Check out this post on our school Facebook page:
Friday, July 25, 2014
Saturday, July 5, 2014
‘Every Child Can Learn, Every Child Must Learn’
What is Peace
Corps/Jamaica’s Literacy project? And what do we do on a day to day basis?
Adelphi Primary School in
St. James parish
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| Adelphi School |
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| Christ Church Marley (adjoining the school) |
The Adelphi Primary School
was founded by the Anglican Church about 1880 and is associated with Christ
Church Marley Anglican Church which adjoins the school. Adelphi is a small
rural community; parents do not have much scope for employment in Adelphi - some
do shop keeping or farming. Others go out of the community to work. 51 of 98
students are beneficiaries of the Programme of Advancement through Health
(PATH) free lunch. Larger schools have a ‘canteen’ or school lunch kitchen, but
we get lunches delivered from the cook shop down the road.
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| The Library - one small cabinet |
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Stairway to Grade 1 and 2
|
4 teachers and the
principal teach 6 grades. The building is sturdy (it has survived over 100
years of hurricanes), but there is a great need for repair and maintenance. There
is a ‘play field’ behind the school – but no sports equipment available.
 |
| Grade 3 |
About
25% of our students are 2 to 5 grades below expected reading level
Only
about 50% of Grade 4 students achieve “mastery’ on their first try, and another
25% score ‘near mastery’. I have been using a standardized testing instrument
to assess reading and comprehension – about 25% of our students are 2 to 5
grades below expected reading level – some do not know the alphabet completely.
 |
| Phonics games on the PC |
Pull-outs
– Peace Corps volunteers do pull-out sessions (tutoring)
Pull-outs
– Peace Corps volunteers do pull-out sessions (tutoring) with small groups of
students. Depending on their level, we are doing alphabet, phonics, guided
reading, comprehension, and some writing exercises. Our school had one working
administrative computer – but thanks to a grant from Digicel (cellular phone company)
we now have 3 PCs and 1 laptop for student use. I’ve also set up an interactive
whiteboard in my new Literacy Centre (actually a space off a hallway which we
separated by using 2 very old moveable blackboards.
We
now have ‘reading club’
 |
| The Reading Centre - blackboard walls |
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| The Computers - almost all doors have bars and locks |
Technology
is the carrot we’re using to engage young learners who have been frustrated in
the past. Instead of resisting, these kids wait lined up for their weekly
chance to participate. And, before school, on breaks, and over lunch we now
have ‘reading club’ where kids find a book on the table and sit and read
silently or in groups.
With
a ‘likkle bit’ of hoped-for extra funding, I want to set up WIFI in our 100
year old building so that we can access the internet from all 4 classrooms …
not bad for a school where many of the windows panes are broken and desks are
badly ‘mashed up’.
The
Education System
The MoE says, “The former education system was established in an agrarian society, intended to maintain and reinforce a social structure characterised by a small white elite and a largely black labouring class, however it has now evolved into an Industrial and Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Age.” The Education Act of 1965 established four educational levels: Early Childhood (ECE Age 3-5), Primary (Grade 1-6), Secondary (High School) and Tertiary (two public universities and several community, multidisciplinary and teachers’ colleges).
 |
| Grade 6 graduation |
My
next steps…
On Monday we begin summer school – we’ve selected 24 students for a 4-week intensive literacy ‘boot camp’ to help them enter their next grade with a few more skills. The principal, one teacher and I will work with each student at his/her level. Again, since I’ve been able to set up computers, we will be using some great tools and videos to engage our students in the learning process.
Check
out Adelphi Primary’s NEW FACEBOOK page
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| Trip to Jamaica Zoo in St. Elizabeth Parish |
Grade 6 Graduation
Follow this link to see all 26 pictures of the "School Leaving and Prize Giving Ceremony" (Graduation) for Adelphi Primary School. It really was a wonderful experience.
Wednesday, June 18, 2014
Our Daily Lives: Adelphi
Located in a rural farming district, Adelphi borders on the
sugar and orange belt of Trelawney and is only 30-40 minutes from Montego Bay.
We are in Saint James Parish (like US county or state) located about 73 mi (or
117 km) North-West of Kingston, the country's capital town. The census doesn’t
list our town, but I guess the population is less than 1000. (Towns less than
2500 are not on the list. In the 2011 census Montego Bay had 110,115 residents.
Our town is really a cross-roads with about 5-10 buildings; it has a primary school (where I work), 2 shops, a police station, a post office, a government registrar’s office, many churches, an auto repair, 2 cook shops (restaurants with maybe 1 or 2 tables, but mostly take out, and a bar (as teachers, it is not acceptable for us to go to a bar – although we can order a beer or even a rum in a cook shop.)
