Back In Black (Written Nov 2 2005)

For the first time since Sunday, all Group 75 is back together again. The three people who went to Savaii came back this afternoon and it was good to hear that they had a good experience at their work and job. As part of our training, when we have a big trainee event such as OJT and Job Site Visits we go through an exercise called 'Processing'. Its kind of like a debriefing of sorts for us to put our experience into perspective and then try to think of ways to apply that experience to our future life as a volunteer. Our training director, Kevin, had us draw abstract pictures that illustrated one point that we retained from our Job Site visit. While I am not a fan of abstract art, everyone did a pretty good job with their artwork. I wish I could describe to you some of the artwork presented – but as I said it was abstract and everyone had a different idea about what the art actually meant to the person presenting it. I can describe my artwork because it wasn't really abstract, just really simple. I had two stick figures on opposite sides of a wall. On one side was a person who had a question mark over their head and on the other side was a person who had an exclamation mark over their head. Inside the wall were a mix of red, black and blue colors – the red and blue colors created crosses within the wall. My artwork had 3 meanings: the first one was to represent my anxieties of being a teacher. The person with the question mark is me right now as I'm trying to figure out how do you become a good teacher and the questions I have regarding teaching. The person with the exclamation mark is me at some point in the future when it will finally hit me on how to be a good teacher. The wall in the middle represents that challenge – and as you know, I'm a sucker for challenges. J The second meaning is about the kids I will be teaching. The person with the question mark represents the kids as they will be coming into the class room – with a great ability to memorize, but not a great ability to connect B to A if you've only taught them A to B (For example, in one of the classes during my job site visit I asked the kids what does 1 billion bytes equal. It equals 1 GB but they had only learned that 1 GB = 1 Billion bytes, not 1 Billion bytes = 1 GB). So the challenge (represented by the wall) is to get the kids to think in broader terms rather then just the terms that I teach them. I know its cliché in the business world and in America in general, but it's desperately needed here – we have to teach these kids to think outside of the box. The third meaning within the box is the fact that I work at a Catholic school and that's the foundation for everything I will be doing at the college. And I have to keep in mind that within these challenges before me (for 2 years) is God who is going to help me through this – so while I have my fears and anxieties about the work that lies before me, I have confidence that he'll get me through and give me that final push that I need to get over the wall. So 3 meanings in one drawing – not really abstract, just simple and complicated at the same time.

            Today was also interesting because with Julya back, I was finally able to get a clear picture of how the computer situation looks at all the schools we ICT (Integrated Computer Technology – that's the name of our program) folks are at. And each one is pretty different – as I stated before mine is that of both admin and computer maintenance. I have a lot of computers, but they're of middle to not so good quality (they're still running Windows 98). Ryan has a pretty stable setup with fewer computers, but he's got a counterpart that's been there for 2 years now and can basically run the place without him. At St. Joe's he's got fewer computers then I do but by going to a school that has a lot of money, he can probably buy new computers at some point during his tour. Sara is working at St. Mary's College and the computers there are all Pentium 1s – so not a good setup at all. She's the first volunteer to work there so she has a lot of work in front of her to get St. Mary's up to a decent level of computing. Her computer room has an advantage over St. Joes and Chanel because her computer room is enclosed and air conditioned – the perfect computer environment. If you don't have to worry about the weather here, your computers can last a heck of a lot longer – I don't have that luxury. Andrew is working at NUS and as such has the best computer setup (when you work with computers at the only national university, you expect the best) with comps that have Pentium 4s and are fairly new. His focus is primarily on being a teacher and not a tech person (NUS has a separate department that does maintenance), and as I learned from my time working at the ITC (Integrated Technology Collaborative) at Tennessee maintaining a computer is a lot easier when you can just do it yourself and not have to depend on outside help. So in a way, I'm really glad I didn't take the NUS (National University of Samoa) job – I like to get my hands dirty every now and then. And finally Julya has a good setup with a computer lab made up primarily of Pentium 4s and all running Windows XP – the only disadvantage, she's on the less developed island which means double duty when trying to get things shipped to her school (it has to arrived on Upolu first and then take the boat over to Savaii). I don't know if she's just teaching or if she's doing tech work also but she is working in an enclosed environment. So as you can tell we're all in different situations which will make collaborating an interesting activity – the one thing we all have in common is that we're teaching computers. After that, the quality and extracurricular activities that go along with teaching is very different. L8r.