Ms. Caine's South America Adventures

Sunday, July 26th

Barranquilla

Today we had meetings in the morning and went to the Museo de Caribe in the afternoon. The museum was fascinating! They had a phenomenal exhibit on the indigenous tribes in Colombia! I wish I could have captured it and put it on the blog. The majority of the tribes were indigenous to South America...but two of the tribes were descendants of slaves from the Triangular trade.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez exhibit

Marquez as a young man (on the right)

Monday, July 27th

I woke up this morning and met two of my colleagues on the roof deck of the hotel for yoga! Marianna one of our tour leaders led us in a yoga class and it was wonderful!!!!

Today we met with the Secretary of Education for Barranquilla in the morning. He talked to us about all of the programs that they have implemented over the past 7 years to improve the system of education. The capstone project is their bilingual program. Barranquilla will be the first city in Colombia to be completely bilingual. As of 2016 over 100 of the 155 schools will be bilingual. The emphasis of this program is to provide students with multiple opportunities for employment. Barranquilla is a port city and as a result has many international companies looking to hire local people. Having the ability to speak English as well as Spanish opens the door for many students to find employment that otherwise would not be available. "Contact Barranquilla" is another program that builds off of the bilingual programming. Through this program, job opportunities are made available to students while they are still in high school. The part-time jobs in call centers offer the students the opportunity to improve their English and to earn money while completing their secondary studies. "ABC English" is a program for the primary grades. In the TEL program, volunteers from the Peace Corps and World Teach work with teachers and students to enhance their English speaking skills. The results of these program have been phenomenal.

Students presenting their English speaking skills at our morning meeting!

Madre Marcelena School

Our group was divided into three separate groups and each group will be working at a different school in Barranquilla. I am working with Patricia (Horace Mann School), Jason and Katie (Minneapolis), and Christine (Tulsa). Jason and I will be working with secondary teachers in English and Literature classes. We had the opportunity this afternoon to learn about the school and to meet with the teachers we will be working with.

Madre Madrelena is a Catholic girls school. It does not operate like Catholic schools in the U.S. It is a public school! The actual building belongs to the Church, but is leased out to the government. A nun runs the school, but the only hint of religion is the mass that all students must attend once a month. The principal explained how all religions are accepted in the school, and no one religion is stressed over another. The schools serves 700 students in grades Pre-K through 11. Just like in Bogota, students graduate after 11th grade and go on to work, vocational training or university. The girls at the school come from all over Barranquilla. There is no transportation available so parents arranged carpools. Although these students do not come from the poorest sectors socioeconomically speaking, some of the students are from what we would consider lower middle class. The school day runs from 7-3 p.m. Some students are dismissed at 1:00 p.m., but alternating groups stay until 3 on varying days of the week. This additional time is utilized for enriching regular programming in all subject areas.

So...tomorrow I will be working with Karen (native speaker from Barranquilla), who is an English teacher at the school, Martin (native English speaker), a volunteer from Great Britain teaching English at the school and Jesus (native speaker from outside Barranquilla), who is also an English teacher and a teacher of literature.

The school is incredibly warm and welcoming and the students were so excited to have us there! They were all excited to learn that I was from New York! I can't wait to return to the school tomorrow and truly begin the sharing experience!