Test Driving Orphanage Curriculum at Duruy School

On Monday, we met with a teacher in a very rural school district who kept asking 'WHEN' we could help her out. Hal, Scarlet and Ammy Geiger are all here in the hopes of helping out at the orphanage. Since that door is temporarily closed as the ophanage sets up a pilot plan for us, we are going to test our curriculum at this rural school. Joel Sanchez and Mark Roth recommended we do this at the Duruy school. Joel has three kids in the school. This school has 15 kids in 1st through 6 grade, all taught by one teacher. Amazingly enough, Betty speaks English, so we are hoping that after we leave in 5 weeks, we will have enabled her with enough books and curriculum ideas to help her add English to the curriculum. We are also planning on working with the 8 kids in PK and K whom are taught in another room by another teacher. Notice at the end of the video clip, a girl is jump roping with a rope we just donated. The video was shot courtesy of Joel Sanchez.

What did we teach on Tuesday, our first day? 
Behind the scenes, we were allowed to teach in an unused room. So yesterday, Hal Geiger installed a whiteboard in the room. He did it with some of the older kids, teaching them how to do it as he installed it. In upcoming, real life handyman lessons, Hal will teach the kids as he fixes the broken teachers desk in the room and as he does some minor electrical conduit work to move the plug that is hanging down over the center of the whiteboard.

My wife Deanne and I along with Scarlet and Ammy Geiger gave the same English assessment test that we gave to all the orphans. This is the pre-test. At the end of our 5 weeks we will give them a post-test and see how well this curriculum works. If the orphanage calls and wants us to teach on Tuesdays or Thursdays, this rural school will allow us to move our classes to other days of the week.