La Mansión is a small community located 15km outside of the
town of Nicoya, on the Nicoya Peninsula, Guanacaste. There are numerous small
businesses, many of which are run out of peoples’ homes. Many people travel for work; to Nicoya to
work for larger businesses or to Samara or many other Pacific coast beaches to
work in tourism or transportation. More
and more students are pursuing college degrees in nearby Nicoya or Santa Cruz
in order to broaden their horizons and English plays a large role in that.
La Mansión is a small town within a larger Canton (also
called Mansión). There has never been a JumpStart camp in this Canton. There
are so many smaller Unidocentes (schools
with one teacher for all students) that feed into CTP Mansión; so many schools
that only receive English classes once a week; some that have their schedules
shifted so often that learning English has been set aside. I work with a
teacher that travels around to 4 small schools within the Canton to teach
English each week. Many of these
students become frustrated with English because there is such a small amount of
time allotted for English; it makes it difficult to build confidence or truly
retain information. Many become despondent about their education or cannot see
its worth. If these students could only make it to high school—at CTP Mansión—,
to this much bigger pond, they could see all of the opportunities available to
them during and post secondary education.
As
a community that houses a large high school composed of students from all over
the Canton, I see JumpStart as an opportunity to get many of these students in
one place, to mingle, to learn, to grow together, and become more confident in
their future studies. This camp will keep many students interested in their
education and provide them with an opportunity to focus on English and thus
open their minds to their impending high school English classes and even
extracurricular English activities… where again, they will find me! I can aid
in this transition even more because I can see these students from sixth grade
lessons, to JumpStart, to high school extracurricular activities. Eventually,
in my stead the dream is that other teachers will step up and take over the
JumpStart camp and provide the same support, consistency, and enthusiasm
regarding English studies.
