DukeEngage | Duke Center for Civic Engagement

Don’t phone it in.

After our group’s second week of running summer camps, we were pros. We could throw together activities the night before camp with impunity and swap out computer lessons for plays about the jungle community on the fly. Our confidence soared at our ability to teach anything from music and rhythm to math exercises to dance routines.

Unfortunately for me, this translated into “phoning it in.” Our group of 7 Duke Engagers fell into a routine every day: eat breakfast, hop on the bus, teach five activities with some breaks for snack, and head back to the hotel to prepare for the next day. This rigid schedule was interrupted only by trips to ruins on the weekends. Even our choice of where to go for dinner every night started normalizing: Mondays, Mom’s Place; Tuesdays, Chinese food; and so on.

The routine itself wasn’t bad, but my enthusiasm waned as we got too comfortable with running the summer camps. I knew the activities too well and wouldn’t engage the students enough while teaching them about these activities.

I then realized that I had to break the monotony. I was robbing these students of a genuine camp experience by not investing myself enough. When I realized that I was phoning it in, I changed my goal for camp. I focused on talking to individual students and learning about their lives. Thus, I would start an arts and crafts activity, but then go sit down next to each student and ask them about themselves.

This worked really well. I noticed myself getting closer to the students and more interested in their lives and their troubles. At the end of the week it was much harder to say bye to these students. I’m glad I learned this lesson here in Belize, as it can apply to all relationships I form. The summer camps were dry for me without the touch of personal interaction and discussion, but a quick adjustment of attitude changed that.

Every child has potential to improve. Moving to a different primary school for our summer camp this week showed just that. Students at the first school we did camp at made Crayola marker towers, wanted to paint on the wall where they weren’t supposed to, and ran in circles screaming “shakka shakka sha hey!” At the second camp, the students were much different.

The first thing we noticed was the violence. Unprovoked hits, kicks, pushes and “stoning” were the most fashionable. Of course, this only led to more fighting until one student was crying or running to a teacher and the other standing victorious. In addition, the most popular students were those who hit and shoved the most, reinforcing the aggressive behavior. In sharp contrast to the violent attitudes, the students could also be very shy. Our daily “energizer” activities did not elicit as much enthusiasm as the previous camp because they involved a willingness to be vocal in front of one’s peers. This shyness also hampered our effort to teach them the cha-cha slide and electric slide.

These two problems we noticed, however, enticed our group into developing activities to address them. We spent an entire day with activities exclusively directed toward anger management and respecting feelings. The students made masks designed to help deal with inner feelings and expression. With respect to the shyness, they shied away from my attempt to have them read speeches about government ministries. Only during poetry reading of Shel Silverstein was I able to coax any resemblance of public speaking out of the children. By the end of the week, however, I believe their confidence developed enough for them to speak in front of their peers. They may not have been running around and playing all week, but they improved on some important life skills.
 

Every student shows up to the first day of summer camp with an abundance of curiosity. The first day of St. Andrew’s Duke Engage Summer Camp was no exception. As a first-time camp leader, I also had my fair share of curiosity. Our group of Duke students arrived at the school to set up for camp at 8am, and students had already gathered outside the gate to the school. Apparently the students were extremely curious about their week; camp started at 9.

I soon realized another reason why many of the students waited outside the school an hour early: they were not signed up and wanted a spot at camp. The dilemma? We had already signed up an overburdening 55 students for 50 spot (we limited the camp size because of narrow supplies). Our waiting list soon grew to 20. Luckily, many students no-showed, but had to make difficult decisions all the same. Turning five of the students away the first day and then five again the second day was a depressing and frustrating experience. Many of the students either did not understand or pretended to not understand and only stared at us as we told them to leave. They then simply tried to impose themselves on the camp by following our groups around for the next two hours. Finally, a stern lecture from the school’s principal sent them home. Some of those students had come to camp only for the free lunch meal we provided.

At the end of the first day I stood outside a classroom in my sweat-drenched shirt and beamed in triumph at how my lesson plan had gone. My hands were covered with chalk and my feet with dirt. Before that day I feared that the students would not care to learn about their government or practice public speaking. They had come to camp to paint and color and sing in between scoring football goals. To my surprise, they embraced the government and civics activity I’d drawn up in one night, running up to the podium to pound their fists and shout out the speech I prepared. Some even added their own convincing campaign slogans. If I was successful, those students left the classroom with a little more knowledge about how their government functions. I wish someone had told me about those things when I was in elementary school.
 

photo by Eric Van Danen

Anjali Vora and 11 other DukeEngage peers are continuing the work in Muhuru Bay, Kenya that began several years ago as part of DukeEngage's pilot program.  Below she describes what interested her about sustaining this very important project benefiting, in particular, young girls in the community.

