Year One Versus Year Two

There are so many differences between the challenges during my first year and my second year in Peace Corps.

The first year was trail and error (many, many errors), and the second year I understood better how things worked. My first year was learning how things worked and where things were, while I knew my way around my second year. My first year was working until 8 or 9 o’clock every night making materials and resources for lessons. My second year is working on gathering available resources to organize them for my partners, of which I’m able to finish during the school day. During my first year, I kept saying “yes” to everything, resulting in me being a little overwhelmed with my responsibilities. So by my second year, I had learned how to say “no”, and now I have free time.

Although my second year has been a lot easier in many ways, there are still several things that had difficult to my last year here. The biggest challenge I face this year as opposed to last is that I have more internal battles about my work here. I often question the value of my work. Now when I take on a project, I ask myself several questions before trying to complete it:

1. Will my partners benefit from this? 
2. Will anyone actually help me? 
3. Will this be something that they will actually continue to use once I’m gone? 
4. Can I finish this before I leave? 
5. Will anyone care that I did this? 

So the first year was more of a challenge of accomplishment while the second year is a challenge with my apathy. May I maintain the necessary strength to get me through the last 4½ months.

Jackpot

I found a loaf of sliced bread at my local store for the second time this month. Life is good.

5 Months Left

I guess I’ll make it official: my COS date is July 18. So I’ve got 5 months left in Moldova, and I can hardly believe it.

I hope my winter boots and clothes can last until then. I’ve been trying to make it through my whole service without buying clothes or shoes for two reasons: 1) I’d rather spend my money on food and travel and 2) the quality of their produce is poor. Come on clothes and shoes, you can make it.

In addition to hoping my clothes can make it through, I have the worse case of senioritis I have ever had. When graduating high school and college, of course I experienced senioritis, but it was different. I was living and loving every moment of being a high school or college student before I knew I had to move on. But here, I just feel ready to move on. I’m ready to be an RPCV. I keep thinking about my next steps after this: what jobs I’ll apply for, where I’ll live, what I’ll do, where do I want to travel, etc. I feel like I’m living in the future instead of the present.

I hope this is a phase since this is probably the last time I’ll be in Moldova. I’m sure it’ll hit me soon with the amount of work I hope to complete before I leave, and it’ll inspire me to live in the moment once more.

Sometimes You Need To Do Things For Yourself

If you are PCV, you have heard the word “sustainability” all too often. And although PC may overuse the word, I do actually think about the sustainability in everything I try to do here. It helps me decide what I want to take on and what I will and won’t do.

So as a rule of thumb, I aim to focus more on improving my partner teachers’ teaching skills more than my students’ education. My reasoning is that if I were to focus on the students, I would only influence the students I work with for these two years. But if I improve my partner teachers’ teaching skills, they will go on to continue to help students once I leave and provide good teaching techniques to future generations. So I’ll indirectly help students long after I’m gone.

Since I love teaching, sometimes this is difficult for my mentality. So I’ve decided to make an exception to my sustainability rule and work in small groups with some struggling students. As a result, I’m working less with my partner teacher during the lesson, and I’m creating resources on my own instead of teaching my partners how to make them. But I think I need this. I need a time when I can teach in my style without worrying about teaching my partners, when I get to enjoy teaching.

I really wish I’d thought of this earlier in my service because I’m loving it. I get to create my own lesson plan my way. I get to teach without worrying about my partner. And I get to get to know some of my students better. Plus, since I’m working with struggling students separately, I’m creating my own little curriculum. So I’m not restricted by the textbooks. And bonus, my Romanian is getting better.

Yep, I’m Still In Moldova

It’s been 20 months working and living in Moldova, and I feel pretty accustom to daily life here. In fact, that’s why I don’t have as many blog entries anymore. So you would think that most things wouldn’t surprise me much anymore, yet I still get caught off guard with some things.

On Monday, one of my partner teachers told a student to leave the lesson to go make copies since she hadn’t made them yet. This involved the student leaving the school to go to a place that makes copies. The student had to go multiple shops, and the student missed the whole lesson.

And in another class, we were giving a test. I caught a student cheating and marked that he would receive a lower grade because of it, which is something my partner and I have been doing all year. And he just left the classroom. As far as I can tell, he won’t be making up the test either.

And then today, I was talking to another one of my partners about how I could participate more in the lessons. In the classroom with this partner, I’ve been included less and less in the lessons slowly through out the year. At this point, I was pretty much just sitting there doing nothing the whole lesson. So I wanted to come up with a way to help out and participate more, and I suggested that I work with the students struggling with English in small groups or individually. My partner replied that she would love my help and that she hadn’t asked for my help before because she didn’t want to disturb me during the lesson. I guess that why I’m not always involved in the lesson. I don’t think she completely understands my purpose in working with her.

It’s experiences like this that make me miss America and American school systems. I miss valuing education, both from the teachers and students. I miss higher expectations in schools. I miss the expectation for working hard, from all members of the school community. And while America is far from perfect, I’m starting to get excited to get back to working in the familiarity of American schools.