My last week at Exodus. My, how time flies...
This summer we started out with twenty interns, and then there were none :(
Just kidding, there's still around four of us, I think. But it seems as though every day there are less and less people in the conference room during lunchtime. Sometimes I feel like the staff secretly whisper to each other: "Why is that one still here?..." I even got asked today when I was leaving, even though it was a friendly conversation starter. The office sure is lonely without all my intern friends!
This has been a really good summer for me. I have learned and grown and taken chances and met some incredible people, some of whom are my students who I will never forget.
This weekend I left Indiana to go to New York City to see my friends from study abroad in the Dominican Republic. When I first met my roommate and friend who I had lived with for four months, we hugged and cried and hugged and cried. I had really missed her, but hadn't had so much time this summer to think about it. And when we saw our other friends when we arrived at Washington Heights, it was such a beautiful moment, as though we had never left the DR. And the Heights is a great neighborhood, reminded me so much of Santiago that I felt like I was back there again, and with my same gals. We had been through so much together, so many tender moments, hard life obstacles, sketchy situations, you name it. We have a friendship and bond that only living in a new place that none of you are familiar with can create. And going to see them and be in New York was one of the best weekends of my life. I had been feeling pretty burned out, and every once in a while I need a pick-me-up (usually involving either travel or seeing long-lost friends). And now I feel ready and rejuvenated to start the school year again!
This summer has made me realize a lot of things about myself and about my life goals. Working at Exodus has been wonderful in so many ways, and has especially given me a new appreciation for social workers. They are always going places, always taking care of problems, interpreting for different languages, making appointments, and getting paid not a whole lot! To those of you out there who do social work, hats off to you. You're making the world a better place, helping those who need it, and working hard for the well-being of others and getting not a lot in return. As many of my students would say, "God bless you."
And this summer has made me realize what I really want to pursue in my Fulbright scholarship. I have decided to make it my goal to try to go to Colombia. I have a newfound passion for the situation of misplaced people, and with all that is going on in Colombia right now, there are many people who have had to leave their homes and either go to the city or to other countries to seek refuge. I feel a strong need to find this story, to express it somehow. Although I don't have a strong background in research, I would like to write some sort of compilation of stories from people in the community who have had to go through similar situations as those who I've worked with at Exodus. And I feel strongly that Colombia is the place to do it. So when I go back to school, I'm going to work hard, get that application in the best that I can, and hope that this scholarship works to the best of my abilities.
Sometimes people ask me why I don't want to go to a place that I would never go to in a million years, like southern Africa or Eastern Europe. And the truth is that communication through language is the key to understanding a community, and my best shot at understanding a community is speaking the native tongue. Since my strongest language is Spanish, I know that I can make more of a difference in Latin America than I can anywhere else in the world. And making a difference can come in many shapes and forms. I know tons of people who make a difference every day and aren't recognized for it. One doesn't have to travel halfway across the world to feed hungry children in order to make a difference. Sometimes the answer is right at our doorstep, and someone not too far from you is waiting for your help. It's all about making the right effort to take the opportunity to do something about it :)
Sometimes it is very hard to feel like I can't communicate with my students. Although I am teaching English to them and we are communicating, I feel as though I would have a more meaningful relationship with them if I spoke their language. But they make a great effort to learn English and to come to class every day to better their lives. And I have to say, I am a firm believer in ESL around the world. After having seen the struggles that some of the clients go through here because of language barriers, and how much easier it is for those who have an English background, I feel that denying people around the world the right to learn English doesn't have an overall positive outcome. I understand the argument of cultural and lingual preservation. I love different languages as much as the next person! But I also understand a bit of how the world works on a global level, and the truth is that the world is changing, and English is the new trend. These days, people need to speak English to be able to have access to so many opportunities and resources. It's a shame, I admit, that English is the most important language. I don't think it's fair that some people like me get to go through life without really having to learn another language while others who are trying to make it in the world must learn two or three.
But I believe that because this is the way society works, we have to adapt to give everyone equal opportunity. Equal opportunity of education means equal opportunity of language acquisition. I think that everyone should be given that right.
But alas, my days teaching English to these students are numbered, and soon I will be off to school and the students will have a new teacher and the cycle will begin again. Let's hope it gets better and better each time around. :)
Thanks for reading and my final post of A Summer of Refuge will be up next week!
Anna
Monday, August 12, 2013
Saturday, August 3, 2013
Scores and Inequalities
Hey there and welcome back to A Summer of Refuge! After this I will only be posting 2 more times, as I only have 2 more weeks left at Exodus.
This week, my new students took their first unit test to assess how much they have learned so far in the course. And I was surprised at how well they did! I think they have learned a lot and have improved their English, even after only 2 weeks. I have to say, as a teacher I feel responsible for their test scores. When I was in the Dominican Republic taking an ESL certification course, we had to read a very interesting article about teachers feeling a sense of too much responsibility. And it's absolutely true. How happy would a teacher be if all of his or her students scored 100% on their exams? I would be thrilled! But this is an unrealistic expectations, because our students are humans, not robots. Everyone learns differently and everyone takes tests differently, some better than others.
Often I think that we base too much of what we think is intelligence on test scores. Now, I know that this is an argument that we get into a lot, and I'm aware that in the United States our system is a whole lot less test-based than in other parts of the world. But often I wonder how many students fall behind, are seen as dumb, are not respected or given opportunities just because they test badly? Unfortunately, this is a lot of people. I have always been an advocate of equal opportunity in every sense of the word, especially when it comes to education, because I am one of those people who believes that a good education is a key to security, success, and the improvement of a person's quality of life. This is my sociology side coming out, and now I've come across a new idea: that the importance of test scores in the education system is a form of inequality.
Of course I agree that standardized test scores do not promote an equal playing field whatsoever. If you don't go to a good school, you aren't going to learn as much. If you don't have the resources to seek extra help, how can you expect to study correctly? A score on the ACT or SAT does not represent how intelligent you are. To me, it represents two things: your accessibility to certain information and your willingness to study for the test. When I first came to DePauw, I specifically remember how exciting it was to talk to my new classmates in my first year mentor group. The first night, a few of us were hanging out in one of the dorm lounges, getting to know each other and getting past the preliminaries (where are you from, what do you want to be your major, etc) before really becoming friends. Well, we started to get on the subject of AP courses.
I went to a small public high school in rural Iowa, which is not necessarily what colleges like DePauw are looking for. However, I considered my high school to be one of the better ones in the area, and I appreciated all that was offered to me. In my eyes, I had just as good a chance as any to get into the school I wanted. And when I went to DePauw, I felt even more confident about this. But when I started talking to other first year students, I realized that I might not have been as high on the spectrum as I thought. I was asked, "What AP courses did you take?" "How many AP credits do you have?" "My score on the ACT was 32...how about yours?" At first, I felt very out of place. I had never taken AP courses because my school didn't have them. I got a 27 on the ACT, which wasn't the score that I wanted, but eventually it worked out. Many of my fellow classmates went in to college already having college credits because of their AP scores, and could less classes in one semester. This was something I couldn't relate to, an opportunity that I couldn't take advantage of. And I slowly came to realize that not having taken AP courses put me at a major disadvantage when applying to college.
But I have no room to complain because I definitely consider myself on the middle to high rung of the social spectrum. I never had to deal with major financial difficulties growing up, my parents were able to help put me through college, and now I have an internship and plan to go to grad school. This is as far in life as I ever hoped to get, and I am so grateful.
But what about everyone else? Not everyone else has been so fortunate as I have. I consider myself a pretty good test-taker if I know the information at hand. But what about everyone else?
Now I find myself on the other side, expecting my students to get As on the tests I give them, becoming frustrated when they don't. But then I come to realize that not only am I raising the bar too high for them, but also for myself as a teacher. Every point that is wrong, I wonder if I just didn't do a good job teaching the material. Once again, students are human beings, not robots. No one is perfect, and for me to expect perfect scores across the board is unrealistic and doesn't necessarily represent my skills as a teacher. So now I am working on not worrying so much about the scores, but about the individual in class, and whether I am contributing to their active learning. Being a teacher sure makes me miss being a student sometimes :)
Just some food for thought! I'll be back next week with more to report!
Anna
This week, my new students took their first unit test to assess how much they have learned so far in the course. And I was surprised at how well they did! I think they have learned a lot and have improved their English, even after only 2 weeks. I have to say, as a teacher I feel responsible for their test scores. When I was in the Dominican Republic taking an ESL certification course, we had to read a very interesting article about teachers feeling a sense of too much responsibility. And it's absolutely true. How happy would a teacher be if all of his or her students scored 100% on their exams? I would be thrilled! But this is an unrealistic expectations, because our students are humans, not robots. Everyone learns differently and everyone takes tests differently, some better than others.
Often I think that we base too much of what we think is intelligence on test scores. Now, I know that this is an argument that we get into a lot, and I'm aware that in the United States our system is a whole lot less test-based than in other parts of the world. But often I wonder how many students fall behind, are seen as dumb, are not respected or given opportunities just because they test badly? Unfortunately, this is a lot of people. I have always been an advocate of equal opportunity in every sense of the word, especially when it comes to education, because I am one of those people who believes that a good education is a key to security, success, and the improvement of a person's quality of life. This is my sociology side coming out, and now I've come across a new idea: that the importance of test scores in the education system is a form of inequality.
Of course I agree that standardized test scores do not promote an equal playing field whatsoever. If you don't go to a good school, you aren't going to learn as much. If you don't have the resources to seek extra help, how can you expect to study correctly? A score on the ACT or SAT does not represent how intelligent you are. To me, it represents two things: your accessibility to certain information and your willingness to study for the test. When I first came to DePauw, I specifically remember how exciting it was to talk to my new classmates in my first year mentor group. The first night, a few of us were hanging out in one of the dorm lounges, getting to know each other and getting past the preliminaries (where are you from, what do you want to be your major, etc) before really becoming friends. Well, we started to get on the subject of AP courses.
