A New Semester, A Sector Closed

Warning: This is a lot about goals for the next year and ranting about SpEd sector being closed. Read the walls of text at your own risk. I apologize that it is dry and anecdotal-less

After having a reviving trip home, which helped me remember why I am serving here and got me excited for the next year, I came back to Jordan with new motivation, also maybe fifteen extra pounds of pizza, steak, chicken, donuts, beer, etc.

During the school break, the J15 training group had our Mid-Service Training, where we were told we are closer to the date of our COS (close of service) than we are to the date of our PST (pre-service training). That floored me. I have been working in Jordan at my village for over a year and cannot say I have any major project to show for my time. That does not mean I feel I have not been effective here through my relationship with my families, my students, my teachers, and my new friends.

I have started to think of myself as someone who may not be a big project person, but rather the person who shows up every day with a smile, enthusiastic words, a supportive phrase and endless amounts of patience (inshallah). I like to think just being at my site and working daily with my students, I have made some sort of impact. I can see more creativity, more motivation to be challenged, a desire to learn, curiosity, excitement to participate in class, and a genuine interest in me.

 I should point out that this change is not just in the students, but is also happening with the teachers. I see more activities not involving paper/pen work, creativity in lesson planning, seeking out collaboration with other teachers or myself, interest in behavior charting, and a heightened sense of confidence with new teaching styles. I wish I could say I was the person who was the sole facilitator of change, but I think it has to do with so much more. I am not the only new person at my center, we have two new teachers who came to the center excited to do work with the students and brought fresh energy in the middle of the school year. Fresh perspectives along with a center director who gives the teachers freedom in their classrooms is crucial for livening up the learning environment and making students want to come and learn. My hope is to amplify this new desire by finally getting the walls painted in this next year. I have wanted to do it since I have moved to the center, but nothing is ever as easy as it seems. With my renewed motivation, hopefully I can make it happen for the community as my parting gift!

During Mid Service Training most volunteers got updated information about new frameworks for their sector and changes in the way things were progressing, but for the five remaining SpEd volunteers, we have no new framework or new training techniques for volunteers. Our sector was closed in Jordan. We were one of the few remaining, if not only, SpEd Peace Corps programs running worldwide and we received the news this summer that we would be the last SpEd sector group in Jordan. Obviously this came as a shock for those of us serving. We felt like we had failed our sector, failed out counterparts, failed our communities, and in a small way, failed our students. I know that may seem a bit melodramatic, but it is hard to stop those thoughts from rushing in when you get that phone call, or when you have a debriefing session about phasing out six months later. In the session, the five of us aired our frustration, tried to minimize the discomfort of having the discussion, motivated each other to keep going, and mainly validated the anger.

Most of you reading this know how important I think Special Education is and to be cut from a country that is trying to develop a better program because of lack of sustainability is heartbreaking. While sitting in the room, we thought of 15 different ways the SpEd sector could have been used more effectively. Unfortunately it was too late for that conversation and all we could realistically talk about was what to do now. Our hope is to design a program for the Youth Development volunteers to interact with SpEd centers, to start a Peace Corps Response program in Jordan to help SpEd at a government ministry level, to develop workshops for our current counterparts/centers on behavior management and resource development, and to use outside organizations to pull volunteers into the center and create lasting partnerships. Our (Jordanian) program manager said, “Let’s make them feel this loss” meaning we should do as much as we can in the next year to show how effective and successful the Special Education Program was. It fired me up to do as much as I can in the next year because it will go by fast and I want to feel like I have something to show for my time here.

   

My hope is that I write about it here, I just may stay motivated to follow through. You should all ask me for updates on all of this periodically to keep me on a schedule!

Here is a picture from Christmas as a reward for reading all of that.