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.