Hello! I thought that you may want some insight into what Scott's job is. Here is an entry from my journal from earlier this month.
My job is frustrating at times. I work in the Special Education Center (SPED) at the Delegate Angel Salazar Junior Memorial School (DASJMS) in San Jose (SJ) with the Learning Disabled (LD) who, more specifically, are Slow Learners (SL). So really, I am at the DASJMS SPED in SJ working with LD students who are SL. This country is full of acronymns. That is besides the point. While I am sure that every PCV (there we go again with the acronymns--Peace Corps Volunteer) has his or her share of frustrating days, it seems that my job at the SPED center brings about a special frustration nearly daily. I have tested the children who are repeating grade 1 (about 25-30 this year) to see how well they can read. They cannot. In fact, most of the students cannot recognize individual letters or sounds, a key part of learning how to read. The average number of letters these children can recognize out of 26 is just over 6. Most of the students are 8 or 9 years old, some as old as 10, making this their 3rd attmept at 1st grade. Let me stress that these students are not typical of grade 1 students in the country. They have repeated for a variety of reasons--some as a result of having to help work on the farm for many weeks of the year, others because they have no stable home structure encouraging them to attend school every day, but others still are repeating grade 1 as a direct result from having over 60 students and 1 teacher in a single grade 1 classroom--grade 1 being the first exposure to school that many students have. There are bound to be some who are left behind in these circumstances. The sad thing is, Tagalog, the national language, and Kinaray-a, the local dialect, have the same letters as English, so it really is not an issue of their inability to read or recognize English alone, but the inability to recognize letters and sounds in general. I have set up, with the wonderful help of Save the Children, a remedial reading program for these 25-some students. Every day I pull out students individually for 30 minute sessions to help them with their letter recognition, and ultimately, their reading skills. Here is an excerpt from one of our sessions:

Scott (S)-Good Morning! Myad nga aga!
Pupil (P)-*Blank stare*
S-Ok, are you ready to read?! (Goofy, overly big smile) Gusto mo magbasa?
P-*Blank stare*
S-Excellent! All right, can you read this for me? Palihog, magbasa. Dyan lang. (Gives pupil a primer-level reader entitled "I am Kim")
P-*Blank Stare--blinks twice*
S-That's right! (Big smile still) "I....am...Kim!. Let's try it again. Liwanabe, palihog.
P&S together-I.........am...................K......K.....K....Kim
S-Good! What is this letter right here? (Pointing to "I" in previous sentence) Ano ang letter dya?
P-*Blank stare*
S-You can do it! Kaya mo! You know it! Kamaan kaw. Ano ang letter dya?
P-.......S?
S-(still grinning) No, actually that is not an "S." It's an "I." Can you say "I?"
P-(confidently) I.
S-Good! So what letter is this right here? Ano ang letter dya? (Pointing to "I" again)
P-(confidently) Key.
S-(Grin growing weaker) Actually, "key" isn't a letter. In fact, your teachers teaching you that the letter "K" is "key" is wrong. But this isn't the letter "K," either. It's "I." Can you say I?
P-(confidently) I!
S-Good! Now what's the next word? (pointing to the word "am") Ano ang word dya?
P-*Blank Stare*
S-Let's sound it out. Ahhhhhhhh (pointing to the letter "a")
P-Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!
S-Mmmmmmm (pointing to the letter "m")
P-(confidently)MMMMMMMMMMMMM!!!!
S-Good! So what word is this? (pointing to the word "am")
P-(confidently)AHHHHHHHH!!!!
S-Almost! (grin still fading) "Am." The word here is "am." I (pointing to "I") am (pointing to, well you get the picture).
P-I...........am.
S-(Ecstatic) GREAT!!! Good job! Alright! Ok, what word is this? (pointing to the word "Kim," the main character in our series of 20 books, each one having her name in it--at this point in our tutoring session we have "read" this particular book no less than 10 times).
P-*Blank stare, followed by dropping of jaw,* Filipino for "I did not understand, comprehend or hear what you just said to me.")
S-(twitching slightly) Kim! Kim! Remember, Kim! Can you say "Kim?"
P-(confidently) KIM!! (Smiles broadly)
S-Good! Let's try to read it again! Magbasa kita! I (pointing to "I")
P-(confidently) I!
S-Am! (I am sure you understand by now where I was pointing...)
P-(confidently) Am!
S-(pointing to the word "Kim")
P-*Blank stare, dropped jaw* (again)
S-(bangs head against desk)

This, of course, is not an exageration, but an actual transcript of a session last week. Really. Ok, maybe not "exact," but close enough to give a good idea of what I experience every day. Not all of the students are like this--some, in fact, are very capable and are progressing nicely. There are, however, no less than 4 students who stare at me very, very well, regardless of whether I speak Kinaray-a, English, or German (I was desperate to get through to these kids and was trying everything. Important note to self: Filipino children do not understand German). They cannot, for the life of me, seem to get their minds around the idea of certain letters representing certain sounds, which, when combined together form syallables or even words. Really, I do not blame them. After all that we have done in just these first few weeks, I do not want to read about Kim's stupid adventures, either.

