Dominican Republic - Walnerger

Thanks to the Poly GIP program, I just had one of the most humbling and rewarding experiences of my life. This last week, I went to the Dominican Republic (DR) and taught young public school kids how to speak English. I was absolutely amazed by their energy, their love, and their desire to learn. It was truly a life-altering experience.

16 other Poly students and I ventured to Monte Cristi, a city of about 30,000 people on the northern coast of the DR bordering Haiti. There, we participated in an Outreach 360 program. We stayed at an Outreach 360 facility and taught English at a public school in the mornings and taught Spanish/English literacy at another Outreach 360 center in the afternoons.

I have many important reflections from my trip, and I will share many of them, but I will only share one story for now. A story with a young student named Walnerger.

As I mentioned, our group taught at a literacy center in the afternoons. We divided the group, half of us teaching English grammar and sentence structure and half of us reading Spanish books and discussing reading comprehension in Spanish with the students. I worked with the Spanish literacy group. 

From the first day, my group identified one girl as being sassy and quite a handful. She is brilliant, but she was very disruptive to the learning environment and wasn't kind to her classmates or her teachers (us). Her name is Walnerger. We agreed to take turns teaching her throughout the week so none of us would be "stuck" with her. On the third day it was my turn, but something strange happened. When she first sat down, she was very sassy and disruptive like always, so I thought I'd try a different approach. I laughed at her jokes (so long as they didn't go too far), and gently teased her a little too. She responded really well. She thought it was hilarious when I made faces with her and actually started to read and focus. When she and her friend Nicolas became unfocused a little later in the session and were tired, I carefully explained to them that this was their time. I was only here to help them. I told them we could read, we could talk about the book, we could draw characters from the book, we could play Hang Man with the vocabulary words from the book, or anything else they wanted to do. I was there to help them progress their Spanish reading comprehension, but only if they wanted to. They understood and immediately focused. Their attitude changed completely. We ended up ripping a page out of Nicolas' notebook to play Hang Man, and when we did, the bindings on the notebook came undone a little bit. Walnerger asked to go to the bathroom, so I said yes and we waited for her to come back. She came back a minute later with a long strip of blue tape which she used to repair the bindings on Nicolas' notebook. She went from slapping, yelling, and making fun of her classmates to helping them repair their notebook in the span of 40 minutes. I was blown away. The rest of the day went extremely well, and my fellow Global Panthers were stunned by what had happened.

The following day was our last, and Walnerger ran into the room and rushed into a seat at my circle despite being assigned to Maaso for the day. Nicolas rushed in right behind her. Walnerger was eating ice cream and offered me a bite. When I declined, she offered me a lollipop. All of my friends could not believe it. The entire day, we laughed, joked around, read, discussed, wrote down vocabulary words in their notebooks, and told stories about the characters in the book. The entire group was absolutely incredible and all of the kids looked like they were having a great time. Towards the end of the class, Walnerger presented me with a drawing. The drawing depicted everyone in my group with their names. At the top of the page, it said "We love Teacher Alec" in Spanish, and the whole thing was covered with hearts. It was the most beautiful thing I have ever experienced. The drawing is currently hanging in my room above my bed. 

In just two days, I had made an impact. I will never know how big of an impact, and maybe it just lasted a couple of days, but I could tell that I had changed Walnerger's attitude towards learning. Walnerger is a very bright girl, and I assume she knew that many of the volunteers that came through Outreach 360 had a hard time wrangling her in, and I think that definitely had an impact on her. I sat down and treated her the way I would treat a peer, and I reminded her that it was her choice to be here. I showed interest in her learning and development and gave her attention in a different way. I truly felt appreciated.

This was absolutely all of the proof I ever needed that I can make an impact in someone else's life. One person at a time, one minute at a time. I am so blessed and so grateful for this experience, and I will never forget what a sassy girl from the Dominican Republic did for me. Walnerger, you are going to grow up to be an amazing, intelligent, strong-willed girl, and I am so, so proud of you. Thank you for everything. You have taught me more than any volunteer could ever teach you. Good luck!