I went to a small public high school in rural Iowa, which is not necessarily what colleges like DePauw are looking for. However, I considered my high school to be one of the better ones in the area, and I appreciated all that was offered to me. In my eyes, I had just as good a chance as any to get into the school I wanted. And when I went to DePauw, I felt even more confident about this. But when I started talking to other first year students, I realized that I might not have been as high on the spectrum as I thought. I was asked, "What AP courses did you take?" "How many AP credits do you have?" "My score on the ACT was 32...how about yours?" At first, I felt very out of place. I had never taken AP courses because my school didn't have them. I got a 27 on the ACT, which wasn't the score that I wanted, but eventually it worked out. Many of my fellow classmates went in to college already having college credits because of their AP scores, and could less classes in one semester. This was something I couldn't relate to, an opportunity that I couldn't take advantage of. And I slowly came to realize that not having taken AP courses put me at a major disadvantage when applying to college.
But I have no room to complain because I definitely consider myself on the middle to high rung of the social spectrum. I never had to deal with major financial difficulties growing up, my parents were able to help put me through college, and now I have an internship and plan to go to grad school. This is as far in life as I ever hoped to get, and I am so grateful.
But what about everyone else? Not everyone else has been so fortunate as I have. I consider myself a pretty good test-taker if I know the information at hand. But what about everyone else?
Now I find myself on the other side, expecting my students to get As on the tests I give them, becoming frustrated when they don't. But then I come to realize that not only am I raising the bar too high for them, but also for myself as a teacher. Every point that is wrong, I wonder if I just didn't do a good job teaching the material. Once again, students are human beings, not robots. No one is perfect, and for me to expect perfect scores across the board is unrealistic and doesn't necessarily represent my skills as a teacher. So now I am working on not worrying so much about the scores, but about the individual in class, and whether I am contributing to their active learning. Being a teacher sure makes me miss being a student sometimes :)
Just some food for thought! I'll be back next week with more to report!
Anna
Monday, July 29, 2013
Bus Training
Welcome back to A Summer of Refuge! The summer is drawing to an end, and I only have three weeks left at Exodus. While I know that I will miss it, I will be ready to go back to school and welcome DePauw's international student class of 2017.
This week started off in a very interesting way. On Monday morning I woke up 2 hours early and did a bus training! I thought it was funny that I, who have never ridden IndyGo, was entrusted to teach clients how to ride the bus. I was a little nervous, but I took my fellow intern with me and off we went. I don't know why I was so anxious about it; if I can take Chilean micros and Dominican conchos, I'm pretty sure the Indianapolis public buses can't be that hard. And they weren't! We took the family and we got to Exodus and back safe and sound. I may or may not have second-guessed where to get on and get off a time or two, but they got the gist of it :) I think it was actually more of a learning experience for me than it was for them, but they probably don't need to know that!
This week at Exodus we have a group of brand new students! This round I have my own group that I work with every day, whereas before I switched between the most advanced group and the most basic group. This time around I have my own group of intermediate students. While I enjoy the intermediate level because it's a lot of grammar and phonetics (things that I am better at teaching), all of my students are at very different levels, which is a constant challenge. Sometimes I stuggle a bit to keep them all on the same page because some of them grasp the concepts quickly and are ready to move on while others fall behind. Alas, I think this is a constant battle that all teachers have to fight. Have I mentioned how much more respect I have for teachers after doing this internship? Mad respect!
This Tuesday we have an intern appreciation lunch at Exodus. Although I'm mostly excited about the food, I'm sure all interns can relate when I say that sometimes we get tired of being the interns. We do the grunt work, we don't get paid, and we don't get the same cred as the staff members. But this is an experience that we all must go through in order to build our resumes and prepare us for the real world. It's kind of a rite of passage into the professional world. Although I've never seen myself as someone meant to go into the professional world, it's good experience to work in an office and get to do a lot of the same things that the staff do. And I couldn't have asked for better supervisors; they tell me every day how much they appreciate me. So although the intern appreciation lunch is a nice idea, it's very unnecessary. But I know not all interns are so lucky.
Apart from the professional life, this weekend I went with a friend of mine to the NASCAR Brickyard 400 race. Since living in Indy, I have gone to two car races, something that I had never done before in my life! I have explored and ran around Butler's campus, can cruise Mass Ave, explored every inch of Broad Ripple, know how to take the IndyGo, been to the 500, and been able to pay all my bills! Next thing I have to do is go to an Indianapolis Indians game, which will hopefully happen this weekend.
More to come next week!
This week started off in a very interesting way. On Monday morning I woke up 2 hours early and did a bus training! I thought it was funny that I, who have never ridden IndyGo, was entrusted to teach clients how to ride the bus. I was a little nervous, but I took my fellow intern with me and off we went. I don't know why I was so anxious about it; if I can take Chilean micros and Dominican conchos, I'm pretty sure the Indianapolis public buses can't be that hard. And they weren't! We took the family and we got to Exodus and back safe and sound. I may or may not have second-guessed where to get on and get off a time or two, but they got the gist of it :) I think it was actually more of a learning experience for me than it was for them, but they probably don't need to know that!
This week at Exodus we have a group of brand new students! This round I have my own group that I work with every day, whereas before I switched between the most advanced group and the most basic group. This time around I have my own group of intermediate students. While I enjoy the intermediate level because it's a lot of grammar and phonetics (things that I am better at teaching), all of my students are at very different levels, which is a constant challenge. Sometimes I stuggle a bit to keep them all on the same page because some of them grasp the concepts quickly and are ready to move on while others fall behind. Alas, I think this is a constant battle that all teachers have to fight. Have I mentioned how much more respect I have for teachers after doing this internship? Mad respect!
This Tuesday we have an intern appreciation lunch at Exodus. Although I'm mostly excited about the food, I'm sure all interns can relate when I say that sometimes we get tired of being the interns. We do the grunt work, we don't get paid, and we don't get the same cred as the staff members. But this is an experience that we all must go through in order to build our resumes and prepare us for the real world. It's kind of a rite of passage into the professional world. Although I've never seen myself as someone meant to go into the professional world, it's good experience to work in an office and get to do a lot of the same things that the staff do. And I couldn't have asked for better supervisors; they tell me every day how much they appreciate me. So although the intern appreciation lunch is a nice idea, it's very unnecessary. But I know not all interns are so lucky.
Apart from the professional life, this weekend I went with a friend of mine to the NASCAR Brickyard 400 race. Since living in Indy, I have gone to two car races, something that I had never done before in my life! I have explored and ran around Butler's campus, can cruise Mass Ave, explored every inch of Broad Ripple, know how to take the IndyGo, been to the 500, and been able to pay all my bills! Next thing I have to do is go to an Indianapolis Indians game, which will hopefully happen this weekend.
More to come next week!
Sunday, July 21, 2013
New Class
Welcome back to A Summer of Refuge! Just one more month and I will be back in Greencastle in my senior year at DePauw. Exciting, yet sad because it means that my time at Exodus is slowly coming to a close.
This week there was no class because my students graduated and we had a week's break before the next students roll around the corner. While it's nice to have a break to be able to get office work done, the week also goes by much more slowly without teaching. And I really miss my students. It's weird to think that I might not see some of them again, but I hope they went away having learned a lot and having worked their way toward becoming self-sufficient in their new lives.
However, not all the week was filled with office work. The other two LCORE interns and I went on some adventures to take pictures for the new curriculum, like how to cash a check and how to ask for things at the supermarket. Our first stop was Saraga, which is a large international grocery store in Indianapolis. If you haven't been there, you need to go. My favorite part is rummaging around all the aisles looking at things I have never seen before. We got permission from the owner to take pictures, and although we were stared at for a long time by many people, we got the pictures we needed and we had fun doing it! When we were taking pictures at the cash register, a man came to check out thinking that we worked there. Guess we were convincing :)
Our next stop was the bank. Of course, most banks don't let people take pictures inside due to the security risk. We didn't get to do it, either, no matter how legit we pretended to be. But we did park across the street from the bank and take pictures of the outside of the building, which wasn't creepy at all. The worst part was that right now the Muslim community is celebrating Ramadan, the ninth month of the Islamic calendar. This means fasting every day from sunrise to sunset without any food or water. My fellow intern is Muslim, and although I always try to remember he is fasting, I often forget and talk endlessly about food (which I do anyway). So when we were in the international grocery store, I had him accompany me down the aisles, pointing out different fruits and vegetables from his side of the world that I couldn't find here. Of course, he's probably the most polite person on earth, so he was happy to tell me all about them.
It wasn't until later that I thought how hungry it must have made him to walk through all that delicious food without being able to eat it. And after we were done, we stopped to get junk food at the gas station and I ate it right in front of him! Good job, Anna. Good job.
Tomorrow I am doing a bus training to teach students how to ride the bus to English class on the IndyGo bus system, which I have never used before and might not use again. I think we're just gonna wing it and see how it goes. I figure if I'm able to use the micros in Chile and the conchos in the Dominican Republic, a bus in Indianapolis should be no problem. Plus, it will be a good chance for me to understand the city at a whole new level. At this point, I drive everywhere and gas money only keeps going up. Might do me some good to learn how to use the bus so I have a different option available to me.
Exciting day tomorrow...bus training, new students, new week, new class! You'll hear more about it next time
This week there was no class because my students graduated and we had a week's break before the next students roll around the corner. While it's nice to have a break to be able to get office work done, the week also goes by much more slowly without teaching. And I really miss my students. It's weird to think that I might not see some of them again, but I hope they went away having learned a lot and having worked their way toward becoming self-sufficient in their new lives.
However, not all the week was filled with office work. The other two LCORE interns and I went on some adventures to take pictures for the new curriculum, like how to cash a check and how to ask for things at the supermarket. Our first stop was Saraga, which is a large international grocery store in Indianapolis. If you haven't been there, you need to go. My favorite part is rummaging around all the aisles looking at things I have never seen before. We got permission from the owner to take pictures, and although we were stared at for a long time by many people, we got the pictures we needed and we had fun doing it! When we were taking pictures at the cash register, a man came to check out thinking that we worked there. Guess we were convincing :)
Our next stop was the bank. Of course, most banks don't let people take pictures inside due to the security risk. We didn't get to do it, either, no matter how legit we pretended to be. But we did park across the street from the bank and take pictures of the outside of the building, which wasn't creepy at all. The worst part was that right now the Muslim community is celebrating Ramadan, the ninth month of the Islamic calendar. This means fasting every day from sunrise to sunset without any food or water. My fellow intern is Muslim, and although I always try to remember he is fasting, I often forget and talk endlessly about food (which I do anyway). So when we were in the international grocery store, I had him accompany me down the aisles, pointing out different fruits and vegetables from his side of the world that I couldn't find here. Of course, he's probably the most polite person on earth, so he was happy to tell me all about them.
