The Things that Happen at School…

The chaos and the joys of working with students in Dominican schools

I am not a teacher, but I have worked with kids for years, and been involved in education in the past. But my experiences in the US did not prepare me for what students are like in schools in the Dominican Republic. As education volunteers, we are trained on how to promote literacy in our schools. However, learning how to function in the midst of chaos is a process that can only come with time and patience.

Here is a collection of stories from my fellow education volunteers and I that really illuminate the full scope of our daily jobs as literacy promoters.

So, let’s start with the chaotic things that happen at school:

• I have students that run on the roof of the school during recess. They also somehow run along the walls around the school, which are covered in barbed wire…
• One day, all the student toilets stopped working because it turned out the students were clogging the pipes with mangos. None of the kids could use the bathrooms until they were fixed, which was hopefully a lesson in cause and effect!

Tell us your favorite type of mango in the comments!

• My tutoring space is usually covered in rice and beans everyday after lunch. Not fun. Attracts all the moscas.
• One day, I was in the library during lunch and the librarian stepped out for a second. The only students in the library were a bunch of fifth and sixth grade girls quietly reading. All of a sudden, a fourth grade boy came running into the library like he was running from someone. 30 seconds later, another fourth grade boy came trudging in with an angry look on his face, carrying behind him a pointy branch the size of a small tree. So I stood up and said very loudly, “the library is now closed,” and I made everyone leave.
• Relentless questions about the US — or more specifically, New York (because they seem to think New York is the only place in the US)
• The cafeteria. No explanation needed.
• A bunch of kids just decided to cut their hair in the middle of the day

The internal monologue of an education volunteer: can I find a way to use this for a tutoring material??

• I pulled a group of three out of a class and first things first the two boys starting hitting each other and I sighed and said “I shouldn’t pair them together again should I?” and the very sweet, calm girl who was holding my hand as we walked to the library said in the most lighthearted, positive voice, “nope!”
• Wrestling a 9 year old boy to get him to stop eating paint chips that he peeled off the table. Like, the same way I have to hold down my cat and pry her jaws open to stop her from eating toxic plants

A visual representation of wrestling a child

• Today at recess, this little girl comes up to me and tells me that I have vampire teeth, that my teeth look like fangs. So thanks for that. I mean that’s just kids being kids, they have no filter. Blurting out their stream of consciousness that nobody asked to hear.
• Well, my school generally is more utilitarian. It’s pretty small, less than 150 kids. That doesn’t stop the kids from being chaotic though. When I first started with tutorias, kids who didn’t participate, or were a distraction, I’d send them back to class. One day, I had a kid that just wouldn’t get put of his seat, so I tried to push him out and I couldn’t. He was basically doing that thing that dogs do when they don’t want to walk any more. So, not wanting to manhandle this kid in my second week at school, I just kind of picked up the chair with the kid in it and carried him out into the court yard and told him he had to back to class and that we’d try again tomorrow. This was when all that commotion got noticed and he went to class. I haven’t had any major discipline problems since then.

Now, we also need to recognize the joys we find at school:

• My students are proud to introduce their profe to their parents
• Allllll the hugs (it is really a joy? maybe just overwhelming…)
• My students bring me little surprises and homemade gifts
• They did an impromptu dance off to the song “El Baile del Cuerpo” at my school. They would choose two students, they would dance to the song, we’d cheer for the winner, then they’d do it all again.

Wholesome dancing activities > 7-year-olds twerking during class

• I worked with a kid who recently moved to my community and couldn’t read, and started doing summer tutoring with him. His parents were super supportive of me but the school was not able to give the student the attention he needed. After working with him, the student would come home and tell his parents stories about what happened in school that day and in tutoring with me, and he improved on his literacy evaluation by a lot. It feels good to appreciate the victories and hold on when things get hard.
• I love hanging out with my librarian and playing pranks on students. We sell helados in the library after lunch everyday. One day, as we were still waiting for the helados, the students were already asking if they had arrived. So my librarian says “no, they are arriving on an airplane today, they are not here yet.” The students doesn’t believe it, until I add in “it’s true, they are coming from the US today.” And the rumor spread like wildfire that it was special helados coming from the US on a plane that day. They sold out faster than ever before.

Mint and strawberry helados

• I teach the whole class for inicial and 1st grade and sometimes when I have trouble getting the kids to quiet down, a teacher pops in from next door to put the fear of God into them. It’s because the kids are always excited to see me and they know that I do activities that are more like games, so sometimes they’re just so happy to see me that I literally can’t discipline them because it’s all just fun to them. It’s sweet.
• When I first arrived at school, it seemed like kids were uncertain about how to use the library, which is a shame because we’re fortunate to have a ton of great books. Now, the kids know that they can visit the library during recess and ask for books. It’s really fufilling to see a table of 10 kids quietly reading with their friends. Sometimes they’ll even correct a new student who isn’t treating the books carefully enough! Recess is now one of my favorite parts of the day.

Through the good, the bad, the beautiful, and the ugly, there is always something new to love. Or stare at in disbelief. I have new experiences almost every day at school, and I cherish (almost) all of them.

Learn more about some of the incredible education volunteers currently serving in the DR here: Meet EDU Cohort 23–01

Follow us on Medium for more!!