Haitian H.S. Experience -- Sarah
Good morning! This is Sarah again. There is so much to tell and so little time! We are headed off to the Citadel this morning--a very historic Haitian site.
Us with a few of the students
Ok, so yesterday we left our hotel at 8:30 and went to College Notre Dame High School, where Martel, Gracie, Rodney, Mike and I would be visiting and observing. It is one of the best high schools in the country. It is a private school--which is what most of the schools in Haiti are. After arriving, the principal showed us to our first class. It is a beautiful school with a couple of big buildings painted white and blue. Did I mention this school is a Catholic all boys school? Well it is and they were so excited to see us. When we got to the classroom we were introduced and then one of the boys came up and took us by the hand, one by one, leading us to the empty seats. The boys at this school have the nicest manners. Whenever someone comes into the room they stand and whenever someone leaves they stand. At College Notre Dame there is one classroom for a group of boys where they stay and the teachers come to them. They were very welcoming to us.
When we first got there, we arrived in the middle of their English class where they were working on placing adverbs in sentences. The supplies they have are limited. In each classroom there were about 40 desks with only a couple of empty seats. There was a big black chalk board in the front and that is about it. The boys all had a composition notebooks and it looked like some texts books, that were paperback. Shortl, after we had all gotten settled in our new seats, the students started passing notes to us. They were interested in extending our conversations, possibly through Facebook; emails; or phone. After English class finished, the teacher left and the Physics professor arrived.
Visiting a H.S. Physics class
The physics class moved very fast and the students took frantic notes. When the class concluded, the students had a little break / recess (about 10 minutes.) We were able to take lots and lots of pictures of the students with us. Everyone seemed to want their picture with us making us feel like celebrities.
Our third class was a different Physics class---same teacher but different material. After this we sat in on a social studies class which was super interesting to me. They were talking about a pact France had imposed upon Haiti and the teacher made comparisons to similar things of today. All three of the teachers I saw looked like they were very good and the students were totally engaged.
After another round of pictures we left the school and went to the plaza in the center of town. On one side of the plaza there is a HUGE Catholic church which we checked out. Our last experience of the day was to drive out to a brand new university, which was donated to Haiti by the Dominican Republic. It is not open quite yet but will be within a month--having room for over 2000 students. It is ready to go and very impressive! It was a great day, I really enjoyed going to the school.
One more thing...while we were visiting the H.S., Dave and Jessica went back to Le Pepinere and delivered the Solar Panel along with giving the teachers a little introduction to the iPads. I guess they were VERY excited. We will do more trainings with the technology on Saturday with the teachers.
Anole,
Sarah
