Welcome to my blog on my year (July 2010 - June 2011) in the Marshall Islands! The Republic of the Marshall Islands is a Micronesian nation composed on 29 coral atolls and 5 islands in the middle of the Pacific Ocean just west of the International Date Line and just north of the Equator. I am here on the Dartmouth Volunteer Teaching Program which you can find out more about at this link: www.dartmouthrmi.com. I am staying in the capital, Majuro, and am teaching two sections of 7th grade English Grammar/Writing and English Reading at Majuro Middle School (MMS). I am living in dorms on the Marshall Islands High School (MIHS) campus, where MMS is located. If you have any other questions please feel free to email me at l.andrew.rayner@gmail.com, and thanks for visiting my blog. I update on Sundays as regularly as electricity/internet availability permits.

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

New Quarter, New Projects

Even though the play is now nearly a month in the past, it is still profoundly affecting my experience here. Before the play, as a result of the February Slump, I had pretty much checked out from the RMI experience. I was frustrated with my students and their lack of responsiveness. I was finding my experience in Majuro to be repetitive and mundane. The play very much revitalized me and imbued energy back into the remaining months of my experience here.

The third term ended during the run of the play and I was not surprised to find that some of my top students did not perform as well as they had in the past. My students slacked much more this term and lacked the discipline that I attempted to hone over the previous two terms. However, my middle and lowest level students did improve slightly. I came to believe that despite my previous willingness to give up, there was some hope left.

I decided that I taught my students almost everything technical that I wanted to teach them and now wanted to work on projects that brought together all of the skills that we learned in a way that did not necessarily keep the skills learned at the forefront of the work but as foundation to other, more complex ideas. Inspired from the play and having seen the effect that it had on the MIHS students, I decided to put on a play myself in my 7th grade classes. I am in the process of preparing my students to put on J.M. Barrie's "Peter Pan." Alex Huestis aptly called Majuro "Neverland" (she was specifically referring to Ejit, but I think the term can apply to Majuro as a whole). In many ways, I came on the DVTP program for a "Neverland" experience myself (Michael Jackson puns not intended--at all). I wanted to get "away from it all" before seeking a job in the US and I wanted to try out teaching kids thereby giving myself the chance to become a kid again by proxy. I figured what better way to end this experience than by passing on the same notion of "never having to grow up" and the effect that this country and the play had on me than by introducing my students to Peter Pan?

We first watched two film versions of the story, the live action one featuring Jeremy Sumpter from 2003 and the 1953 Disney animated version. I did this so that all of my students would understand the plot of the story come time to read the book. Inspired by Rafe Esquith's novel "Teach Like Your Hair is on Fire," I used the movie as a teachable moment, having the students identify protagonists, antagonists, supporting characters, and different elements of the story arc. I also had the students identify the differences between the two films. While at first the students did not seem all that interested in the play (especially since, tragically, no one in my homeroom came to see the play) after seeing the movies the students were extremely excited about playing the characters in the story. We have finished watching the movies as of last week and starting reading the story on Monday. I plan on switching between reading aloud, silent reading (where I will be helping my lowest students comprehend the text), and group reading (where all the groups will be of mixed abilities and my top students will take over in instructing and explaining the story to my other students). The plan is to get the story ready in three weeks and then start working on other elements of the play such as costumes, sets, props, and choreography (for the fights). It is my hope that by having the students participate in all of these elements of the production, they will gain confidence and will have their ability to think outside of the box and use their imagination increased.

In my writing class the project for this quarter is to write books. One of my favorite activities in elementary school was writing stories for the Young Authors program. To this day I still have my Young Authors books in our home library. My hope is by having the students create something of their own conception, they will not only learn to treasure their work but increase their appreciation for books and reading in general. This project has started out much more slowly. As a result of a lack of exposure, the students had a hard time coming up with imaginative topics for their stories. I realized that this was mostly likely because they had not read many different types of books. I spent this past week introducing my students to different types of books. I am having them write stories that match the types of stories that I am reading to them each day. I am a bit more worried about this project than the other but I have high hopes for the product.

The final effect that the MIHS play has had on me is that I was able to remember how very important the arts are to me. I have been singing/performing for most of my life. This year in the RMI has been the first time in 14 years that I have not been in a performance group. Being a part of the play made me realize how much I need the arts in my life and as a result, I will be continuing my work with Professor Garrod and "The Tempest" in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Professor Garrod does a similar project to his work here in BIH and asked me to come along with him before he departed the RMI. While he gave me about as much time to make the decision to come as he gave me to make the decision to come to the RMI, I figured that one choice had been good for me and that it would most likely that this new choice would be good too. Going to Bosnia will give me the opportunity to not only help educate a new group of youth but do it through the arts. We will be putting on the same play and I will be acting in the same capacity as Dan Moore '10 and John Around Him '12 as assistant director while in Bosnia. Thankfully the committment is only two months in the summer and will be much more focused on theater than teaching. So, while I am disappointed that I will not be home for the entirety of the summer (and that I will be heading out about 10 days after I return to the states) the opportunity is too good to pass up. Theater, travel, and teaching all wrapped up in another adventure!

Bar Lo Kom,

Andrew

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