Expedition Projects: Field Trip to Miches

Last week, Keith, myself, and one of the HS math/science teachers, Abby, accompanied the 10th grade students on their expedition trip to Miches, DR. Their expedition theme is on lobster habitats, but in Miches they discovered much more than that. We had two sets of experts—two researchers sponsored by Columbia University that are studying and working with fisherman on sustainable economic and environmental practices, and two scuba diving guides/preservation enthusiasts. Both sets of experts really made this excursion awesome.

The first day we spent the morning and afternoon at Ceyba Park, an ecological reserve, and that evening we did a beach clean with a group other young people from Miches. Then we had the great privilege of dining with two fishermen from the community and learning about their experiences fishing off Miches’ shores. They talked to us about so many aspects of the fishing community—from the fatalities of their friends who used air compressors to dive deep into the coral reefs to catch lobsters, to the tense relationships between fishermen from other communities that come take advantage of Miches resources and the ambiguous idea of rights to the water. The 10th grade students did an outstanding job respecting these men for their experience and being open and inquisitive with them about what we were learning. One of the fishermen returned the following evening with a bucket full of fish he had caught that day and insisted on added them to our meal that night. We were so blessed to have the opportunity to get to know him.


The second day we spent 7 hours out at sea exploring the area and the coral reefs via catamaran. It was a highlight to see the students get so enthused about spotting lobster casitas and then to watch all of them, floating on top of the water with faces plunged into the ocean, gazing at God’s intricate creation below the water’s surface (this includes one student who had learned how to swim that very day!)

Unfortunately, our trip had to conclude with another exhausting gua-gua (van) ride back to Jarabacoa. It’s rough travel here; enough to make me almost forget all the goodness of the past few days. Chaperoning 10 teenagers is rough going also… I was blessed by the opportunity to grow in relationship with these students, but gosh they can really drive you nuts sometimes. We spent a lot of time laughing together; I can only hope they can still take me seriously as their teacher.

We’ll be headed to the beach again this weekend with a few friends. This time not for school, but for sanity.
This shall be my second Thanksgiving in Cabarete. I smell the start of a tradition. Come join me next year?

For more information about expeditionary learning (the education methodology that Doulos uses) please check out www.ddsdr.org

November Update: Signs of Tomas

It's been raining muchisimo lately. this makes a few things difficult...

bike commuting
having consistent power at the house
feeling warm
knowing how to dress for the day
and getting focused work done, because apparently the rain just makes me loopy




My mind has been swirling around all the various projects going on in all my classes. There is a lot to juggle. Especially with class time and resources being so limited, I feel like I can envision a lot, but realistically it all probably isn't possible. Fall Expeditions are up and running, so I am always bouncing back and forth with the guide teachers to get their input and to coordinate my projects with their Expedition plans. I definitely think I spend more time planning and prepping for class than I do actually teaching. I don't think I like that unbalance. Extended amounts of planning time are a luxury here and I seem to have a lot of them. So I take them as blessings...but they also make me a little crazy and antsy.

A few weeks ago, we started some after school ballet classes here at Doulos. The younger kids (k-3rd) come on Tuesdays and there are now like 15 young students that come (!!), and then the older ones (4th and up) on Thursday but there are only 6 or so students that come. Only a few students have had actual dance classes before. Those few used to carpool to a city 30mins north of here to take class on Saturday mornings, but I guess the teaching wasn't that great and they didn't like waking up early, so they have since stopped.
The vast majority have no experience or even exposure to ballet before. This makes it pretty interesting. I was explaining to a friend of mine that it's like trying to teach someone to play soccer and they have never seen a ball before. I'm trying to keep the classes pretty structured, so they might actually learn something rather than just prancing around. Although I think there is a fair amount of prancing still going on. Gotta let those little ones prance sometimes.
Once again the Holy Spirit is doing more work during our ballet classes than I am. And I guess I do prefer this balance.

It has been great to have this as a catalyst to get to know some of the students a little bit more. Slowly but surely I feel like I am learning more about my students lives and they are learning about me as well. Often the more I learn the more my heart breaks and bends. It's hard not to idealize my students as well. Doulos is so unique, there is truly no school like it-- especially in this country. So it would be easy to think that the students are all exceptional as well. But really they are just like any other 8 year old, or 13 year old, or 17 year old. They struggle with and are tempted by the same things as almost any other student. Don't get me wrong though...most of these kids have some really powerful stories, but that usually reveals more of our humanness than not. And that also means they have that many more hurdles to overcome in order to get to a place of strength, confidence, humility, etc.

thanks again for all your prayers, words, good vibes and the like. they are felt by us here in J-coa and very appreciated.

I'll end with a quick snapshot of my art closet. it really hardly encompasses the array of art scraps.