This is a picture of me, Kieran Wilson, taken here in the Philippines in March 2014, with some of my youngest students – yes, I am easy to spot! I am a two-year veteran of Carleton Sports Camps (which I will refer to as “Carleton” here on in) as an assistant instructor and when I graduated high school last year I decided to take a “gap year” to travel and volunteer. I spent the fall at the International Peoples’ College in Denmark. In early January I made my way here, to the northern mountains of the Philippines, to a small town named Sagada. Sagada’s population numbers a mere twelve thousand inhabitants, most of whom are members of one or other of the indigenous groups that reside in this isolated region of the country. The town has one main road and a grocery store the size of a bus stop. Upon my arrival here, I called upon my Carleton experience and offered my services to the local school, St. Mary’s. The principal welcomed my offer and immediately put me to work with the youngest children, the “kinders”, four times a week with two classes combined, and with the Grade 7s, twice weekly, also with two classes. I was now the physical education and health teacher, with the added mandate of improving the children’s spoken English.
My first session with the kinders, ages 4-6, was alarming and almost more than I could handle. Unlike back home in Canada, children here are allowed even at this age to be very independent and adventurous. These children often walk many kilometers to and from school all by themselves, and during weekends and the summer vacation are allowed to roam free in the surrounding landscape which includes its fair share of cliffs, rivers and caves (these people are among the only indigenous peoples in the world that have never been colonized and the cultural character is definitely one of strength and autonomy – evidently bred from a young age!). The tennis court where the kinders and I often play is surrounded by a 12 foot fence; imagine my shock and distress on our first excursion, when the children proceeded to climb the fence! A couple other faculty members noticed my frantic efforts to abort this activity and told me that the children were indeed allowed to climb the fence, if not encouraged to do so – and that no child had fallen since the founding of the school some 50 years ago. After a few sessions I reached a compromise between local standards on safety and my own (as learned at Carleton!), at which point I was able to focus my full attention on instructing.
I taught my two kinder classes many games of low organization (GLOs). These games are often utilized at Carleton as a means to entertain children between sports and are particularly ideal for younger children. They generally require no or little equipment, useful here where there are no resources to spare for things like sports equipment. So I taught them games like: Green Light Red Light, Freeze Tag, Stella Ella Olla, Octopus, Wink Murder, Simon Says, Chain Tag, Graveyard, Wax Museum, and many others. Often we had two games running at once: a more active game along with a more low key game to suit the varying needs of the children. And although I only spent an hour and half with each class, it was very demanding; being the only supervisor with classes of around 20 students each meant I had to be constantly on the ball, and a moment of inattention could land me in a world of chaos (despite my newly instated safety precautions!). Many a time I had to deal with an injured child, reassuring and comforting the child while assessing the damage (while keeping my eyes on the others). Mostly it was just bruises and scrapes, but a couple of times I had a child throw rocks at another, at which point my first aid training came in handy disinfecting the wound and making a padded bandage – along with some appropriate discipline for the thrower!
Working with the Grade 7s, ages 12-14, was less demanding in certain respects as they had a much better command of the English language. I taught them a range of sports such as volleyball, basketball and table tennis. As I was taught to do at Carleton, I began the instruction of each sport by teaching them sport-specific skills using drills and games. In basketball we learned to dribble using the game shark (in essence, dribble the ball within a confined space while attempting to foil other players and knock their ball away). In volleyball, we learned to combine newly learned volley and bumping skills with quick reflexes in a game of “keep up the ball”. Table tennis was new for me, but after some research I found it was quite similar to teaching tennis or badminton at Carleton and instruction proceeded without a hitch. Unlike the unruly but adorable kinders, these Grade 7s were much more deferential and obedient. I had but two cases of discipline in my three months with them, both of them minor, and, when handled immediately, deterred any re-occurrence. And I must admit being called Mr. Wilson, Sir, and Teacher Kieran was undoubtedly very pleasant. Respect is reciprocal and reinforcing: show it and you’re likely to receive it. My Grade 7 students and I had a wonderful understanding based on trust and respect in which they often helped set up sports, and packed and unpacked our limited but adequate (and sometimes improvised) equipment with limited supervision; they also often ran their own warm-ups under my watchful eye. One of the great challenges was definitely the lack of equipment available, but through partnering up and more friendly competition I was able to keep everyone engaged.
Often enough I was also asked to teach the Grade 11 class, ages 16-17, which I must admit at first was quite terrifying, as I just turned 19 myself in February. I found that if I pretended self-assurance and used the Carleton motto “easier to loosen up than tighten up”, things ran smoothly. Because this group was older, I was able to transition more quickly from introductory drills to more advanced games and exercises. Too many drills at an age where your fine motor skills are well on their way can be tiresome and boring and it’s important to keep older children engaged with more challenging exercises.
Very recently, my students graduated. They make a big deal out of it here, gowns and caps and a long elaborate ceremony. They will be moving on to Grade 1, Grade 8 and university respectively in June. Unfortunately by that time I will be home, but not so unfortunately I will once again be returning to Carleton for another summer! And so, my time in this role is now over and I will be engaging in other types of volunteer work, but now everywhere I go, someone is calling out to me and I feel part of this lively community. I will miss these fiercely independent and enterprising children and youth and wonder what my reverse culture shock will be like when I go back to work at Carleton! My time here at St. Mary’s has challenged me in many ways; I have learned a ton about working with children and youth, about how to improvise and be flexible in different contexts, mixing fun and learning in creative and challenging ways. They seemed very sincere when told me they had fun and really appreciated their classes – what more could I have asked for?!
