JumpStart Finca Naranjo: The first two weeks!

The Naranjo Jumpstart English camp is off to a great start, gracias a dios.
First, thank you to all of you have who donated to the camp. I am
grateful for all of the support both from you all in the US, and from
people in my community here.
 
Through local in-kind and cash donations, we were able to cover the
costs of snacks, transportation and school supplies. Contributors
include: the town development association, the Naranjo synthetic field
and restaurant, the Coopeagropal palm company, the bus company and the
high school. In November, Jumpstart parents made empanadas, picadillo,
arroz con leche and ice cream, and sold them at a fundraiser soccer
tournament.

Most importantly, my co-teacher Raquel is donating her time this
summer vacation to teach at the camp. She’s doing this, even as she is
a single mother of three young daughters.Not only have adults supported the camp, but the students are also extremely motivated to be there.

 

For me, a highlight of the camp so far was actually not English class.
Friday in the second half of camp, we take a break from English and do
activities aimed at preparing the students for high school and beyond.
Last week we asked the students to reflect on their goals for 10 years
from now, in multiple sectors: education, work, health, home and
recreation.

Among the group of 20 seventh grade students I learned that we have
future doctors, teachers, tour guides, forensic scientists and
business owners.

Hearing the students talk about their futures reminded me that they
are each more than what they appear to be. Some are still tiny. Boys
and girls can have a hard time working together, nervous about how
they appear to the opposite sex. They play hide and go seek at recess.
They’re strongly motivated by candy and stickers.

But when they talk about their goals, I start to see them more as the
adults they’re becoming. Most aren’t even 13 yet. Still, they have
clear ideas of what they want for their futures. I hope this camp will at least play a tiny part of helping them to reach these goals.

-Elise Kigner, PCV in Finca Naranjo

JumpStart fundraiser in the Super Sur!

Three PCVs, Elise, Tyler, and Yessinia collaborated on a sports day fundraiser with a participating JumpStart elementary school! Over 100 people came out to show their support and helpers sold food to raise money. One of the many examples of community support throughout the country...

A little bit about Finca Naranjo!

Naranjo de Laurel is a community of around 850 people close to the border of Panama.  The town’s economy is based on the processing of palm oil. Community members see a high school diploma as a key to greater work opportunities. They especially value the high school because it is new, having opened in 2007. Since travel to other schools was difficult before then, many of the parents of the current high school students did not attend high school. 

While these new educational opportunities exist for youth in Naranjo, many are not prepared for the social and academic challenges of high school, and drop out. Two thirds of the students who started at the Naranjo High School are not graduating from this school. Many students specifically cite challenges with their English classes. Another difficulty is that the majority of students in the high school come from small rural communities. They struggle transitioning to a high school of 500 students – 10 times the size of many nearby elementary schools. 

Now in its second year, Jumpstart Naranjo 2015 will include students from three local elementary schools. The majority of the students come from small schools and never studied English before.  This means they are at a disadvantage compared with their peers in high school who have received English classes since first grade. 

Students, parents and teachers are highly interested in this intensive English camp. They understand how challenging the transition to high school can be, and they are motivated to participate in a program that will support the students. 

Pictured below:

Families at the information session in Bella Luz. Two parents talked about how they struggled with English classes in high school. They felt like they didn’t understand what the teacher was saying, and they felt embarrassed. They said they wanted things to be different for their kids. 

 

Under Construction - Preparing for JumpStart 2015 Camps!

We are thrilled to have more than 35 camp sites confirmed for January 2015! Please bear with us as we finish preparing a section for each camp on the blog so you can follow your favorite community, teachers and students. In the meantime, please follow us on Facebook for all the latest JumpStart news, or visit our main page, www.jumpstartcostarica.org, for more about the program.

Naranjo Jumpstart

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Science

Thursday science lessons with teacher Milady Ruiz were a highlight of Jumpstart Naranjo.

Week 1, we had fun blowing bubbles, and learned about the chemicals in common soaps like shampoo and detergent. 

Week 2, we studied animals, and drew our own crazy animals, like the rare frogsnake and turtlemonkey. 