Housing – We live in the lower level of a wonderful home up on a hill. Our
landlord lives above, and she is marvelous about helping us. She has chickens
and we now get fresh eggs every week, also some sugar cane which she has given
us as a super sweet snack. We have a kitchen/living area (which we’ve modified
with enough table space for both computers. The bedroom is large; we have a
mosquito net over the bed, and we have bathroom with a shower. Piped water
(meaning ‘city water’) is pretty reliable and drinkable (it is heavily
chlorinated) and the house has 600 gallons stored in rooftop tanks for when the
water (or electric pumps) fail – these tanks are ubiquitous all over Jamaica.
There is no hot water – but after all, this is the tropics, and cold showers
are wonderful.
Shopping - There are 2 shops in Adelphi – Miss Rose’s at the
bottom of our hill, and Mr. Chin’s (actually many shops are owned by Chinese
merchants – they are all called “Mr. Chin” even if they have another Asian or
even Irish family name). Both shops work like many in this country – all the
items are enclosed behind a wire and glass wall – you go up the small window
(imagine old time banks going up to the teller’s ‘cage’) and you ask for what
you need – usually there is no choice of brands, and often the answer is ‘not
today’. Since Miss Rose’s is only 3 minutes from our apartment, we
can even buy frozen ice cream and get it home before it melts in this climate.
We’ve made 2 marketing trips to ‘town’ – which means Montego Bay. There are grocery stores similar to small town USA – aisles of open shelves with some choices of products…the local brands are far cheaper than the imported from ‘foreign’ which means USA or Canada. Also Asian imports of canned meats and vegetables are much cheaper than North American.
Getting our purchases home is fun: we walk loaded down with
‘scandal bags’ (black plastic shopping bags) or take a short taxi ($100
Jamaican = about $1.00 US per person) to the Total Gas station in town – that’s
where the mini-vans pick up for surrounding towns. When a van headed to Adelphi
arrives, the driver miraculously helps load everything into the smallest
places…under seats, behind legs, and on laps of strangers. Everyone squeezes in
(it’s called ‘smalling up’) and with maybe 20 people and all their stuff in a
15 passenger vehicle, we head off up the pot-holed road for the 30 minute drive
to Adelphi. We are dropped off at the bottom of our hill and walk up with our
scandal bags.
On the north coast, about 45 minutes away (but requires 2 taxis – since taxis drive fixed routes and don’t go all the way) is Falmouth where the mega cruise ships come in. On Wednesday is “Ben Dung” market – actually Patwa for “Bend Down”. For decades, hundreds of higglers have travelled many miles from all parishes to either sell or purchase food, clothing and an assorted variety of haberdashery items at reduced retail and wholesale prices.
Saying hello to everyone – There is a Patwa saying, “Howdy
an' tenk yu, noh brok noh square” - meaning: To say hello and thank you is not
a bad thing; it is good. Even on my 10 minute walk to work in the morning I
probably say hello to 10 or more people, ask how they night was, and also wave
hello to every car and taxi passing by. Not saying ‘gud maahning’ is plain
disrespectful; if the elderly man who lives next to my school is out on his
veranda, or out in his yard picking weeds, I will always try to wander by and
say good morning too.
Our town is really a cross-roads with about 5-10 buildings; it has a primary school (where I work), 2 shops, a police station, a post office, a government registrar’s office, many churches, an auto repair, 2 cook shops (restaurants with maybe 1 or 2 tables, but mostly take out, and a bar (as teachers, it is not acceptable for us to go to a bar – although we can order a beer or even a rum in a cook shop.)
 |
| Post Office & Registrar's Office |
 |
| Police Station |
Housing – We live in the lower level of a wonderful home up on a hill. Our
landlord lives above, and she is marvelous about helping us. She has chickens
and we now get fresh eggs every week, also some sugar cane which she has given
us as a super sweet snack. We have a kitchen/living area (which we’ve modified
with enough table space for both computers. The bedroom is large; we have a
mosquito net over the bed, and we have bathroom with a shower. Piped water
(meaning ‘city water’) is pretty reliable and drinkable (it is heavily
chlorinated) and the house has 600 gallons stored in rooftop tanks for when the
water (or electric pumps) fail – these tanks are ubiquitous all over Jamaica.
