...

Mateo harvests tomatoes for the market!

A walking fieldtrip to invite local businesses to our schoolyard farmers' market!

Kindergarteners welcome you to our schoolyard market!

Soludos, a math tool (and bargain!) at the schoolyard marketplace. Thank you Omprakash!

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PhotoPals at AGC

August 20, 2012

 Coming soon :)

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An Inquiry into the Dance of Cross-Pollination. Set on the AGC Garden.

August 20, 2012

#Taller de Paz #Hug it Forward #Health INC #Academy for Global Citizenship #OmprakashAn Inquiry into the Dance of Cross-PollinationCHICAGO, IL, USAIn the role of Community Engagement Coordinator at an environmental elementary school called the Academy for Global Citizenship (AGC), I have the privilege to actively seek out and build relationships with local and global change-makers: individuals and organizations ardently committed to a more compassionate humanity. One day last October 2011, I met a youthful, eloquent social justice activist named Alex on the AGC playground. He came to learn about our urban garden as a vehicle for food justice and community empowerment. His hope was to collect ideas and insight that he would take to Taller de Paz, a grassroots organizing initiative he co-founded with fellow Swarthmore grads in Bogota, Colombia.Our...

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Wenger Whereabouts Newsletter #1

August 19, 2012

,
Ben Wenger

 Wenger Whereabouts Newsletter #18/15/12Only now, midway through August, am I getting to slow down and reflect upon my last two weeks in Brazil. Our female and male Sports Reach teams, made mostly of NCAA Christian basketball players, have returned to the United States and left me for a semester abroad in the city of Fortaleza, Brazil. Tomorrow I start my internship and research in an NGO called Instituto da Infância (ifan.com.br). But reflections describe the past, not the future.As most of you know, I spent my summer in Columbia, Missouri working for the US Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resource Conservation Service. This internship afforded me the opportunity to co-create wetland conservation easements while learning about soils, forestry, environmental engineering, land acquisition, other conservation agencies, and the federal government. I not...

Family - (I'm 2nd from left)

Sportsreach.org

Female Team - Basketball Clinic in Schools

Men's team Champions Fortaleza - 5th International Tournament

Translation

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