It wasn't until later that I thought how hungry it must have made him to walk through all that delicious food without being able to eat it. And after we were done, we stopped to get junk food at the gas station and I ate it right in front of him! Good job, Anna. Good job.
Tomorrow I am doing a bus training to teach students how to ride the bus to English class on the IndyGo bus system, which I have never used before and might not use again. I think we're just gonna wing it and see how it goes. I figure if I'm able to use the micros in Chile and the conchos in the Dominican Republic, a bus in Indianapolis should be no problem. Plus, it will be a good chance for me to understand the city at a whole new level. At this point, I drive everywhere and gas money only keeps going up. Might do me some good to learn how to use the bus so I have a different option available to me.
Exciting day tomorrow...bus training, new students, new week, new class! You'll hear more about it next time
Sunday, July 14, 2013
Momentos
Hey there and welcome back to A Summer of Refuge, everyone's favorite online summer reading column. If only... :)
This past week at Exodus, we graduated all of our current students, both the advanced group and the basic group. Although I felt sad at the thought of not seeing my students every day, I also felt very proud of them. These men came to class every day, ready to learn, and put forth their best effort. Looking at their comparative test scores, I can see that most of them improved quite a bit from the level they were at before taking the eight-week course. This week, we had a class field trip and we took the students to the Indy Reads Bookstore, which is a bookstore that takes donated items and all the profits go toward adult literacy programs in Indianapolis. This is one great thing about my internship; not only do I get to have a group of students and gain teaching experience, but I also make connections with important non-profits in Indianapolis. I've come to realize that although Indianapolis might not be my favorite city in the US, it's filled with people trying to make a difference in ways that are often not apparent to the public eye. For World Refugee Day, we took our students to Indy Urban Acres which raises organic vegetables for low-income families in Indy who can't afford to eat healthy food. Indy Reads is an organization that helps adults in the city become literate, and today a friend told me about a non-profit for opera singers that puts on shows to help students be able to study music who usually wouldn't be able to afford to do so. It just makes me think that there are so many ways to get involved, and there is something out there for everyone who wants to make a difference. The world is full of opportunities, isn't it?
Anyhow, after getting sidetracked, the students each got to pick out a book in English to read. The two most popular books were dictionaries and the Bible. Not surprising at all :) Many of our students from Burma are of a very strong Christian faith. Every time we ask, "What did you do this weekend?" The answer is always: "I went to church." We also have the advanced students write journal entries every week, and they are quite interesting to read. While some of them are pretty funny, some of them are sad and some of them are hopeful. But they all talk about God and how God has helped them through these times. And trust me, these guys have seen some pretty hard times. On our last day, we played a game where they each were given a few cards from a stack that had various questions on them. And I mean, VARIED. Some cards say, "What is your favorite color?" while other cards say, "Do you believe in the death penalty?" I think we need to go through the stack next time and pick through the questions whose answers will start a debate that takes up 2 of the 3 hours of class. But one question was, "What makes you sad?" One of my students wrote, "Flashbacks." Flashbacks. It's moments like this when I realize once again that it's not just fun and games in English class.
As an English teacher, sometimes it's easy to forget what the students have been through. In class, there are always stories and laughter and interesting discussions, so it's easy to feel very good about the situation and think that the students are so happy in class. However, every once in a while there comes a moment in which we are once again reminded that life hasn't always been, and in many ways still isn't, enjoyable for these people. This moment may come when talking about family or friends without remembering that many of these people lost their loved ones and most of their family. This moment may come when talking about sports with an amputee who tells you that he loved playing soccer before he lost his legs. This moment may come when teaching elderly men and women how to differentiate between the letters I and L, knowing that they are probably never going to learn how to read in their lifetime. It's moments like this that force me to put what I do into perspective. I admit that sometimes I think too much about it and become really sad and angry, wondering how the world can be such a cruel place. But honestly it's of no use to sit around and be sad about it. The whole purpose of my internship is to help people, so that's what I'm going to keep doing. I've come to the conclusion that it's normal to get a little emotional about what the students go through, but it's also important to keep a good head on my shoulders and put my best foot forward. Maybe seeing their teacher happy will make them happy too :)
But the time has come for them to move on, and after eight weeks together I've become very close with them. Hopefully they will go on to get jobs and become self-sufficient. I can only hope that the our class together has helped them in some way and that I was of use to them in their new life. But no fear, the next class will be coming soon and I am excited for the new group! This time around I will be getting my very own single group who I will be working with each and every day, so I'm looking forward to having some freedom in my curriculum and becoming close with them in my last month at Exodus.
Thanks so much for reading and I hope this blog is at least somewhat insightful!
Anna
This past week at Exodus, we graduated all of our current students, both the advanced group and the basic group. Although I felt sad at the thought of not seeing my students every day, I also felt very proud of them. These men came to class every day, ready to learn, and put forth their best effort. Looking at their comparative test scores, I can see that most of them improved quite a bit from the level they were at before taking the eight-week course. This week, we had a class field trip and we took the students to the Indy Reads Bookstore, which is a bookstore that takes donated items and all the profits go toward adult literacy programs in Indianapolis. This is one great thing about my internship; not only do I get to have a group of students and gain teaching experience, but I also make connections with important non-profits in Indianapolis. I've come to realize that although Indianapolis might not be my favorite city in the US, it's filled with people trying to make a difference in ways that are often not apparent to the public eye. For World Refugee Day, we took our students to Indy Urban Acres which raises organic vegetables for low-income families in Indy who can't afford to eat healthy food. Indy Reads is an organization that helps adults in the city become literate, and today a friend told me about a non-profit for opera singers that puts on shows to help students be able to study music who usually wouldn't be able to afford to do so. It just makes me think that there are so many ways to get involved, and there is something out there for everyone who wants to make a difference. The world is full of opportunities, isn't it?
Anyhow, after getting sidetracked, the students each got to pick out a book in English to read. The two most popular books were dictionaries and the Bible. Not surprising at all :) Many of our students from Burma are of a very strong Christian faith. Every time we ask, "What did you do this weekend?" The answer is always: "I went to church." We also have the advanced students write journal entries every week, and they are quite interesting to read. While some of them are pretty funny, some of them are sad and some of them are hopeful. But they all talk about God and how God has helped them through these times. And trust me, these guys have seen some pretty hard times. On our last day, we played a game where they each were given a few cards from a stack that had various questions on them. And I mean, VARIED. Some cards say, "What is your favorite color?" while other cards say, "Do you believe in the death penalty?" I think we need to go through the stack next time and pick through the questions whose answers will start a debate that takes up 2 of the 3 hours of class. But one question was, "What makes you sad?" One of my students wrote, "Flashbacks." Flashbacks. It's moments like this when I realize once again that it's not just fun and games in English class.
As an English teacher, sometimes it's easy to forget what the students have been through. In class, there are always stories and laughter and interesting discussions, so it's easy to feel very good about the situation and think that the students are so happy in class. However, every once in a while there comes a moment in which we are once again reminded that life hasn't always been, and in many ways still isn't, enjoyable for these people. This moment may come when talking about family or friends without remembering that many of these people lost their loved ones and most of their family. This moment may come when talking about sports with an amputee who tells you that he loved playing soccer before he lost his legs. This moment may come when teaching elderly men and women how to differentiate between the letters I and L, knowing that they are probably never going to learn how to read in their lifetime. It's moments like this that force me to put what I do into perspective. I admit that sometimes I think too much about it and become really sad and angry, wondering how the world can be such a cruel place. But honestly it's of no use to sit around and be sad about it. The whole purpose of my internship is to help people, so that's what I'm going to keep doing. I've come to the conclusion that it's normal to get a little emotional about what the students go through, but it's also important to keep a good head on my shoulders and put my best foot forward. Maybe seeing their teacher happy will make them happy too :)
But the time has come for them to move on, and after eight weeks together I've become very close with them. Hopefully they will go on to get jobs and become self-sufficient. I can only hope that the our class together has helped them in some way and that I was of use to them in their new life. But no fear, the next class will be coming soon and I am excited for the new group! This time around I will be getting my very own single group who I will be working with each and every day, so I'm looking forward to having some freedom in my curriculum and becoming close with them in my last month at Exodus.
Thanks so much for reading and I hope this blog is at least somewhat insightful!
Anna
Monday, July 8, 2013
Post-break
And now I've come upon the final week with my first group of students. They will graduate from the course on Thursday, and after that I will receive a new group.
I didn't write this past week because I was at home for the fourth of July (among other things.) I, like most people, need a break if I am doing the same thing day after day. I was getting pretty burned out there for a while, and needed some time to recharge and see my friends and family. However, my job is probably one of the least day-to-day jobs there is, such is the job of any teacher. Every day is different, every lesson is different, and every group of students is different. When I was home I sort of stayed out of the teaching mindset for a while, so it didn't even occur to me that pretty soon my group of students wouldn't be my group any more. And I gotta tell you, it's not the best feeling in the world.
I think I've become more attached to my group than I thought. I never really thought about what it would be like at work without them there. I started on May 20th, the same day that my students started taking the class. Even though a month and a half seems like such a short amount of time, after spending three hours a day four days a week with these guys, we've gotten to know each other pretty well. Even though sometimes in my advanced group we spend too much class time listening to stories of the Congo and trying to understand advanced grammatical rules that even I struggle with, I really have enjoyed my time with them.
I think there comes a time in every teacher's life when your students become not only faces you see in the classroom, but people you have real relationships with, and who even become your close friends. And I've felt that toward all my students, who are all grown men looking for jobs, who have to provide for families, who are honestly just trying to get by in their new life. And I have such a deep respect for them and all that they've been through that the least I can do is go in that room every day and try to make it easier on them by giving them a useful skill. It makes me a little irritated to think of some people that I go to school with, who complain about going to class and say, "when am I ever going to use this material?" At least we have the opportunity to take a useless class, or a class about a random subject, or something that we really like. In my class at Exodus, the students try to squeeze everything they can out of those three hours, every rule, every spelling correction. Because they need to, and because they have motivation to do so. Today one of the students was asked if he thought being a teacher was hard, and he said yes, of course it was. And to that my coworker and I said that it's easy to be a teacher when you have good students. And indeed it has been.
