Escolinha Itacoatiara - work and travel

What to do at „Escolinha Itacoatiara“?

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Since teachers like you are just staying for a short term, things here will be very changeable for the students as well. Visitors who come have to organize their stay and lessons by themselves. If no other volunteer still is at the school, the groups of children have to be brought together again by the newly arrived person. 

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We did our lessons like this, just an example

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When we started the lessons we had a group of five children from 10 to 15 years that came at 10:00 am to learn English. We have been teaching very basic things. For example how to present themselves to each other, ask for the name and nationality, ask for their age and the age of their brothers and sisters. The children are of different ages, but in general their knowledge of English and Math is unbelievably limited.

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If you as a volunteer teacher don't know how to start, you can use the laptop and use „book2“. In „book2“, words and sentences are first read in Portuguese and then twice in English. The children are sometimes quite motivated while repeating what was just said before.

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There are also 3 textbooks with some exercises, you can make copies and do the exercises with them. If a teacher doesn't speak Portuguese, it is no problem at all, perhaps it will even help, and for sure he or she will learn some Brazilian Portuguese.

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At 7pm every day we had an „open-workshop“ 

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More and younger children come, some of them only sometimes, others quite regularly. Some of the young children love copying the map of Brazil and the Word map, they have done it quite often, but some are still asking to do it again and we didn't stop them. Once we played with dices to learn about probability, another day we let eggs float in salt water. Sometimes at the end we let them watch BBC documentaries in English on the computer, but to play computer games is not allowed.

 

The children can play card games and some show the homework they have to do and want some help. Everybody has been behaving surprisingly well. If there are some children just coming and going or hanging around at the window, they understand when the teacher wants to close the doors or windows to have less confusion.

 

If there is something else you know and want to teach, like painting, singing, playing an instrument or whatever, feel free to do it. If possible, try to teach some English words while teaching other things. The point is to motivate the children or to help them to discover their talents.

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We also thought about starting a lesson for small children younger than 6 years. If you want to do that, try to make a group with Enderson, Miliano and Tecos son Talis, all are six years old; you will soon find more children of that age.



Some general information:
 

Constructions? If you want to change something in the house, don't hesitate, just do it, Emerson and Poro will help you.

Water (20 L for 7 Reais) and gas at the shop down the street on the left.

A motortaxi in Itacoatiara costs 4 Reais each persons, you will pay the same for short or long distances, and a short stop at a shop can cost 4 reais again.

Osias lives nearby and owns a pick-up and can make any transport for 15 to 20 Reais.

The flush-bottom at the toilet has to be pushed down until flushing stops, do not throw any paper in the toilet please.

White board markers and textbooks: things go easily broken or missing here. Put them away when you are not around. The white board markers dry out fast, you can add ink to it by taking apart the markers. If ink runs out, they are available in stationary stores (papeleria in Portuguese). The textbooks are expensive, and only available in Manaus.


Problems:

It water pipes break, turn on all water to have less water pressure, than try to repair or call Emerson

Police: till now police never come with any questions. You are here with a tourist visa and as you are not getting paid you are not „working“ at the escolinha.
The owner of the house is Donna Maria and you are a guest of her´s.

Children running around in the classroom and are disturbing others. Most of the children behave well, but if some children are too small or annoying the others, you can send them out of the room. „Nao bagunca“ would meen „dont fool around“. If you send children out of the class the best way would be „só amanha“ „just tomorrow“.

It´s always good to use the green spirals against mosquitos, light them some time before sunset, less mosquitos will enter. If you use in the blue room yellow light, less mosquito will enter.
If there are too many mosquitos use the spray, go out and leave the room closed for 15 minutes.
 

Don´t put you luggage directly on the ground, use the wooden things...
 

Lock the blue room from inside if other children or other people are with you in the house.
 

The children are not allowed to enter the kitchen or the blue room. Only Miliano (Erianes son) and Enderson (Emersons and Reges son) are allowed, if they take something away their parents will bring it back.

Who can enter the house:

People you can totally trust are Donna Maria, Poro (64) and her children Eriane (25), Emerson (27) and his wife Rege (24), Denis (30), Sandriane (18), Sandrielle (15), Ozete (33), Eliana (35) and her husband Osias (50). This people I know since 18 years ago and you can trust them 100%. Erianes son Miliano (4) and Emersons son Enderson (4) are the only children that are allowed to enter every room of the house.

If people are knocking at the door and are asking you for something, in the amazon it is not normal to let them enter the house. If people borrow something, it would be normal that they wait outside until you come back with something to lend.
If people are visiting you, they should stay in the yellow entrance room or the big classroom.

Let the door from the blue room to the entrance closed, let the door from the kitchen to the
classroom closed, at least the bottom half of the door.
If you have visitors, let them in the entrance room or the classroom, but not in the kitchen or the blue room.

People are honest here, but don´t give them to0 many chances to steal something. People here can steal things that have a value of 10 reais, like chinelos, lighters or other small things.
That´s why there have to be clear rules, and amazon people will understand you if you don´t let them in the kitchen or the blue room. If people insist or are drunk, don´t let them inside the house, especially not the blue room or the kitchen.

Don´t lend money. If you want to lend, lend as little as possible. Here in the amazon a small lie is quite normal. If people want to borrow money, tell them you have it only if you go to the bank again.