Donna Farver, Karen Szcodronski and Rachel Holbel
We'd like to take this opportunity to thank some very special people who have supported us this month. THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR PACKAGES. You brightened our entire month and are therefore our official MVP's for July, 2006! We love you.
A special thank you aslo goes out to Molly Hanson and Steve Farver for calling - you have also brightened our lives here significantly!

Friday, May 19, 2006

My heart was broken today. In the city of Iloilo, getting across the street is quite an ordeal—almost worthy of Olympic competition. It is almost suicidal to cross from one side of the street to the other, even if it is in the confines of a crosswalk. Traffic seems to speed up as they see hapless pedestrians (especially white ones) trying to make their way across the street. To solve this problem, the Filipinos have developed an ingenious system of pedestrian overpasses that crisscross various major intersections, going up and over any one of the four possible intersections. They are very handy for safely crossing the street. The sad part is that many very poor people live in Iloilo City and a lot of people have been forced into begging, especially children. We are shielded from seeing individual children in the Barangays who are desperately poor begging. Mainly because everyone in the barangay is relatively poor, and begging would not bring anything to the table. One of the places that beggar children like to hang out is on these pedestrian overpasses, soliciting spare change from people walking busily past, quickly trying to get past this young eyesore. Utilizing one of the overpasses today, I found myself face to face with two adorable, dirty faces gaping back up at me. These two beautiful young girls, probably no more than 5 and 8 years old, stood there at the top of the overpass steps, no shoes or flip flops in sight, wearing nothing but dirty, hand-me-hand-me-hand-me down dresses. They smiled widely, stuck out their bony little hands and spoke the words Illongo that I hate to hear in any language—“Do you have any money?” Now, to take this question and answer it honestly, I would have to stop my swift steps, sit down with the young girls at the top of this overpass, and explain to these young Filipinas that yes, I do have money. I am an American. My family back home lives in a relatively large house with a few cars and savings accounts to boot. I have so much money that not only have I never been hungry in my life, but I have actually helped poor little girls like you around the world with the small change left over in my pockets after buying the latest youthful necessity, like a Gameboy game or Lego set, when I was your age. In fact, I probably have more money in my meager bank accounts in the US than you will ever see in your entire life. However, little girls, even though I am incredibly wealthy compared to you, I cannot spare money right now. I have places to go, souvenir T-shirts to buy, things to do. Besides, if I gave money to the two of you gwapas, I would set a poor precedent and all of the children in Iloilo without food or money or families would see a white person like me and expect that person to give them money, too. I am sorry you beautiful little girls, but that is just not a good idea and I am in somewhat of a hurry, so have a nice day and good luck finding dinner tonight. I will pray for you when I am asking for blessing for my dinner later tonight. I would pat them on the head and be on my way. Of course, I do not really answer like that, buy my mind quickly goes through that reasoning and I quickly decide that the best way to skirt the whole issue is to ignore them both and mutter that I do not have any money. “Wara kwarta” I manage to sputter out and I walk briskly past them, trying my best to forget them even as they walk beside me with outstretched hands, not wanting to feel guilty and ruin the rest of my afternoon. I want to pick these two little girls up—all of the little girls and boys like them—take them home with me and love them. I do. But I cannot. I have to buy T-shirts. So the girls retreat back to the overpass in hopes of a more generous passerby and I stumble down the steps, trying not to think of these beautiful children of God. “If you feed them…” Didn’t Jesus do that? Didn’t He command us to do that? How can I be a Christian, a follower of the teachings and life of my savior and LORD Jesus Christ, who did so much for so many people, and not reach out to these girls? I try to rationalize in my mind, but I cannot. There is no rational explanation why I cannot show love to these girls like Jesus would. Not watered-down-pat-them-on-the-head-and-tell-them-that-I-will-pray-for-them-Christianity that I am so used to, but real love. So as I return from buying my all-important T-shirts, the ones that will be emblazoned with the United States Peace Corps logo which will proudly scream out to all that will glance at its fancy colors and designs how I have chosen to dedicate the next two years of my life to helping people, I need to cross the intersection again. Thankfully, the two girls are still there. I can redeem myself! I can rid myself of the guilt that will consume me later for not doing anything for these girls. Unfortunately, I forget my duty and walk straight past them again, head bent low trying to squirm past them unnoticed. I have become so programmed to ignore the poor, to walk quickly past any disheveled person while clutching my bag tightly to my side, so as not to draw their attention to me, that the idea of Christ-like love is shoved to the back of my mind, momentarily forgotten. Only when I get to the bottom of the steps do I realize. Only when the flesh and bones are not staring back at me with wanting eyes do I understand that I have become what I never wanted to be; a say-it-but-do-not-do-anything-type of Christian. So I reach into my wallet, pull out 10 Pesos (20 cents!!) and buy one little girl an orange, doing my part to love. That is what I can afford. 20 cents for an orange. Jesus, what would you have done? I am sorry that I let you down today. Please love these little girls more than I did. Help me to change my thinking and my doing. Help me to think like you all of the time, not just on the bottom of the overpass.
Scott