Another thing that I have gained from these students is a male perspective. I will admit that I can tend to be a hardcore feminist. And no, this doesn't mean I'm scary or mean, it just means that I truly believe that men and women should be equal and therefore should be given the same rights and opportunities. Sometimes, however, I get so caught up in this mentality that I assume the worst about men and don't try to listen to their side of the story. But in the past six weeks I have been with a bunch of men every day who respect me and listen to me and take a vested interest what I have to say. This has allowed me to soften my edges a bit, and to take time to sit down and listen to what some men in this world have been through. Sometimes it's painful to observe this and to see men who were once educated in their own country, were important figures, maybe had their own land or their own business, and are now struggling to speak the native language, working minimum wage jobs, and living off of food stamps. And they are expected to be the tough ones, the ones who know what to do and who are supposed to provide for their families and be the role model. These guys have had their pride scraped off the floor with a metal shovel and thrown back in their faces. But here they continue, day after day, coming to English class with an open mind and an open heart. And if that's not inspiring, I don't know what is. Maybe not all men have it as easy as some of us would like to think :)
Next week I'll have a new batch of students to teach. Although I will be sad to see this current group go, I'm looking forward to hearing some more stories, explaining more grammar and gaining some new perspective from the toughest group of people I've ever met in my life. Till next time...
I didn't write this past week because I was at home for the fourth of July (among other things.) I, like most people, need a break if I am doing the same thing day after day. I was getting pretty burned out there for a while, and needed some time to recharge and see my friends and family. However, my job is probably one of the least day-to-day jobs there is, such is the job of any teacher. Every day is different, every lesson is different, and every group of students is different. When I was home I sort of stayed out of the teaching mindset for a while, so it didn't even occur to me that pretty soon my group of students wouldn't be my group any more. And I gotta tell you, it's not the best feeling in the world.
I think I've become more attached to my group than I thought. I never really thought about what it would be like at work without them there. I started on May 20th, the same day that my students started taking the class. Even though a month and a half seems like such a short amount of time, after spending three hours a day four days a week with these guys, we've gotten to know each other pretty well. Even though sometimes in my advanced group we spend too much class time listening to stories of the Congo and trying to understand advanced grammatical rules that even I struggle with, I really have enjoyed my time with them.
I think there comes a time in every teacher's life when your students become not only faces you see in the classroom, but people you have real relationships with, and who even become your close friends. And I've felt that toward all my students, who are all grown men looking for jobs, who have to provide for families, who are honestly just trying to get by in their new life. And I have such a deep respect for them and all that they've been through that the least I can do is go in that room every day and try to make it easier on them by giving them a useful skill. It makes me a little irritated to think of some people that I go to school with, who complain about going to class and say, "when am I ever going to use this material?" At least we have the opportunity to take a useless class, or a class about a random subject, or something that we really like. In my class at Exodus, the students try to squeeze everything they can out of those three hours, every rule, every spelling correction. Because they need to, and because they have motivation to do so. Today one of the students was asked if he thought being a teacher was hard, and he said yes, of course it was. And to that my coworker and I said that it's easy to be a teacher when you have good students. And indeed it has been.
Another thing that I have gained from these students is a male perspective. I will admit that I can tend to be a hardcore feminist. And no, this doesn't mean I'm scary or mean, it just means that I truly believe that men and women should be equal and therefore should be given the same rights and opportunities. Sometimes, however, I get so caught up in this mentality that I assume the worst about men and don't try to listen to their side of the story. But in the past six weeks I have been with a bunch of men every day who respect me and listen to me and take a vested interest what I have to say. This has allowed me to soften my edges a bit, and to take time to sit down and listen to what some men in this world have been through. Sometimes it's painful to observe this and to see men who were once educated in their own country, were important figures, maybe had their own land or their own business, and are now struggling to speak the native language, working minimum wage jobs, and living off of food stamps. And they are expected to be the tough ones, the ones who know what to do and who are supposed to provide for their families and be the role model. These guys have had their pride scraped off the floor with a metal shovel and thrown back in their faces. But here they continue, day after day, coming to English class with an open mind and an open heart. And if that's not inspiring, I don't know what is. Maybe not all men have it as easy as some of us would like to think :)
Next week I'll have a new batch of students to teach. Although I will be sad to see this current group go, I'm looking forward to hearing some more stories, explaining more grammar and gaining some new perspective from the toughest group of people I've ever met in my life. Till next time...
Sunday, June 23, 2013
World Refugee Day
This week at Exodus was one of my best weeks in Indianapolis. On June 20th, we were able to celebrate World Refugee Day with my students, as well as other members of the Burmese population on a farm called Indy Urban Acres.
I have to admit that sometimes it is easy to forget how much of a difference we actually make. Working in the office, entering data, and keeping track of attendance are all important parts of the upkeep of the organization, but I often find myself losing track of what we are actually working toward. This has made me realize how much I really enjoy actually working directly with the people that we are serving. Sure, the office work is needed; it's crucial to the efficiency and structure of the organization. But now I realize that when I decide to go out in the real world and pursue a career, if I'm not working with the people then I'd rather not work at all :)
Lately I've been feeling a little burned out; I've been tired and running out of money and trying to keep up with all of my intern projects at the office. And to be honest, I think I've been losing a little bit of my motivation to do a good job at my work. I'm sure we all go through this in every job we ever have. When we first start, we feel excited and ready to tackle new challenges because we understand that we are going to be making a difference. However, you reach a point where you start losing sight of that difference and start forgetting why you signed up for this job in the first place. When you wake up in the morning, you want to sleep in that extra hour. You are counting the minutes towards the lunch break and 5:00, and when you get home from work, it's all you can do to make your way up the stairs to your bed. I think a lot of Americans go through this, and for some people, this phase never ends. Americans work extremely hard, and it makes us worn out and unable to do much else besides lay on the couch on our days off. And I gotta tell ya, that life is not for me.
However, every once in a while you are pleasantly reminded of the reason why you took the job in the first place. Maybe it's the fact that you get 4 weeks of vacation. Maybe it's that really big Christmas bonus. For me, it was World Refugee Day. I finally got to go to work dressed as my actual self: shorts, a headband, and a grubby tank top. And why? Because this was a day to celebrate what it means to be a refugee, and we were going to the farm. Indy Urban Acres is an organic farm in Indianapolis that grows food for low-income families in the city that can't afford to buy healthy things to eat. For World Refugee Day on June 20th, we took our students out to their gardens to work together with the staff and do some farming for the community.
The coolest part about this whole day was that many of our students were farmers or worked on farms in their home countries, so I could tell that being able to be outside and doing something that was familiar to them did a lot of good. After arriving to the United States, being placed in an apartment with neighbors they don't know and trying to learn a language that many of them have no experience with is a challenge in and of itself. Most of us are unable to imagine this kind of reality, so next time you think your life is hard, maybe think twice about that and think about some people who might be in your own community going through an experience not unlike that of the refugees. And use that to do some good in the world.
The farming day was also good for me, because not only had I grown up around farming communities, I also worked on an organic vegetable farm the summer before I went to college, and so pulling weeds was definitely something that I had done before. But I was no match for some of the students; I don't think I've ever seen such fast weed-pulling in my life. They worked like pros, swift and mighty. We worked in pairs, so I got to work across from one of my students, and it was really nice to be able to have a conversation outside of English class with him. He taught me some words in his language, one of which is "Siama" which means "teacher." He now calls me Siama, and now I know whenever that word comes up in conversation, someone's talking about me! He told me that in Burma his English teachers were very bad, and that when he had questions, he often had to go without answers. Since he is one of my most inquisitive students, he told me how much he appreciates that I answer all his questions the best I can. It's moments like this when I am reminded that yes, I am in fact making a difference. This is why I wanted this job. This is why I need to wake up every morning.
At the end of what was the most rewarding day of my summer, I walked back to the car with another student of mine. I asked him if he enjoyed the day, and you know what he said? "When I farm, my heart is good. When I am at home, my heart is sad." I was so happy that the students could get a day to go out and do something that they loved and something that was familiar to them. I'm sure in their daily routines they feel as though everything is a struggle, from going to the grocery store to riding a bus to speaking English to paying bills. Things that we think of as easy, as things to check off our simple to-do lists, are real challenges for some people. So to give them a day to do something that they are good at, something they know that they can do, made them happier than any English class I've given them.
So, if you have a minute, take some time to learn about refugees and about the journey they make. And if you have any living in your home community, volunteer and help them out. Because although it may seem like a small difference, to someone else, it could mean the world :) Thank you
Anna
I have to admit that sometimes it is easy to forget how much of a difference we actually make. Working in the office, entering data, and keeping track of attendance are all important parts of the upkeep of the organization, but I often find myself losing track of what we are actually working toward. This has made me realize how much I really enjoy actually working directly with the people that we are serving. Sure, the office work is needed; it's crucial to the efficiency and structure of the organization. But now I realize that when I decide to go out in the real world and pursue a career, if I'm not working with the people then I'd rather not work at all :)
Lately I've been feeling a little burned out; I've been tired and running out of money and trying to keep up with all of my intern projects at the office. And to be honest, I think I've been losing a little bit of my motivation to do a good job at my work. I'm sure we all go through this in every job we ever have. When we first start, we feel excited and ready to tackle new challenges because we understand that we are going to be making a difference. However, you reach a point where you start losing sight of that difference and start forgetting why you signed up for this job in the first place. When you wake up in the morning, you want to sleep in that extra hour. You are counting the minutes towards the lunch break and 5:00, and when you get home from work, it's all you can do to make your way up the stairs to your bed. I think a lot of Americans go through this, and for some people, this phase never ends. Americans work extremely hard, and it makes us worn out and unable to do much else besides lay on the couch on our days off. And I gotta tell ya, that life is not for me.
However, every once in a while you are pleasantly reminded of the reason why you took the job in the first place. Maybe it's the fact that you get 4 weeks of vacation. Maybe it's that really big Christmas bonus. For me, it was World Refugee Day. I finally got to go to work dressed as my actual self: shorts, a headband, and a grubby tank top. And why? Because this was a day to celebrate what it means to be a refugee, and we were going to the farm. Indy Urban Acres is an organic farm in Indianapolis that grows food for low-income families in the city that can't afford to buy healthy things to eat. For World Refugee Day on June 20th, we took our students out to their gardens to work together with the staff and do some farming for the community.
