A Different Ballpark

We signed up to teach basic computer lessons to kids in a local vocational school. I’ve taught computer before and was confident that this would be a fun and easy task. I was wrong. The school where we teach has 8 ‘working’ computers and we have to teach all the students in the whole school over the next year and a half. Five of the computers are Mac’s from the 1970s (I think) and three are PCs. I’ve never used a Mac before. None of the 8 computers works fine. Sometimes they won’t boot. Sometimes the monitors blur. The mice are a joke.

To add to the situation of the bad computers, most of the kids have never even touched a computer before, and a lot of them don’t know how to read (they are 15 or older). Worst of all, they don’t know how to learn. In Honduras, schools teach you to memorize, not to think. They don’t know how to follow directions or how to work on their own. All and all this is one of the hardest things we’ve done. We divided the school into groups of 8 to10. It takes both Max and I to teach one of those groups and at the end of the day we are exhausted. We teach every Friday two groups, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. We planned 7 lessons, once a week for each group to learn basic Word and Excel. What I had planned to teach in lesson 1 of Word has taken us 5 weeks (5 lessons). The saddest thing is that I haven’t really seen a lot of progress. They know how to turn on the computer, but they don’t remember how to open Word or how to Copy and Paste without us reminding them in every class. We’ve tried different techniques, different exercises, but haven’t figured out the best way yet. This is one project where we’ll have to re-evaluate how we’re doing things.
Teaching aside, we’ve been working on getting newer, better computers for the school and should have some for May. We got a deal with a Spanish NGO to build a well for the school (they don’t have water) and have been working with the principal to teach him how to get help. We’ve contacted the local Rotary club, presented in front of the richest businessmen in La Ceiba to have them sponsor the school, and even made a video to present a grant program to different organizations. We’ve also secured a contract with the US Armed Forces to help us finish a classroom that was started by a previous PC volunteer.