The pictures above are from my permanent site.
The first day of school in Armenia is September 1st, nationwide all school's start on the same day. With the beginning of school, I have started developing the raw skills the Peace Corps gave us during PST. More so than anything else, I realize that my language skills are going to need to improve very quickly if I hope to discipline the older boys because they refuse to speak English. At this point, if they have not learned the basics it is simply too late to help them learn English, the best I can hope for is teaching them discipline and how to behave.
I have started to think of a few different ideas for Clubs within the village.
Beginner English Club for the other Secondary School in my village. The school teaches German and Russian as foreign languages. I thought of this idea when a police officer in the neighboring city of Yereghnadzor approached me and asked if I was the new English Teacher in Malishka. He said his son went to the other school but he really wanted him to learn English because he knew his son could get a better job if he could speak English. I gave him my phone number and asked him to call me next month once I was able to assess the situation better.
A creative writing club for the advanced 9th, 10th, and 11th graders. This club will happen, probably sometime around November or December at the earliest.
An athletics club, this idea is to draw in the boys who do not want to learn in class, I would organize sports activities once a week...futbol, basketball, volleyball, maybe even a running club if there was interest.
I've also been asked my a lot of the teachers to help them practice and learn English. I thought, if the interest was serious, that in my second year I would start small tutoring groups for the teachers who really wanted to learn.
I want to work on small business development somehow as well. When I leave the Peace Corps, I want to show that I gained experience in International Business for my Masters program. I still have not found a way to tie this into my Peace Corps experience in the village. My only prospect so far is working with the local hanewts (stores)on simple business practices. For example, posting the hours their open, bringing in products that other stores do not carry (most stores carry the exact same things). It's still a work in progress.
---Chad
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