The coolest part about this whole day was that many of our students were farmers or worked on farms in their home countries, so I could tell that being able to be outside and doing something that was familiar to them did a lot of good. After arriving to the United States, being placed in an apartment with neighbors they don't know and trying to learn a language that many of them have no experience with is a challenge in and of itself. Most of us are unable to imagine this kind of reality, so next time you think your life is hard, maybe think twice about that and think about some people who might be in your own community going through an experience not unlike that of the refugees. And use that to do some good in the world.
The farming day was also good for me, because not only had I grown up around farming communities, I also worked on an organic vegetable farm the summer before I went to college, and so pulling weeds was definitely something that I had done before. But I was no match for some of the students; I don't think I've ever seen such fast weed-pulling in my life. They worked like pros, swift and mighty. We worked in pairs, so I got to work across from one of my students, and it was really nice to be able to have a conversation outside of English class with him. He taught me some words in his language, one of which is "Siama" which means "teacher." He now calls me Siama, and now I know whenever that word comes up in conversation, someone's talking about me! He told me that in Burma his English teachers were very bad, and that when he had questions, he often had to go without answers. Since he is one of my most inquisitive students, he told me how much he appreciates that I answer all his questions the best I can. It's moments like this when I am reminded that yes, I am in fact making a difference. This is why I wanted this job. This is why I need to wake up every morning.
At the end of what was the most rewarding day of my summer, I walked back to the car with another student of mine. I asked him if he enjoyed the day, and you know what he said? "When I farm, my heart is good. When I am at home, my heart is sad." I was so happy that the students could get a day to go out and do something that they loved and something that was familiar to them. I'm sure in their daily routines they feel as though everything is a struggle, from going to the grocery store to riding a bus to speaking English to paying bills. Things that we think of as easy, as things to check off our simple to-do lists, are real challenges for some people. So to give them a day to do something that they are good at, something they know that they can do, made them happier than any English class I've given them.
So, if you have a minute, take some time to learn about refugees and about the journey they make. And if you have any living in your home community, volunteer and help them out. Because although it may seem like a small difference, to someone else, it could mean the world :) Thank you
Anna
Sunday, June 16, 2013
Trading Spaces
Welcome back to my blog, "A Summer of Refuge." So far I've already spent a whole month here at Exodus and there still is never a dull moment!
This week, our department moved offices. Whereas before the Housing and the English programs were in the same office, we are now in separate offices. A Monday afternoon was courageously spent taking apart shelves, hauling books, and moving computers to a new and improved office space. Most people were happy about this change, mainly due to the fact that "now we will be able to get a lot more work done!" Gotta admit, I was not quite so thrilled. Smaller office, more closed off, and less people to talk to. I definitely have gotten into a habit at work of talking to whoever is in the office, probably because everyone is just so interesting. So now we have half the people, and although I really like the English people, I miss those in Housing as well. Occasionally I walk down the hall to the old office and reminisce about the old times when the housing and LCORE interns were in the office alone during staff meetings, pretending like we were the ones in charge. Sure will miss that place!
One thing this internship has taught me about myself is that I can be pretty chatty. When I'm not teaching, I'm usually in the office doing some sort of work or another, which can range from lesson plans to cutting out flashcards to laminating things to keeping track of attendance and making binders. There are just a million things to be done, and I'm very glad to be able to help out with them. And it keeps me on my toes, but it doesn't change the fact that I feel uncomfortable working in an office with several other people and not talking to them. I think I'd be a great character on "The Office." After about 5 minutes of silence, I start to become anxious and then begin to ask random questions and start conversations, even though I know that people are probably doing important things on their computers. I think for the most part people are happy to talk to me, but I should probably work on that one for the future: "Remember, Anna, people are here to work!"
Apart from the office, my students are inspiring to me, as always. And sometimes downright hilarious. One of my students told me that he was a cowboy in his home countrry. "A cowboy," I thought. Interesting...turns out he was a cow herder, but hey now, isn't that pretty much the same thing? He'll always be a cowboy in my book :)
Another thing that I have come to do at my internship is start teaching a night class. This means that I can take three hours out of my work schedule a week anywhere I want, which is pretty nice. Teaching this class also means that I have to organize the volunteers who come to teach and give a ride to some of the students who are physically unable to walk the distance. And this is where the Butzmobile (my red minivan) comes in handy. Not only can I give students rides, I can take up to 6 people! I'm sure that Exodus wishes they could make more use of my van, but alas, the sweet soccer mom vehicle shall remain mine. I keep forgetting to put up the two middle sits that I have stowed-and-goed, so I always feel terrible when I open the door for the elderly students and they have to climb all the way to the back, probably asking themselves why they didn't just walk. "Remember, Anna, to put those seats up!" Still hasn't happened, but I promise it will before the next class!
Teaching the night class is a whole different ball of wax. Currently I have about four volunteers that come to teach the different levels, but usually at least one of them is missing, so we really have to make do the best that we can. If any of you reading this are volunteers anywhere, please don't flake out! Even though you aren't getting paid and you probably deserve the occasional day off, your commitment is important as well and trust me. You are needed and depended upon way more than you think you are. So if you are thinking about volunteering at a shelter, or teaching classes or at a nursing home, that is absolutely wonderful and I wholeheartedly encourage it. Just make sure that it's something that you know you can really commit to every week. Do that for me, will ya?
Internship aside, I haven't talked a lot about what it's been like to really live on my own. It's been pleasantly very nice. I have my own room to sleep in, a kitchen to cook in, a bathroom to shower in, in a very nice part of the city. With my friends from school I like to go to Broad Ripple and either have a drink or get something to eat. I also go grocery shopping at Kroger...I feel so domestic! Cooking and ironing my work clothes and buying my own stuff all the time. Feel like a real adult. Except for one small detail: I need to learn how to budget. I thought that I was pretty good about this, but it turns out I was quite mistaken. Rent, utilities, gas, groceries, I can handle, while everything else becomes a major life decision. I'm certainly not complaining that I'm poor, but I'm just learning how to work my way around not having a lot of extra spending money. I think the first thing I need to do is learn to buy things in bulk!
Also, I've been trying to adopt a more healthy lifestyle over the summer. At the beginning, I was running almost every day until last week sometime when I pulled a muscle or a tendon in my calf, and now it hurts to run so I've been trying to lay off it for a while. My dental hygiene has also improved vastly. I'm not sure why, but not only do I brush my teeth once a day, but I also floss and use mouthwash. Now next time i go to the dentist he better not tell me I'm not doing a good enough job. Nothing's worse than the dentist criticizing you as he takes a metal pick to your teeth and gums and asks you questions that you can't answer because his tools are in your mouth. Oh, the dentist...
Another reason why I think I've been spending so much money is because I like to eat healthy food. And not in the way of calorie counting, but more in the way of fresh food that doesn't come out of a box. There are a few bad things about eating this way. The first thing is that unlike box and bag food, real food actually expires, and fast. And when I only have one mouth to feed, I can't be cost-effective when buying fruits and vegetables because if I buy too many at a time they go bad before I get the chance to eat them all. Another bad thing about eating this way is that fresh food tends to be a bit more expensive, and when you cook (literally cook) for yourself there are a lot of ingredients you have to buy. Never thought I'd be stocking my cabinets with baking powder, cornmeal, spices, and olive oil at the age of 21, but I gotta say that I enjoy cooking and want to keep at it. And now that most of the essentials are bought, hopefully in the next month I'll spend less money and be just as healthy.
Well, there you have it! Not only do you know more than you want about my work, but you also get a glimpse of what it's been like for me to live on my own. Thanks for reading and I'll post again next week!
Anna
This week, our department moved offices. Whereas before the Housing and the English programs were in the same office, we are now in separate offices. A Monday afternoon was courageously spent taking apart shelves, hauling books, and moving computers to a new and improved office space. Most people were happy about this change, mainly due to the fact that "now we will be able to get a lot more work done!" Gotta admit, I was not quite so thrilled. Smaller office, more closed off, and less people to talk to. I definitely have gotten into a habit at work of talking to whoever is in the office, probably because everyone is just so interesting. So now we have half the people, and although I really like the English people, I miss those in Housing as well. Occasionally I walk down the hall to the old office and reminisce about the old times when the housing and LCORE interns were in the office alone during staff meetings, pretending like we were the ones in charge. Sure will miss that place!
One thing this internship has taught me about myself is that I can be pretty chatty. When I'm not teaching, I'm usually in the office doing some sort of work or another, which can range from lesson plans to cutting out flashcards to laminating things to keeping track of attendance and making binders. There are just a million things to be done, and I'm very glad to be able to help out with them. And it keeps me on my toes, but it doesn't change the fact that I feel uncomfortable working in an office with several other people and not talking to them. I think I'd be a great character on "The Office." After about 5 minutes of silence, I start to become anxious and then begin to ask random questions and start conversations, even though I know that people are probably doing important things on their computers. I think for the most part people are happy to talk to me, but I should probably work on that one for the future: "Remember, Anna, people are here to work!"
Apart from the office, my students are inspiring to me, as always. And sometimes downright hilarious. One of my students told me that he was a cowboy in his home countrry. "A cowboy," I thought. Interesting...turns out he was a cow herder, but hey now, isn't that pretty much the same thing? He'll always be a cowboy in my book :)
Another thing that I have come to do at my internship is start teaching a night class. This means that I can take three hours out of my work schedule a week anywhere I want, which is pretty nice. Teaching this class also means that I have to organize the volunteers who come to teach and give a ride to some of the students who are physically unable to walk the distance. And this is where the Butzmobile (my red minivan) comes in handy. Not only can I give students rides, I can take up to 6 people! I'm sure that Exodus wishes they could make more use of my van, but alas, the sweet soccer mom vehicle shall remain mine. I keep forgetting to put up the two middle sits that I have stowed-and-goed, so I always feel terrible when I open the door for the elderly students and they have to climb all the way to the back, probably asking themselves why they didn't just walk. "Remember, Anna, to put those seats up!" Still hasn't happened, but I promise it will before the next class!
Teaching the night class is a whole different ball of wax. Currently I have about four volunteers that come to teach the different levels, but usually at least one of them is missing, so we really have to make do the best that we can. If any of you reading this are volunteers anywhere, please don't flake out! Even though you aren't getting paid and you probably deserve the occasional day off, your commitment is important as well and trust me. You are needed and depended upon way more than you think you are. So if you are thinking about volunteering at a shelter, or teaching classes or at a nursing home, that is absolutely wonderful and I wholeheartedly encourage it. Just make sure that it's something that you know you can really commit to every week. Do that for me, will ya?
