Journal
Feb 18
Yesterday I had a meeting with the director of the orphanage. Maria from the orphanage translated. She gave me permission to start teaching a few of the students and suggested it would be good if I could get more volunteers to help in other communities with orphanages where the students have even less chance of learning English.
On the way out I met Maria's private math tutor who gave me several of the math story problems to solve which I never liked in school! When I got one wrong he was happy to tell me that I had gotten an F. Maria said he is a nice person and had helped her with her math, which she hates, but he didn't make a very good first impression on me! I told Maria that I never liked math much either and I have been able to travel around the world and have never had to use most of the math they taught me and none of the algebra. I also told her it was sad that some parents will shout at their children and even make them cry when they can't do their math. I said that there are more important things in life than math and she agreed. I agree that some math is important and helpul, but I really believe the education system puts too much emphasis on it. Later in the day Maria told me something else which reinforced this belief. I have written about it below.
Later Maria took me to meet the director of the tourism high school which Maria attends. It was a good meeting and she thanked me for coming to her school. Maria and the school librarian helped me with the translation. Later Maria told me her first choice was actually the language high school because she wants to improve her English (which is very good) and learn Spanish. The problem was that she didn't pass a math test that was part of the entrance exam. I am not sure why they would test students on math to be in the language school. I plan to do some research on this because it hurts me to know that Maria was kept out for that reason. This reminds me of how students in Peru who wanted to study psychology had to pass an entrance exam which had a lot of math on it.
Anyhow, after the meeting Maria saw one of her classmates, who also lives at the orphanage. Her name is Zorka. The director of the orphanage suggested that I try to help Zorka and another student, Plamen, with their English so Maria explained this to Zorka, who was excited to know I would be helping them. Her English level is just about absolute zero right now! So at 2 I went back to the