Reading Month

So the students are really enjoying getting to check out books from the school "library" that you saw in the last post. They are going through these books like crazy! My only issue is I don't know their reading levels. One 5th grader "read" through a book in a day, filled out the form for the reading competition, and brought it back for a new one. I told him to get a harder book and helped him pick one out. A teacher who came in when he was leaving informed me that he can't read. She had him last year. So we're working on figuring that out too!
So it really disturbs me when guys old enough to be my father hit on me (and then tell me age is nothing). If you were dating when I was born, please look at me as your daughter and not a potential date!! It's hard enough getting the guys my age to speak to me with respect and not expecting to sleep with me, let alone fighting the mentality of the whole village! I'm looking for friends, not a boyfriend. Check out this conversation I had with a couple of the guys in the village. True conversation: one of my guy friends comes up and tells me he'll see me later. The guys that I'm talking to say, "so that's your boyfriend" "No he's just a friend" I respond. "So he's your lover" "No, he's just a friend" "So you're sleeping with him" "no he's just a friend. We talk and hang out. That's all!"
I just wanna be FRIENDS, especially if you're old enough to be my father.

Reading/Library



I love to read! So when my school wanted me to help with the library and get it put together I was super excited. Then I saw the library...



Yes these pictures are our current library.

 

These pictures are the room we want to move our library into.

 Yes that's a class on the other side of those chalkboards. We're hoping to put up a plywood partition to make the library a second (actually a third because there's two more chalkboards father down and another class) room.

The problem: Literacy is a real issue in the Eastern Caribbean and St. Lucia. I worked with a student when I was visiting organizations who was probably 16 and couldn't tell the difference between the word he and she. Reading effects not only how well they do in school, but in St. Lucia you test into your high school. If you can't read, you don't do well on the test and don't get to go to a good school. This therefore continues to effect you in your profession and the rest of your life.

The plan: We want to move the "library" to this other room (which we are cleaning out) and make it into a resource room that our special education classes can also meet in for extra math and reading help. We want to promote a love of reading and raise the reading levels of the students. We will do this by having various activities (we're celebrating reading month right now) and hopfully forming reading clubs, additional help sessions for students struggling, forming a library club so the students are taking care of the library and promoting reading on a daily basis.

How you can help: I'm working with an organization called Hands Across the Sea http://www.handsacrossthesea.net/ They're going to help us get more books (we have one bookcase of fiction books for 190 students) that are geared for our students and we're hoping they help us with shelves too! So you can help by partnering with Hands Across the Sea. They buy used books (and new ones too) that are in used condition and ship them down to us. I've even found out that you can earmark money for our project! If you have old books gently used books that are age appropriate for 3-6 grade and would like to ship them to Hands Across the Sea you can do that as well. (Consider even donating the price that your favorite book costs.)

In the end: Reading is important to life. These kids are hungry for books and reading (I asked one student what he was doing over his break and one of the things he said was reading the book he checked out before break). But they're going to go through the books we have in no time at all.