Internship aside, I haven't talked a lot about what it's been like to really live on my own. It's been pleasantly very nice. I have my own room to sleep in, a kitchen to cook in, a bathroom to shower in, in a very nice part of the city. With my friends from school I like to go to Broad Ripple and either have a drink or get something to eat. I also go grocery shopping at Kroger...I feel so domestic! Cooking and ironing my work clothes and buying my own stuff all the time. Feel like a real adult. Except for one small detail: I need to learn how to budget. I thought that I was pretty good about this, but it turns out I was quite mistaken. Rent, utilities, gas, groceries, I can handle, while everything else becomes a major life decision. I'm certainly not complaining that I'm poor, but I'm just learning how to work my way around not having a lot of extra spending money. I think the first thing I need to do is learn to buy things in bulk!
Also, I've been trying to adopt a more healthy lifestyle over the summer. At the beginning, I was running almost every day until last week sometime when I pulled a muscle or a tendon in my calf, and now it hurts to run so I've been trying to lay off it for a while. My dental hygiene has also improved vastly. I'm not sure why, but not only do I brush my teeth once a day, but I also floss and use mouthwash. Now next time i go to the dentist he better not tell me I'm not doing a good enough job. Nothing's worse than the dentist criticizing you as he takes a metal pick to your teeth and gums and asks you questions that you can't answer because his tools are in your mouth. Oh, the dentist...
Another reason why I think I've been spending so much money is because I like to eat healthy food. And not in the way of calorie counting, but more in the way of fresh food that doesn't come out of a box. There are a few bad things about eating this way. The first thing is that unlike box and bag food, real food actually expires, and fast. And when I only have one mouth to feed, I can't be cost-effective when buying fruits and vegetables because if I buy too many at a time they go bad before I get the chance to eat them all. Another bad thing about eating this way is that fresh food tends to be a bit more expensive, and when you cook (literally cook) for yourself there are a lot of ingredients you have to buy. Never thought I'd be stocking my cabinets with baking powder, cornmeal, spices, and olive oil at the age of 21, but I gotta say that I enjoy cooking and want to keep at it. And now that most of the essentials are bought, hopefully in the next month I'll spend less money and be just as healthy.
Well, there you have it! Not only do you know more than you want about my work, but you also get a glimpse of what it's been like for me to live on my own. Thanks for reading and I'll post again next week!
Anna
Sunday, June 9, 2013
Liberty
And welcome back to what I know is everyone's favorite blog, Summer of Refuge! Just kidding, but I sure hope someone likes reading it.
This week was an especially impactful week for me. Besides the fact that the Pacers lost the game on Monday (since being in Indy I have suddenly become a random Iowan die-hard Pacers fan), class discussions have been very interesting and eye-opening. One of the things we try to incorporate into our classes, especially the advanced levels, is American culture and American history. This week, we did a lesson on the United States' independence and the Revolutionary War. The students were very interested to learn about this, since the US is considered by many to be the world's greatest power and we can't pinpoint exactly why the US has been so successful in this way. The question is: how did it all begin?
We started with Patrick Henry's favorite quote: "Give me liberty or give me death." Although all of us grew up hearing this quote since we were little kids and reading it in the history books before we really could appreciate what it meant, I can't imagine what it must be like for my students to hear this for the first time. Even though it's hard for us to think this way, let's try to really think critically about the country we live in. We have liberty around every corner. Anyone can go to the library and get a book. Everyone has access to at least some education, which the government encourages. If I hate Obama, I can publish it on my Facebook wall and maybe the worst thing that will happen to me is that I will get some nasty comments. I'm allowed to have a Facebook if I want to. I have a president, not a dictator. I cannot stress enough the fact that not everyone is given such luxuries. Yes, I know that I'm speaking from a white middle-class perspective and like every other sociologist out there, I'm aware of the economic, racial and gendered disparities out there. Not everyone is given the same opportunities, but at least we can say that we all have certain human rights as citizens of the country. The idea of "give me liberty or give me death" struck the students in such a tender way. I could see each one of them, individually, beginning to understand the meaning of the concept, smiling, nodding, and saying, "I like this. This idea, I like." The reason people become refugees is because in their home countries they aren't given freedom. What they're given is oppression, threats, civil war, and corruption. Violations of basic human rights are a good reason to get out, and once they come to the United States, they've come so far and been through so much that I often feel like it's my responsibility to guide them the rest of the way. It's the least I can do.
Another quote we talked about in class was "all men are created equal." Yeah, we know that at the time this quote didn't really include women, or non-white men for that matter, but at least it's something that we can strive for as Americans. This quote really sparked some discussion in my group. For once, they talked and I listened. They talked about how in their country, men in uniform abuse their power. They go to the fronts of lines, demanding goods for free. When refused, they say, "I'M A GENERAL! DON'T YOU KNOW WHO I AM?" They beat citizens, they steal, they give advantages to those who can offer them the most money. One thing in particular that I remember was, "Military, and people with money, all same." If you don't have money and you're not in the military, you don't stand a chance. We even talked about how in one country, Burma, to get education you must pay money. If you don't have money, you don't get to go to school. All men are not created equal.
And I thought, no wonder they loved these quotes so much. These sayings express ideas that are forbidden in their countries, unheard of. I think that in these quotes my students really found something to become fond of and passionate about, and left class with a growing contentment in knowing that our founding fathers really had some good ideas, and here they are living in this very country. Sure made me proud as a teacher. That was a proud moment, indeed.
On a less serious note, I'm really getting to know my fellow interns and coworkers outside of class. Our office has four different desks in it, so usually I'm always accompanied by someone. I find it kind of awkward to share a room with someone and not talk to them, so I think sometimes I overcompensate for this by talking whenever I can. One of my fellow interns is from West Africa, and the other day we literally stood by a big world map in the office and spent half an hour looking at the continent of Africa and talking about it. This is what I really love about working with people of different backgrounds, you really learn something new every day. Another coworker, as I found out, had apparently driven through my luxurious hometown of Cedar Rapids, Iowa. The other day he asked me, "Anna, I know you're from Iowa, but where exactly?"
ANNA: "Cedar Rapids."
COWORKER: "Is that the city that smells bad?"
ANNA: "Probably."
COWORKER: "I think I drove through there once. A lot of cereal factories?"
ANNA: "Yep, that's the one."
COWORKER: "Huh. Yeah, it's not the nicest place, is it?"
As you can see, he had a lot of nice things to say about my hometown river city that reeks. I almost asked him if he was from a big white house in a clean Chicago suburb, but I resisted the temptation. Not trying to make a bad impression on anyone :) Sorry about the sass, old Anna blog coming out!
Either way, the internship continues to go well. As I teach more and more classes, I think I'm becoming really attached to being a teacher. Sure, I don't mind the office work in the off-hours, but there's something about being in the classroom and giving people life skills that really keeps my motor running. Hopefully I'll be doing more of the same things in the future.
Thanks for reading this one and I hope you enjoyed it! New one next week!
Anna
This week was an especially impactful week for me. Besides the fact that the Pacers lost the game on Monday (since being in Indy I have suddenly become a random Iowan die-hard Pacers fan), class discussions have been very interesting and eye-opening. One of the things we try to incorporate into our classes, especially the advanced levels, is American culture and American history. This week, we did a lesson on the United States' independence and the Revolutionary War. The students were very interested to learn about this, since the US is considered by many to be the world's greatest power and we can't pinpoint exactly why the US has been so successful in this way. The question is: how did it all begin?
We started with Patrick Henry's favorite quote: "Give me liberty or give me death." Although all of us grew up hearing this quote since we were little kids and reading it in the history books before we really could appreciate what it meant, I can't imagine what it must be like for my students to hear this for the first time. Even though it's hard for us to think this way, let's try to really think critically about the country we live in. We have liberty around every corner. Anyone can go to the library and get a book. Everyone has access to at least some education, which the government encourages. If I hate Obama, I can publish it on my Facebook wall and maybe the worst thing that will happen to me is that I will get some nasty comments. I'm allowed to have a Facebook if I want to. I have a president, not a dictator. I cannot stress enough the fact that not everyone is given such luxuries. Yes, I know that I'm speaking from a white middle-class perspective and like every other sociologist out there, I'm aware of the economic, racial and gendered disparities out there. Not everyone is given the same opportunities, but at least we can say that we all have certain human rights as citizens of the country. The idea of "give me liberty or give me death" struck the students in such a tender way. I could see each one of them, individually, beginning to understand the meaning of the concept, smiling, nodding, and saying, "I like this. This idea, I like." The reason people become refugees is because in their home countries they aren't given freedom. What they're given is oppression, threats, civil war, and corruption. Violations of basic human rights are a good reason to get out, and once they come to the United States, they've come so far and been through so much that I often feel like it's my responsibility to guide them the rest of the way. It's the least I can do.
Another quote we talked about in class was "all men are created equal." Yeah, we know that at the time this quote didn't really include women, or non-white men for that matter, but at least it's something that we can strive for as Americans. This quote really sparked some discussion in my group. For once, they talked and I listened. They talked about how in their country, men in uniform abuse their power. They go to the fronts of lines, demanding goods for free. When refused, they say, "I'M A GENERAL! DON'T YOU KNOW WHO I AM?" They beat citizens, they steal, they give advantages to those who can offer them the most money. One thing in particular that I remember was, "Military, and people with money, all same." If you don't have money and you're not in the military, you don't stand a chance. We even talked about how in one country, Burma, to get education you must pay money. If you don't have money, you don't get to go to school. All men are not created equal.
And I thought, no wonder they loved these quotes so much. These sayings express ideas that are forbidden in their countries, unheard of. I think that in these quotes my students really found something to become fond of and passionate about, and left class with a growing contentment in knowing that our founding fathers really had some good ideas, and here they are living in this very country. Sure made me proud as a teacher. That was a proud moment, indeed.
On a less serious note, I'm really getting to know my fellow interns and coworkers outside of class. Our office has four different desks in it, so usually I'm always accompanied by someone. I find it kind of awkward to share a room with someone and not talk to them, so I think sometimes I overcompensate for this by talking whenever I can. One of my fellow interns is from West Africa, and the other day we literally stood by a big world map in the office and spent half an hour looking at the continent of Africa and talking about it. This is what I really love about working with people of different backgrounds, you really learn something new every day. Another coworker, as I found out, had apparently driven through my luxurious hometown of Cedar Rapids, Iowa. The other day he asked me, "Anna, I know you're from Iowa, but where exactly?"