There is no hot water – but after all, this is the tropics, and cold showers
are wonderful.  |
| Water tanks on the roof of almost every house |
Community is vital. We’ve attend the local CDC (Community
Development Committee) meeting – we met in an unused former day care centre –
the conversation quickly moved to our ‘secondary projects’ for Peace
Corps…ideas for the building included a homework/study place, maybe a small
library, a computer skills training centre, and even some workout equipment.
The idea is to meet local needs for community gathering, to keep kids engaged,
to provide possible job skills training, and to enhance our community. The
Jamaican government’s Social Development Commission is a wonderful way to help
communities find resources and grants. We hope to identify our secondary
community project by September.
 |
| Mr Chin's Shop (Blue) & Bar (Yellow) |
We’ve made 2 marketing trips to ‘town’ – which means Montego Bay. There are grocery stores similar to small town USA – aisles of open shelves with some choices of products…the local brands are far cheaper than the imported from ‘foreign’ which means USA or Canada. Also Asian imports of canned meats and vegetables are much cheaper than North American.
 |
| Market Day |
Produce comes from the open markets – some farmers rent
stalls inside and are there every day, other ‘higglers’ spread out a blue
tarpaulin on the ground and sell whatever they have – could be yams, callalou
(like spinach) and cell phone chargers all on the same tarp.
 |
| The hill and path to our place (yes, goats and chickens too) |
On the north coast, about 45 minutes away (but requires 2 taxis – since taxis drive fixed routes and don’t go all the way) is Falmouth where the mega cruise ships come in. On Wednesday is “Ben Dung” market – actually Patwa for “Bend Down”. For decades, hundreds of higglers have travelled many miles from all parishes to either sell or purchase food, clothing and an assorted variety of haberdashery items at reduced retail and wholesale prices.
As one higgler explained in the Sunday Gleaner (newspaper),
“The market could have earned its name because of how, with a scarcity of
stalls, items used to be spread on tarpaulin on the ground for display, forcing
persons to bend down to pick up the items for inspection.”
 |
| People build as they have money - so they live downstairs for years while building above. |
Wash day – we do our own laundry – BY HAND in a wash tub
outside. Elbow grease – plus some strong detergent and good old ‘blue soap’ for
the areas that need bleach are part of the process. The clothes lines are out
behind the papaya trees.
Cooking: We did spoil ourselves and invested some of our
‘settling in’ allowance from Peace Corps to buy a coffee maker and a toaster
oven. Our gas stove is fuelled by a 30 lbs. propane tank. When it runs low, we
can refill it just down at the bottom of the hill at Rose’s shop. We continue
to learn about Jamaican produce and are getting creative mixing styles for our
meals. We’ll save food for yet another blog post.
Satellite map from Bing – here is a map of our
home… (structure at the 'S' bend is my school)
The schools – We each teach at primary schools (Grades 1-6).
We’ve posted about these before, and we’ll devote a separate blog post just to
the schools and kids.
 |
| Irene relaxing with her guitar on our veranda |
So, we’re settling in, and we really feel very much at home.
Of course, being here together as a couple is the best part of our experience.
Each day we come home and share our stories – certainly there are problems and
struggles, but we’ve always found that there is at least one heart-warming
story or success which made the day worthwhile. Most of our Peace Corps
colleagues came here as singles – we communicate a lot by text or email, and we
have all found a lot of mutual support from what PC calls “our government
issued friends”.
We close with two wonderfully simple Patwa phrases when
departing,
“Respec” and “Walk Gud”.
 |
| The view from our road |
Monday, June 9, 2014
How does religion influence the Jamaican society?
Many
Americans are not accustomed to the integration of religion into so much of
public life and government. Yet, here in Jamaica the system is accepted and
enjoyed. Every couple of weeks we intend to write about an aspect of our new
home country – here is the first instalment.
As part of our integration
into our community, we have asked to be invited by our colleagues and neighbours
to their various churches. So far we have attended Church of God, Methodist, and
Baptist Sunday services. And, we are looking forward to joining friends at Anglican, Pentecostal, Seventh Day
Adventist and others.
The Rastafari movement is an African-based spiritual ideology that arose in the 1930s in Jamaica. It is sometimes described as a religion but is considered by many adherents to be a "Way of Life".Its adherents worship Haile Selassie I, Emperor of Ethiopia (ruled 1930–1974), as God incarnate, the Second Advent, or the reincarnation of Jesus, and they revere Marijuana (Ganja) as part of their worship, although it is still an illegal drug in Jamaica. Officially, there are about 30,000 Rastafarians in Jamaica, although the number may be greater. So, contrary to some foreign ideologies, not all Jamaicans are 'Rastas'.
