PROJECT: Reflection, First part

C. is one of the youngest students we teach. She knows very little English but is very eager to learn, and she liked Sonja and me very much. But despite her goodwill and efforts we were unable to teach her how to read even the simplest of books. C. would often volunteer to answer questions and would try her best to produce some English, despite the laughter and derision of her classmates (which we of course did our best to stop), she kept at it, she kept asking Sonja and I the words of the book Bingo and Bisi over and over again, but there just wasn't enough time for Sonja and I to dedicate ourselves to her, with so many other children in the class, so unfortunately we weren't able to teach her to read. But she was always cheerful and positive and although she doesn't know it, an attitude like hers can't help but inspire. I think that she is more confident in herself now and more dedicated to learning then she was at the beginning, I hope that our attitude and efforts toward her will help her in her quest to learn. I am certain that she will eventually be successful on her own.

But, of course, I'm disappointed that we weren't able to help C. As Sonja wrote in an earlier post it's very easy for volunteers to fall into the trap of expecting results and then being inevitably disappointed. Her volunteer work at Hospice thoroughly purged her of the subtle vanity of expecting big results from her efforts; among all types of volunteer work hospice is perhaps unique in facilitating such a purgation because the people you serve are journeying towards fast approaching death. There is no measureable output at hospice that indicates success.

Our case in Ghana is different. There is a very direct hierarchy of outputs: first level - the child can either read the next word or they can't, second level - are words correctly pronounced or not, then speed and smoothness can be assessed. And automatically you do it, and you need to if you want to help people. But it’s not the point.

I had thought that I was totally immune to this greed for results, and both Barbara and Ebenezer warned against expecting too much. But after experiencing this first hand I don't think you can really guard against this completely without living through it. But we were able to help the vast majority of students to varying degrees. And even though results aren't the point of our work I still think it’s good to reflect on our efforts. Maybe it will help somebody else who comes to teach.

In the next 3 posts in this four post series I will discuss the achievements and progress of individual students (anonymously, of course) and the problems and challenges they overcame. I’ll talk about what I think we did well and what we could have done better.

//Tomaz

C. je ena od najmlajših učenk, kar je tudi eden od vzrokov, da je njeno znanje angleščine na nižji ravni kot pri ostalih. S Sonjo naju zelo 

sprejema in kljub njeni močni volji in vloženemu trudu, C. tudi ob koncu trimesečnega intenzivnega bralnega obdobja, še ne zna brati. Navkljub pogostemu zbadanju ter smehu sošolcev (ki ga kolikor je v najini moči poskušava ustaviti), C. vednoznova dviguje roko, poskuša odgovarjati na vprašanja. Znova in znova prihaja s knjižico Bingo and Bisi, ter naju sprašuje besede. Na žalost pri skupini približno dvajsetih učencev ni dovolj časa, da bi se ji posvetila v zadostni meri. Kljub zavedanju, da je njeno znanje na nižji ravni kot znanje sošolcev, ostaja C. vedra, pozitivno naravnana, vztrajna; te njene lastnosti pa so, čeprav se tega sama  ne zaveda, inspiracija tudi za vse nas ostale. Občutek imam, da je v teh treh mesecih postala bolj samozavestna in se učenju posveča še resneje. Prepričan sem, da se ji bo taka drža obrestovala. Če sva s svojim vedenjem, vzpodbudami pridala vsaj delček k temu, sem zares vesel.

Kljub zavedanju dolgoročnega pozitivnega učinka na C. sem vseeno malce razočaran, da ji nisva tudi kratkoročno bolj pomagala. Kot je Sonja zapisala že v eni od prejšnjih objav, je velika past prostovoljstva v prevelikem pričakovanju vidnih neposrednih rezultatov, kar neizogibno vodi v razočaranje. Sonja se je te “igre ega” otresla skozi delo v Hospicu (kjer se ne da izmeriti uspešnosti dela, saj se ljudje, ki jih prostovoljci spremljajo, poslavljajo).

Najin primer je drugačen, saj “uspešnosti” ni težko izmeriti, npr: prva stopnja – učenec zna prebrati besedo ali ne, druga stopnja – izgovorjava besede je pravilna ali ne, hitrost branja, itd. Uspešnost meriš nezavedno, kar je tudi potrebno če želiš učencem pomagati. Je pa res, da to ne sme postati smisel dela.

Preden sem začel z delom po šolah, sem bil prepričan, da ne bom imel težav s pričakovanji (na kar sta naju opozarjala tudi Barbara in Ebenezer). A tekom projekta sem spoznal, da stopnja popolne neobremenjenosti z rezultati pride šele skozi konkretno izkušnjo.

Četudi rezultati niso bistvo najinega dela, menim, da je smotrno narediti refleksijo najinega dela. Le-ta bo morda v pomoč tudi drugim prostovoljcem pri njihovem delu. V naslednjih treh objavah bom pisal o napredku ter uspešnosti, izzivih ter težavah s katerimi so se soočali učenci (seveda bova ob tem ohranila anonimnost otrok), ter česar sva se kot prostovoljca lotila dobro in kaj bi lahko naredla bolje.