ANNA: "Cedar Rapids."
COWORKER: "Is that the city that smells bad?"
ANNA: "Probably."
COWORKER: "I think I drove through there once. A lot of cereal factories?"
ANNA: "Yep, that's the one."
COWORKER: "Huh. Yeah, it's not the nicest place, is it?"
As you can see, he had a lot of nice things to say about my hometown river city that reeks. I almost asked him if he was from a big white house in a clean Chicago suburb, but I resisted the temptation. Not trying to make a bad impression on anyone :) Sorry about the sass, old Anna blog coming out!
Either way, the internship continues to go well. As I teach more and more classes, I think I'm becoming really attached to being a teacher. Sure, I don't mind the office work in the off-hours, but there's something about being in the classroom and giving people life skills that really keeps my motor running. Hopefully I'll be doing more of the same things in the future.
Thanks for reading this one and I hope you enjoyed it! New one next week!
Anna
Sunday, June 2, 2013
The English Language
Thus ends the second week of my internship with Exodus Refugee Immigration! Although it's been a short week due to Memorial Day, the work has been constant and there is never a dull moment.
I've realized over this past week that given the right circumstances, I'm actually pretty fond of teaching English. I remember when in the Dominican Republic in a room of over 20 children and preteens, I thought that teaching English to non-native speakers was something that I really didn't see myself doing. Not that I didn't have a good experience, because I developed quite a relationship with those youngsters and I miss them a lot since being home in the states. But my teaching work with Exodus is very different, and in a very nice way. I teach English to only adults, so that in itself always gives me a sigh of relief. First of all, these students are coming to class because they want to and because they want to learn the language. I mean, you can't even say that of all college students because some take classes "because they have to" or are even in school "because their parents make them." Not the case this summer, though. These are dedicated learners who work hard and study in order to better live their lives, not because anyone is making them go.
Also, I think I just relate better to adults than to children. Sure, I like kids as much as the next person, but I (like my mom) have a very low tolerance for whining. Yes, there are a lot of adults who whine, but it seems to be more common around children and younger people who don't yet understand the value of education. Once I learned that lesson, I became a lot less whiny about going to class, doing homework, etc. My students at Exodus are certainly not whiners. They see class as an opportunity, not a task or a chore. They come to class eager to learn, eager to pronounce correctly, and eager to understand and make those bilingual connections. And this, my friends, is what makes me love teaching these classes. My students have been through a lot, and they are so deserving of this opportunity to learn the language of their new country. And I'm proud to be able to say that I am helping them adapt and guiding them on their way to self-sufficiency.
However, that's not to say that you don't have to be flexible while doing this job, because you most certainly do! Most days, I don't get through all the material that I want to because I constantly have to stop in the middle of the lesson to explain a new word of vocabulary or a grammar lesson so that all of the students can understand and we can move forward. Every once in a while I'll be at the table with them and will say a word or a concept and be facing a table full of blank stares." Of course," I think to myself, "they don't know what that word means." Time to get up from the table, go to the white board, and make sense of things that I've never even thought about. For example, the other day I was teaching a lesson to a pretty beginner group of students. We were talking about family, and the members of the family. The lesson plan said to use the word "memory." Even though I probably should have skipped over this concept entirely, I wrote the word "memory" on the board. Students: blank stares. Anna: all right, how do I explain this? "Um...well, a memory is something that happened in the past that you remember!" (really should have had a dictionary for that one.) Students: blank stares. Anna: what do I do, what do I do? "OK, here I'm drawing a PICTURE of my FAMILY." Students: less blank stares. Anna: "What is family?" One student: "Mother, brother, sister..." Anna: "Very good!" I had to think of a family memory, and fast! My family probably has lots of memories, but I wanted something that clearly was in the past. Well, how about when my little brother was born? So I drew a picture of me, my mom, my dad, and two older brothers and a little baby that signified my little brother, John, when he was born. And yes, he was the cutest thing.
Now, just so I don't end up taking up two pages about the half hour I used trying to explain "memory," basically I used a lot of hand gestures, made a chart about past present and future, had to explain that now in the present my brother is fourteen years old, what it means to be born, the year I was born, that 2013 is the present, yesterday is the past, therefore yesterday is a "memory." I kept digging myself into a deeper and deeper hole, but eventually I think most students came out of it understanding the concept of past, present and future. Good enough for me. This is just an example of how flexible you have to be when teaching very basic level ESL students :) Quite the experience, and like I said, NEVER a dull moment.
Now, as you can only imagine, I don't speak in my normal fast native English way with the students, or even in my normal tone of voice. Lots of hand gestures, lots of repetition, lots of slowww speeech. So when I get out of teaching a three-hour class, I am still in that mode of speech, which can be pretty funny. The other day I came out of class and was talking to a fellow intern, without realizing that I was now out of English class and was talking to a native speaker. After about five minutes, she said, "Anna, I'm actually not five years old. You can talk normal now." In this way, readjusting can be pretty comical. At least for the people around me.
Sometimes I make such connections with my students and am able to see eye to eye with them that I forget why they're here. I guess I'm so used to working with people from different countries that I kind of start to see everyone in the same way. But when I am reminded of the fact that they are refugees who were, at one point, facing such atrocities in their home country, I can't help but feel very fortunate for myself and very grateful that they are able to come here. For example, one of the students got lost on the bus the other day. When I heard about that, I felt immediately empathetic. I remember when I was seventeen living in Chile, taking the bus late at night to my friend's house in Santiage in an area I didn't know well. I got on the bus very late and was one of only three people. And I couldn't remember which stop was the right one, because everything looked the same to me. Eventually, all the other people got off and I was all alone, and we had probably already gone through the route about twice and the busdriver told me this was the last time going around for the night, and he would have to drop me off somewhere in the next 20 minutes. I hadn't been so scared in my whole life. So when I heard he was lost, I felt so scared for him because I knew what that was like. But then one coworker mentioned, "Well, he's been in guerilla warfare before, I'm pretty sure he'll survive this until we find him." I didn't know what that was like. Sometimes we forget how fortunate we are never to have had to face such things and never to have had to fight in order to survive, and then be shipped to a new place where we don't have money, food, or know the language. But then I remember, this is why Exodus is here. This is the work that we do. And I couldn't be more happy to be doing it.
That's all I got for this week, but please let me know what you think! Also, Exodus always welcomes donations, so if you have anything to donate (clothes, food, houseware, toys, etc) please let me know! Anything and everything is vital and needed. Thanks so much for reading and I'll post again next weekend!
Anna
I've realized over this past week that given the right circumstances, I'm actually pretty fond of teaching English. I remember when in the Dominican Republic in a room of over 20 children and preteens, I thought that teaching English to non-native speakers was something that I really didn't see myself doing. Not that I didn't have a good experience, because I developed quite a relationship with those youngsters and I miss them a lot since being home in the states. But my teaching work with Exodus is very different, and in a very nice way. I teach English to only adults, so that in itself always gives me a sigh of relief. First of all, these students are coming to class because they want to and because they want to learn the language. I mean, you can't even say that of all college students because some take classes "because they have to" or are even in school "because their parents make them." Not the case this summer, though. These are dedicated learners who work hard and study in order to better live their lives, not because anyone is making them go.
Also, I think I just relate better to adults than to children. Sure, I like kids as much as the next person, but I (like my mom) have a very low tolerance for whining. Yes, there are a lot of adults who whine, but it seems to be more common around children and younger people who don't yet understand the value of education. Once I learned that lesson, I became a lot less whiny about going to class, doing homework, etc. My students at Exodus are certainly not whiners. They see class as an opportunity, not a task or a chore. They come to class eager to learn, eager to pronounce correctly, and eager to understand and make those bilingual connections. And this, my friends, is what makes me love teaching these classes. My students have been through a lot, and they are so deserving of this opportunity to learn the language of their new country. And I'm proud to be able to say that I am helping them adapt and guiding them on their way to self-sufficiency.
However, that's not to say that you don't have to be flexible while doing this job, because you most certainly do! Most days, I don't get through all the material that I want to because I constantly have to stop in the middle of the lesson to explain a new word of vocabulary or a grammar lesson so that all of the students can understand and we can move forward. Every once in a while I'll be at the table with them and will say a word or a concept and be facing a table full of blank stares." Of course," I think to myself, "they don't know what that word means." Time to get up from the table, go to the white board, and make sense of things that I've never even thought about. For example, the other day I was teaching a lesson to a pretty beginner group of students. We were talking about family, and the members of the family. The lesson plan said to use the word "memory." Even though I probably should have skipped over this concept entirely, I wrote the word "memory" on the board. Students: blank stares. Anna: all right, how do I explain this? "Um...well, a memory is something that happened in the past that you remember!" (really should have had a dictionary for that one.) Students: blank stares. Anna: what do I do, what do I do? "OK, here I'm drawing a PICTURE of my FAMILY." Students: less blank stares. Anna: "What is family?" One student: "Mother, brother, sister..." Anna: "Very good!" I had to think of a family memory, and fast! My family probably has lots of memories, but I wanted something that clearly was in the past. Well, how about when my little brother was born? So I drew a picture of me, my mom, my dad, and two older brothers and a little baby that signified my little brother, John, when he was born. And yes, he was the cutest thing.
Now, just so I don't end up taking up two pages about the half hour I used trying to explain "memory," basically I used a lot of hand gestures, made a chart about past present and future, had to explain that now in the present my brother is fourteen years old, what it means to be born, the year I was born, that 2013 is the present, yesterday is the past, therefore yesterday is a "memory." I kept digging myself into a deeper and deeper hole, but eventually I think most students came out of it understanding the concept of past, present and future. Good enough for me. This is just an example of how flexible you have to be when teaching very basic level ESL students :) Quite the experience, and like I said, NEVER a dull moment.
Now, as you can only imagine, I don't speak in my normal fast native English way with the students, or even in my normal tone of voice. Lots of hand gestures, lots of repetition, lots of slowww speeech. So when I get out of teaching a three-hour class, I am still in that mode of speech, which can be pretty funny. The other day I came out of class and was talking to a fellow intern, without realizing that I was now out of English class and was talking to a native speaker. After about five minutes, she said, "Anna, I'm actually not five years old. You can talk normal now." In this way, readjusting can be pretty comical. At least for the people around me.
