Cultural Understanding | Poland
These past three weeks have been absolutely amazing. I am impressed with the amount of people that I have gotten to meet and share memories with! Each group have kids has brought me a different teaching experience and each host family has taught me and shown me a different part of Poland! I have not only taught English and Canadian cultural understanding but I have also learnt a lot as well which therefore makes this project a success so far :)
Since we have not [spoken] until now I will give you a brief summary of my three weeks.
First week was quite challenging and yet really easy. At first it was challenging because we were at a nursery and struggled to teach them English as well as our cultures because the kids barely knew their own. After realizing this we spent the rest of the week teaching them basic English words while in return they taught us a few in polish and honestly just playing with them. Playing with kids despite not being part of the task was the only thing we could do. It was enjoyable for us and for the kids and even though we did not present our presentations I feel like we still made an impact. We were new to the kids and I think that inspired a sense of curiosity. Though we couldn't communicate through language it was clear that the kids were aware we were not Polish and that intrigued them which is definitely a start.
Second week was way easier. Not only were the kids older but they also understood English and were fairly proficient in speaking it as well! I think it also helped that from the start they were very interested in learning and hearing what we had to say so that made my team and I's job a lot better. By the end of that week it was safe to say that I no longer held a fear of public speaking. It was so natural by the end even after the first day. I felt like their positive attitude made it really easy to connect with them and based on their responses it also hopefully increased their interest in travelling and having a deeper cultural understanding. Not to say that I didn't have any challenges that week. There were a couple of classes in which the kids did not give the best response. This could have been for many reasons like they were tired, intimidated, bored, whatever but bottom line it affected our presentations and made us doubt whether we were doing a good job or not.
Third Week was by far the most challenging. The very first day we had three lessons and every single one had a very negative response. All the kids were very unresponsive and had terrible attitudes which did not make my team and I feel very good. It wasn't because they did not understand. In fact unlike the other schools even if this was the reason they were not even trying to make an effort to understand. The next day considering the bad response from the first day I decided I would try to play a game with them to at least get them talking. This time it was a better response but still nothing like the previous weeks. Later that day though while I was having coffee with some of the students and teachers, one of the teachers mentioned to me how these kids have no expectations because their parents have no expectations of them. This is why they have no motivation in school and the laziness is what explains the unresponsiveness. To make matters worse the teacher told me that the kids don't even like to play sports. They go home and sit by their computers. They do not have favorite subjects and many of them don't even have hobbies. Then after talking with a few of the kids I realized that many do have hopes and dreams and aspirations but they are shut down by this big wall of pessimism which is bigger than these dreams and is telling them that there is no point in trying in school because these dreams will not come true. Most also had no interest in improving their English because again they thought why would they need it if they are never leaving their town. Although this was sad to hear, I finally understood why these kids were behaving this way which made everything easier for me. The last day teaching at this school was by far the rest. Rather than teaching these kids I decided I would just talking with them. I found out their interests, hobbies, dreams, and just overall got them speaking English. yeah some still stayed quiet but the point is that I got most of them talking and this was way better than the first day. I also told them how important English was and gave them multiple examples of people starting from nothing and achieving their wildest dreams. I basically wanted to explain how nothing was impossible. Even if I did not ignite a sense of curiosity for culture in all the kids, if I at least made an impact on one person then that is definitely something. Funny enough it had taken the whole lecture talking with them that I did not get to talk about Canada!! However, afterwards when I told them that I didn't have time to present but that if anyone had any questions about Canada they could ask me, I actually got more questions than most of the lectures in the other schools. This week started badly but after some patience and understanding it became one of the best weeks.
Sorry I am typing a lot but I guess I didn't realize until now how much I had to say and I could go on but I will try and keep this short!
As for the host families, students, and teachers, they have given me amazing experiences and I have made so many new friendships . I have done many exciting things from pilates, shopping, hiking, horseback riding, exploring caves, and many more and I am only half way.
I guess to wrap up I will say that I knew I would learn a lot, teach a lot, travel, have amazing experiences, and meet amazing people, but in reality my AIESEC experience has been a million times better than that. Hearing stories and going to the preparation seminars though helpful is not enough to fully understand what an internship is like. You have to go live it!!!!