We have also been part of the religious ritual and celebration around death of members of the community. Nine-Night (in the past, commemoration celebrations were held for nine nights following the death of a loved one, hence the name) is held on the 9th day after the death. Celebrations typically start at 8 pm and continue well into the night. Family, neighbours, and friends, whether or not they were acquainted with the deceased, come out to join the celebrations. A table is laid out with food and drink, none of which should be touched before midnight. Legend has it that the spirit of the deceased should have the chance to eat, drink, enjoy the festivities, and hear the wishes of loved ones before passing on to the next plane. Celebrations reach fever pitch with music, drums and dancing where the travelling soul and the spirits of the family's ancestors are called upon to guide and welcome the newest arrival to the afterlife.
We hope you
find this post interesting – other topics in the future will include Jamaican
food & cooking, more details about education and our rural schools, and our
general day-to-day life. We welcome your posted questions and comments.
Jamaica is
said to have the most churches per square mile of any country in
the world. More than 1,600 churches can be found across the
country's 4500 square miles, whose population is 2.712 million (2012). Jamaica's constitution provides for freedom of religion. However,
Christian prayer is part of most all government and public gatherings; In
Jamaican Public Schools the day begins with Devotions – prayers read from the
Bible and singing followed by daily announcements. Even the U.S. Peace Corps
acknowledges the local custom – and usually begins meetings which include local
Jamaicans with a prayer too.
The National Anthem is a
prayer which begins "Eternal Father bless our land". It replaced the
British National Anthem, “God Save the Queen".
Last week I attended a computer
technology workshop conducted by Digicel, the local mobile telecom provider,
which opened with prayers and hymns and included prayer before lunch too.
What is interesting to me is that we
are completely accepted for who we are – there is no apparent prejudice about my
non-religious Jewish heritage, and Irene’s various experiences with Christianity;
most faiths seem to coexist easily in Jamaica.
According to
2011 statistics, the largest single denomination is Seventh-day Adventist, with
322,000 members, next is Pentecostal at 295,000, then come Church of God, and
The New Testament Church of God. Others include Anglican, Presbyterian, Jehovah’s
Witness, Roman Catholic, Mormon, Baha’i, Judaism, Islam, Society of Friends
(Quakers) and Hinduism. Smaller Protestant denominations include the Moravians,
Disciples of Christ, and United Church of Christ.The Rastafari movement is an African-based spiritual ideology that arose in the 1930s in Jamaica. It is sometimes described as a religion but is considered by many adherents to be a "Way of Life".Its adherents worship Haile Selassie I, Emperor of Ethiopia (ruled 1930–1974), as God incarnate, the Second Advent, or the reincarnation of Jesus, and they revere Marijuana (Ganja) as part of their worship, although it is still an illegal drug in Jamaica. Officially, there are about 30,000 Rastafarians in Jamaica, although the number may be greater. So, contrary to some foreign ideologies, not all Jamaicans are 'Rastas'.
We have also been part of the religious ritual and celebration around death of members of the community. Nine-Night (in the past, commemoration celebrations were held for nine nights following the death of a loved one, hence the name) is held on the 9th day after the death. Celebrations typically start at 8 pm and continue well into the night. Family, neighbours, and friends, whether or not they were acquainted with the deceased, come out to join the celebrations. A table is laid out with food and drink, none of which should be touched before midnight. Legend has it that the spirit of the deceased should have the chance to eat, drink, enjoy the festivities, and hear the wishes of loved ones before passing on to the next plane. Celebrations reach fever pitch with music, drums and dancing where the travelling soul and the spirits of the family's ancestors are called upon to guide and welcome the newest arrival to the afterlife.
As Jamaicans
might say in Patwa – Bless Up and Respec!
Tuesday, June 3, 2014
Reading Centre is open!
We opened the Reading Centre at our Jamaican Primary School today! Literacy education is our #1 priority - we started with Grade 4 students, although kids from all grades kept coming in just to find a book and read for a little while. It was a very good day! [...and for our Colorado friends - YES, that is Governor John Hickenlooper - our book today was "Duck on a Bike" and I showed a video of him reading the same book during One Book 4 Colorado Day.]
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| Reading Centre at Primary School in St. James |
Saturday, May 31, 2014
Sargent Shriver - 1962 Peace Corps Director Video
I met R. Sargent Shriver in 1964. Here's a short clip from a 1962 TV game show; the Peace Corps was 1-year old. Even then he says that were some volunteers over '60 years old' - I guess I probably got them beat!
We'd enjoy seeing your questions about Jamaica and your comments posted below. Thanks, STEVE and IRENE
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