Sometimes I make such connections with my students and am able to see eye to eye with them that I forget why they're here. I guess I'm so used to working with people from different countries that I kind of start to see everyone in the same way. But when I am reminded of the fact that they are refugees who were, at one point, facing such atrocities in their home country, I can't help but feel very fortunate for myself and very grateful that they are able to come here. For example, one of the students got lost on the bus the other day. When I heard about that, I felt immediately empathetic. I remember when I was seventeen living in Chile, taking the bus late at night to my friend's house in Santiage in an area I didn't know well. I got on the bus very late and was one of only three people. And I couldn't remember which stop was the right one, because everything looked the same to me. Eventually, all the other people got off and I was all alone, and we had probably already gone through the route about twice and the busdriver told me this was the last time going around for the night, and he would have to drop me off somewhere in the next 20 minutes. I hadn't been so scared in my whole life. So when I heard he was lost, I felt so scared for him because I knew what that was like. But then one coworker mentioned, "Well, he's been in guerilla warfare before, I'm pretty sure he'll survive this until we find him." I didn't know what that was like. Sometimes we forget how fortunate we are never to have had to face such things and never to have had to fight in order to survive, and then be shipped to a new place where we don't have money, food, or know the language. But then I remember, this is why Exodus is here. This is the work that we do. And I couldn't be more happy to be doing it.
That's all I got for this week, but please let me know what you think! Also, Exodus always welcomes donations, so if you have anything to donate (clothes, food, houseware, toys, etc) please let me know! Anything and everything is vital and needed. Thanks so much for reading and I'll post again next weekend!
Anna
Saturday, May 25, 2013
My first week with the refugees
Hello
everyone and welcome to my brand new blog, A Summer of Refuge! My last blog was
about my Aventuras during my semester in the Dominican Republic, but this
summer I have moved on from traveling around Latin America (as I often do) and
toward doing work in one of my local communities, Indianapolis.
I
am not a native of Indianapolis; in fact, I am from Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
Attending DePauw University as a major in Romance Languages and a minor in
Sociology, I have traveled a few times to the city for cultural festivals and
of course to go shopping at the international market, Saraga (highly
recommended). After working at my local coffee shop for the past five summers
and realizing that I’ll be graduating in a year, I decided that this summer I
needed to focus less on making money and more on gaining some useful
experience. Well, useful experience can mean a lot of things. It can mean
having a bad relationship and learning to recognize what we like to call “red
flags”, it can mean going to a third world country and being so humbled that
you are forced to put your own life into perspective, it can mean working in a
boring office from which you come away a resume-building master at Microsoft
Excel, or it can mean interning at a non-profit and recognizing the pockets of
our society which need the most help, which is what I have chosen to do with
the summer before my senior year of college.
This
summer, I am lucky enough to be able to intern at Exodus Refugee Immigration in
Indianapolis. When choosing what to do with my summer, I honestly had no idea
where to start. Do I stay at home in Cedar Rapids and save money? Do I do an
internship abroad? Do I apply for Teach for America? Do I work on campus? I’m
sure that these are all questions that fly around the minds of a lot of college
students who are deciding how to make the best use of their summer. And the
reality is, every person is different and every person is supposed to do
something different. If we all tried to get internships every summer, think of
how mundane the world might be. Some of us need to stay home and work, and some
of us need to travel around. For me, I had never lived on my own before. In all
my travels I had always been with a host family or a group, every summer I had
lived at home with my family, and at school I had always lived in my sorority
house. So even last summer I knew that this time I needed something different
and was actually in the position to do something different. So I decided it was
time for me to live on my own for a summer and try and get an internship.
Now, you ask me, why Exodus? Why Indy? Well,
Indianapolis, for those of you who don’t know, is a pretty cool town. Like any
city, it has its pretty parts and ugly parts, but for the most part it’s got a
lot of culture, it’s not so big that people are impersonal (sorry New Yorkers,
but it’s true), and it’s not too expensive to live in. And it’s the capital and
biggest city in Indiana, where I have lived for the past three years. And I
thought, after traveling around so much, why not work in my own community and
make a difference in my own backyard? So that’s what I determined. An
internship in Indy was my best way to go.
Now
here I am, done with my first week at Exodus Refugee Immigration. I’ll have to
start out by saying that a lot of information in the office is case-sensitive,
so while I would love to share with you all of my experiences with the clients
and the individuals who I encounter and work with in the office, I can only
share certain information and certainly can’t mention any names. So I will do
the best that I can J
I
started the work last Monday, and I gotta tell you…those eight-hour days are
LONG! The first day, I was greeted in the office and immediately began right in
the classroom with the new students. Our clients are refugees from many
different countries, and I really got pushed into client interaction on the
first day, which I loved and was really excited about. We started out by doing
some ice breaker activities (having been a first year mentor and an
international student ambassador at DePauw really helped out with this one). I
immediately felt very comfortable with the students, and of course, when I feel
comfortable with people I start to make jokes. If you have ever taught ESL
before, you know that when you tell jokes and the students get it and laugh,
that’s a really good sign. We learned everyone’s names and got to learn a bit
more about the students and where they are from and what they did in their home
countries. What was most amazing to me is that all of the clients come from
very different backgrounds and had very different lives back home. One client
was a human rights activist, another was a carpenter, another was a teacher,
another said he was a father, and the list goes on and on. And they all start
out here all over again, with a completely new life, new set of clothes, and a
new perspective.
This
first week, I have been mostly learning the ropes and teaching A LOT of English
class. When I lived in the Dominican Republic, I taught (or rather, I tried to teach) students ages 8-16, all
25 of them all together in one room. That, my friends, was what I might call a
useful experience. Getting through a class and being able to actually teach the
students the material was challenging enough, never mind teaching them well.
The English classes at Exodus are very different. LCORE is a program that oversees
English teaching and cultural orientation for the clients. Each student is
assessed and placed in a certain level of English class, and each class has a
different focus, so not only are the clients learning how to speak better
English, but they also learn about American culture and history.
For
example, the other day in class we learned about American body language. It’s
funny…every culture has their own definition of what’s appropriate and what’s
not when it comes to gestures and personal space. In the US, when you meet
someone you give them a *firm* handshake. In the class I learned some things
that I hadn’t even thought about before, such as when Americans talk to one
another, we tend to stand about 2 ½ feet apart and slightly at an angle. Now
think about it…when two people are casually talking, they typically don’t face
each other directly. They stand slightly at an angle, so they don’t seem to be
in each other’s faces. Probably something you never noticed. Learn something
new every day, right? It was fun to teach this lesson to the students, and we
got to talk about what certain hand gestures mean in their own culture, and how
in many other cultures, when trying to get someone’s attention it is common to
make sounds, such as hissing or smacking your lips. In the US, we tend to use
more hand movements, like waving or raising our hands, instead of making
noises. Learning about other cultures also makes you learn about your own
culture, and I have been so lucky in my life to meet people from all over the
world, but I still get to learn more about my own culture every day, especially
in my internship.
This
week, I have taught a different English class every day. It’s fun to change it
up, and as the students are more advanced, my teaching methods differ depending
on the level they are at. This gives me a constant challenge in the classroom,
and since the classes are small, I am able to be more personal with my students
and assess each one individually, instead of trying to manage a group of
twenty-five kids and angsty preteens who look around the room half the time and
fight the other half.
Along
with teaching classes, I also do a lot of office work at my new job. This I can
completely understand, as in most companies or organizations it is common for
this kind of work to be passed on to the new people or the interns, work study
students, etc. Having had a work study job at DePauw for two years in an
office, I can work a copier and printer pretty well, so this was not a hard
adjustment. I get a good variation of being in the classroom directly with the
students and being in the office where I can do my own work and get things done
in my own time. The LCORE department is in the process of developing an
entirely new curriculum, so it’s really exciting to work in that area this
summer because I can see all the changes happening. Learning English is such an
important part of the orientation and adjustment to the new country, and it
helps that all the students are so eager to learn the language. I think part of
this is because they really have to. If you have room full of high school
students in a Spanish class in the United States, you aren’t going to see the
same levels of motivation as you are in a ENL/ESL class in the United States with
a room full of people who are brand-new to the country and are constantly
trying to figure out their new lifestyle.
I
applaud my students for all the work they do. Exodus does a lot of work in
relation to self-sufficiency of the new refugees, such as employment, housing,
English lessons, paperwork, transportation and medical aid, but at some point
the client has to take it upon his or herself to really become able to live comfortably
in their new society and culture. And the most incredible part of it all is
that each person has a different story. In general, refugees are people who
flee their country or region because of a particularly life-threatening situation.
Many have faced threats of torture, being killed, being raped, having their
families taken away, and many other horrific things. So, in other words, they need to flee. These people are not your
typical immigrant to the United States, although many US immigrants are, in
fact, refugees. The United States takes in about 60% of the world’s resettled
refugees, so in this way I can applaud my country as well. There are a lot of
things I don’t like about the United States, but this is one thing that I know
I can be proud of. And most of these people have been waiting for years for a
chance to come and create a new life outside of refugee camps where many of
them are living in terrible conditions and cramped quarters where disease is
all too prevalent and many do not have access to education, or even a true
breath of fresh air, something that many of us often take for granted here in
the United States. Our clients have been through a lot, and it is our job and
our social responsibility to aid them in whatever way that we can. This is what
Exodus does, and I am grateful to be a part of that for the next three months.
I
am also grateful to be a recipient of the Summer Independent Internship Grant
from DePauw University. While my internship does not pay me, this grant is what
allows me to pay for my rent, my food and my transportation for the summer. I
have been very fortunate to be a part of this opportunity and probably wouldn’t
have been able to do it without the extra help, so I’d like to extend a thanks
to DePauw and to the state of Indiana for really allowing me to have this
experience. I will be writing in this blog every week and will do a
presentation at DePauw next semester about my internship as part of the grant
program, so I hope that this can be a good way for me to extend my gratitude
for all the fortune that I have been given not only this summer, but my whole
entire life.
I
think that’s all I will write for today. Thank you for listening to my
experience and my point of view, and I hope that you will keep reading every
week to see how I progress in my new experience and learn more about refugees
and non-profits in our home community. Thank you-
Anna
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