We did the Egyptian mask project yesterday.
Hug hit.
Meche came in and played security guard for
me to keep the younger ones from entering, and we had about 10 secondary school
students (perfect number, I thought).
The project was exciting and they enjoyed
themselves. Their maskes were looking good, and they began painting their
headdresses as two boys painted their mask like a ninja.
The entire purpose of this program is
creativity and curiosity, so I focus less on discipline and more on the youth
being as creative as possible. I told them, “I like how you painted your masks,
but I need to show your parents and the donors that you have learned about
Egypt, so humor us, do the headdresses, then when you take them home, you can
throw them away, and use the mask however you like.”
“What?”
“What do you mean, ‘what?’, Gregorio, what
did I just say?”
“you said that we need to do the project
like you say now, then we can throw them away when we get home,”
“Kind of, just finish your headdresses
please.”
As I was finishing this sentence, two
female teens were headed out the door after only finishing one mask between the
two of them, and not painting it or putting a headdress on.
“Where are you going?”
“We have homework to do.”
How can I fight this? Even though the
school system sucks, and this project is probably more beneficial to them than
any homework assignment they have, they have to do their homework to proceed in
high school.
“Then why did you come here and use the
supplies for a project that you couldn’t finish?”
Silence.
“Can you come back tomorrow and finish?”
“Yes.”
With all of me, I doubt them.
“You were both late today as well. If you
had arrived on time, perhaps you could have finished. Tomorrow we start at what
time?
“4”
“see you tomorrow at four, en punto, then”
I come back inside and begin to clean up
the girls’ mess. I step into the bathroom to rinse their bowl and plaster dish.
Moments later I come back into the room and the boys have left with their ninja
masks leaving the headdresses behind, and made up names written on them.
Supplies are also missing.
I allow this to crush me, and cloud me for
the rest of the evening. To deliberately disobey even when I was allowing such
liberty in the first place tore at my confidence. Demanding it to slide off my
back, I decided I should still do something in rebuttal. While I am not here to
teach discipline, I do need an ounce of respect to get anything done. I could
go to the school tomorrow and have the principal reprimand them in his way for
me. I could go pull them out of class and reprimand them myself. I could go to
each of their houses right now and demand the masks back.
But, my goals are creativity and curiosity
in the youth, so…
I make a sign,
“This is the artistic ability of Gregory,
Jamil, and Rodrigo. They couldn’t even finish an egyptian headdress. They have
disrespected their teacher and their classmates by stealing materials.”
This, is embarrassing for youth in this
small town. Tomorrow when the older youth arrive for their day, they will see
it, and word will hopefully begin to get passed around. Surely, if the boys get
wind of the sign they will come and tear it down, which I have given them
liberty to do by hanging the sign on the outer wall of the library instead of
inside. But, their parents will have heard by then and it will have fulfilled
it’s duty.
Lack of discipline, however, is a huge
issue when one is working towards the advancement of education here. Parents
and teachers are irresponsible, whiney, and inconsistent, so, how is there to
be any improvement with their children? There won’t be. Anytime soon.
All I can hope for is that this program
instills creativity, curiosity, knowledge, and leadership skills in this
generation of kids so that they can pass that on to their kids at a younger age
preparing their brains better for the world of education and fixing it
themselves.
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