Next we got the opportunity to design our own experiments, thinking about what will make a pendulum go faster or slower. 

In the last week, we translated complex instructions, and worked in teams to build block towers. 

Milady’s passion for science was infectious. She gave us lots of time to conduct our own experiments, and then helped us understand the scientific concepts behind what we were experiencing. In just four lessons, we studied chemistry, biology, ecology, physics, geometry and mathematics, all mixed with English!

Community Role Models

We worked hard at Jumpstart Finca Naranjo, but sometimes the work could be challenging. We needed to seek out people who believed in us, and wanted to help us reach our goals.

For this, two role models from the community joined us at camp one Friday morning.

Our first guest was Xiani, who works as a tour guide around the country, including at Marino Ballena (Marine Whale) National Park, near Uvita. She is the mother of Alex, one of our Jumpstart student teachers, and a great role model himself.

Xiani came in uniform: hiking pants, a light shirt, hiking boots and sunglasses. She also brought a black backpack filled with the tools of her trade: field guides, snorkels, binoculars, a phone with a GPS, a map, water and a first aid kit.

Xiani presented in Spanglish (a mix of English and Spanish.) Our students already knew words like frog, dolphin and whale, because we learned animal vocabulary the day before in our special STEM (science, technology engineering and math) session!

Xiani said she often spoke in English, guiding both American tourists, and tourists from countries such as Germany. Sometimes she said she didn’t know the word for something, so she showed a picture of the animal. The tourist then taught her the word, and every day she learned more and more.

Her advice for us: “Be positive, and believe in yourself.”

Our second guest was Sindy, a licensed physical therapist who manages a rehabilitation clinic, a gym and stationary store in Naranjo. She told us she started studying physical therapy because she was looking for a way to help her grandfather, who suffered from muscle pains as he lay sick in bed.

“You have to do things because you feel motivated to do them,” she said.

Sindy passed around her diploma and graduation photos, getting our Jumpstart students thinking about their own graduations from high school, and college.

With the help of our guests, Jumpstart students, student teachers, and teachers brainstormed and shared their plans for the future. In our Jumpstart group, we learned, are future doctors, nurses, teachers, engineers, secretaries and tour guides.

What an inspiring group of people!

Peer Role Models, and Teacher Mentors

For our third high school ready session, we invited a seventh grader, Tati, and English teacher, Heiner, to Jumpstart.

In small groups, our students took turns chatting with Tati, Heiner, and the Jumpstart English teacher, Linsey. The students asked the guests questions written out on notecards. Some were silly, like, “would you rather have the super power of being able to fly, or be invisible?” Others were more serious, and drawn from our first high school ready session. In that session, students had anonymously submitted questions about high school, like “will I pass my classes?” and “do older students pick on the seventh graders?”

Even though Tati is tiny and only in seventh grade (about to start eighth), she often speaks in front of the whole school at actocivicos. She talked with her groups about being careful about how they choose their friends. She said classmates will ask them if they want to go to the palms to take drugs. Tati also told us about her sister, who started harming herself after she got into a bad relationship. She told us to make sure not to change for anybody.

After getting time to chat,  groups wrote down their promises for the coming year, and made a class poster:

Graduation

Talking in front of big groups isn’t easy. It’s especially not easy when you’re speaking in a language that’s new to you.

Because of this, it was incredibly inspiring to see our Jumpstart students get up in front of a group of about 70 to speak in English.

All of our students wrote and memorized dialogues that pulled together everything we’ve learned over the past four weeks. We practiced in front of each other, and little by little refined our presentation skills. We worked on projecting our voices, and using gestures to capture the interest of audience members who don’t know any English. Jendry, our special student speaker, decided to give her talk in English and Spanish.

Fer showed off her monkeywhale, which she made during one of our special science classes:

After getting diplomas, all the students pitched in to hand out food and drinks. German’s mother cooked us arroz con pollo and caracoles. Coopeagropal, the local palm company, donated juice, pastries and cake.

After four weeks of hard week, and fun, the students waved goodbye, and said “see you Monday.” Starting high school can be scary, but they are ready for it!