DREAM

It's probably time to explain what the heck I was doing in the Dominican Republic. It wasn't to get a tan (I don't tan, I burn. too expensive just to fly to the DR for a burn) or to relax or run away (I'm not good at doing either of those). Mostly it was because I knew I needed to practice Spanish on a day-to-day living basis. When I heard about the DREAM project (which stands for Dominican Republic Education And Mentoring project), I decided teaching would definitely qualify for Spanish practice.

The DREAM Center in Cabarete

The goal of DREAM is to supplement primary education (for further details, visit their site). As I understand it, the average Dominican child attends just a half-day at school, and classroom control is difficult, so volunteers for DREAM help teach classes during the summer, mentor students during the school year, and showcase teaching techniques by bringing in teachers from the United States (DREAM is a U.S. based organization) and pairing them with Dominican teachers. I am not a certified teacher, but I volunteered to teach health classes during the summer. Oh, boy, what a demanding job--learning how to teach, without curriculum, by using my secondary language.

My classroom!

Each night my co-teacher and I would have a pow-wow about what we would teach the next day.. We typically taught 5 different lessons a week to 4-5 different groups. We thought of lots of games and activities to get the desired message--food safety, nutrition, body systems, etc--across.

"Pass the ball"--to demonstrate how blood carries nutrients to the body

"Red light Green light"--shows how our eyes recognize color and movement
 (or maybe we just played the game for fun)

I am very proud of these fruits and vegetables
I drew them for a visual for the 'nutrition' lesson

Our 'first aid' lesson--how to straighten an airway

they really swarmed him to straighten his airway