1.  What drew you to this particular DukeEngage program?

After joining the WISER (Women's Institute for Secondary Education and Research) student group, I transcribed an interview with girls in Muhuru Bay for Dr. Eve Puffer.  Hearing the girls speak so candidly about rape, HIV/AIDS, and transactional sex was unbelievable because it was so different than anything I would experience in New York or at Duke.  I became more interested to see how these behaviors arose and persisted.

2.  What excited you about working with your community partner?

I am excited that the Muhuru Bay community is so gracious and that the change of attitude is coming from them directly.  The people are happy that a school is being built and are beginning to really encourage continuing education for girls and boys.  Because of their deep involvement in the projects, I am glad that we will be working in partnership with the people rather than as outsiders providing momentary help.

3.  What benefit do you hope your service will have for your community partner and your host community?

I want to come out of our eight weeks knowing that even a teeny, tiny fiber of someone's being was changed.  That someone's English improved so that they scored a few points higher on the Kenyan national exam; that someone observed the male-female interactions of Duke students and realized that mutual respect can exist.  I don't expect to be able to see the benefits of our service immediately or at a large scale, but would rather have small changes which add up over time.

4.  How do you hope to put into action what you learned through your DukeEngage experience once back at Duke? 

As a member of WISER, I think that my time in Muhuru Bay will deepen my passion, and further motivate me to actively educate and fundraise, especially during WISER week in the fall.  I am interested to see how themes that I have learned about in Global Health classes apply to real situations, and to then use my experience as a comparison of theoretical and actuality.

Learn more about WISER.

DukeEngage is featuring 18 students over the course of the summer participating in both group programs and independent projects.  Check back weekly to view the latest student profile.

Little angels they were. Polite, cheery, and amenable, these are the students of St. Barnabas Primary School. The first day (Monday, June 15) that Melissa and I arrived at St. Barnabas, we were led by the inspirational Ms. Shaw, the school principal. The moment she stepped into the Standard III & IV classroom, the children’s faces immediately brightened with smiles, as if on cue. The scribbling pens in their hands paused mid-sentence, and the children all rose and greeted in an innocently imperfect unison, “Good morning, Ms. Shaw.” The most adorable scene I have ever seen.

My first task was to help proctor a standardized national exam for Standard III students. The teacher Ms. Jones allowed the students to follow their normal school day schedule, which meant taking a break that would cut their 90-minute exam session into a session of 10 and another of 80. Also, Ms. Jones frequently pointed out students’ mistakes during the tests. It appears that the rules for standardized tests in Belize aren’t as stringent as their American counterparts.

Then my heart was broken during lunch. Melissa and I were sitting by the aged mahogany tree, and a bunch of children flocked to us, eyes brimming with curiosity. Though some were a bit timid at first, soon enough we were conversing with total trust. Melissa had a few girls clamped onto her, some playing with her bracelets, some braiding her hair. By popular demand, I ended up teaching Chinese and laughed with the children as they fumbled with the pronunciation. Melissa and I were then eating our sandwiches which Ms. Erva (a very nice lady and restaurant owner) packed for us. Some children brought food from home; some bought food from the school; the rest brought and bought nothing. Those who brought and bought nothing quietly watched me eat and discreetly glanced into my lunch bag. I had anticipated this situation and knew that I should eat to give myself enough energy to last through the day, as I was told by past Duke Engagers, but I still felt a strong urge to give away my food. Heck, I wanted to buy food for all these children. Throw a dinner party, for goodness’ sake.

So the world is really a juxtaposition of two groups of children: those who eat lunches and those who don’t. Those who don’t are just as polite, cheery, and amenable as the rest, but if you really look, their uniforms are a paler shade of blue; their smiles contain a trace of enigma, and their actions tinged with timidity. But they all are good children, or rather, great children, with all the strength they need to welcome tomorrow. Then came Tuesday morning, again I stepped into the Standard III & IV classroom, this time alone. As if on cue, they widened their grins all together and stood up and said in the most perfect unison to my ears, “Good morning, Miss Alice.”