Volunteering in a school in Ecuador

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When I arrived in Lago Agrio, Carlos, the guy from Workaway (website to find volunteering offers), asked me how I wanted to help him. As I said that I love children, he told me that I could help his mother at school, as she had already told him, that she could need some help. I was so happy to get this opportunity: I love being with children and teaching them, especially in another country, where I can see the differences with our school system in France.

The children, we were teaching, were 4- or 5-year old and when on the 1st day, I looked at their homework done this year, I can tell you that they are much more advanced that we are at that age in France ! They can count and write the numbers up to 10, know the seasons, the vowels and consonants, write their name and more…

During the week there, I could see how the teacher was doing to make them learn all those things : it was a very ludic way. The children were learning more easily that way. We worked on the number 9 for instance on that day.

Firstly, we went outside and wrote in the sand a big 9. Each child had then to walk on the line of the 9, as if they were writing it with their feet. They liked doing it and it was a way so that their brains remember the order to write this number.

Then, we made them draw the number 9 in the sand with a rock. I was going around checking and helping them when I could see they had some difficulties. The children were eager to do it in front of me and they weren’t noticing that they were indeed learning something.

Then, we put them in groups and asked them to stick tree leaves on a big paper where the number 9 was drawn. Once again, they were learning it while playing 😊

The last exercise on this number was homework. They had to color over the number 9 on a paper and had to color up the nails of the 2 drawn hands counting 9.

At the end of the week, they had learned to write this new number 😊

Another thing, which was different from France is that each day, one parent was chosen to bring some food at 10am for the break. One day they had to bring fruits, one day soup with juice and one day rice with chicken and juice. I think that bringing fruits was really good, as it gives them some vitamins and also give them some energy. The other days with a real dish, it was weirder for me, as I couldn’t imagine myself eating a full meal at that time and then eating again for lunch. But, children were happy and sometimes they were even asking for refill! The teacher was happy when I said to some children, who wanted to throw away a fruit as they didn’t want to eat it anymore, that some other children were starving and that you should never waste food !

Before each lesson, the teacher was making them understand that it was now time to learn and they needed to listen and be quiet. The way to do that was really good I think: they were singing a song saying “let’s be quiet, let’s cross our arms, it’s time to study ”. They were also praying at the beginning of each school day, which wouldn’t happen in France, as we separate school from religion there.

On the last day, I was the one who taught to the children. I had prepared a painting activity around the French specialities and the Ecuadorian ones. I firstly explained to them the differences in food, in territories and touristic sights between our 2 countries. Then, I gave them a piece of paper with a drawing of France, of baguette and croissant (French baked specialities) and of Eiffel Tower. They had then to color it as I had done on my paper. They were really sweet doing it, as I could see how they were putting a lot of effort to color well each picture. They were coming often to show me how they were doing 😉

The only thing, which surprised me during this activity is to see how children are different: some were indeed very concentrated, going to look at the blackboard to be sure that they were coloring exactly like my example, but others couldn’t concentrate or understand that it’s the sky that has to be blue and not the clouds. I wouldn’t have thought that already at 4 years old, we could see such differences in learning.

I really had an amazing week at the school with the children. They are so sweet and touching. Each of them was special. It was my last week in South America and Ecuador and it was definitely a good way of finishing my 1st journey in South America. It was also a nice ending to see how my Spanish skills improved in those 3 months there. I would have never thought 6 months ago that I would be able to teach in Spanish and that the children would understand me, but I managed it !!

My next post will be about Europe and Latvia in particular, a country, I knew almost nothing about before my arrival and which impressed me every day 😊

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