Participants Blog

Breaking Barriers

Maria in Ecuador shares about her relationship with her students

Coming into my community I never expected to have any sort of influence on my family or the community. However working at the local elementary school, it eventually became evident that I was starting to impact the children in little ways.

I suppose the most obvious way that I have influenced the childern is helping them to learn another language. English is not an easy language to apprehend, but they stuck it out with me. As a result most of my students now speak or at least understand a bit more English than they did previously. True, they are not fluent yet; however, the brief introduction that I have given them has hopefully motivated them to pick up another language, whatever it may be.

In the mornings when the childern come running up to me to shake my hand and greet me good morning is when I realize the relationship that we have built together in the past few weeks. These relationships have helped me make it through the difficult days at the work placement. From experience I can say that the relationships that you share with others enriches your life. Therefore, perhaps some of the childern feel the same way as well.

Lastly I believe that during the time that some of the children have spent with me, helping me out with my Spanish and everything else might effect them later on in their lives. They are patient and understanding as I fumble through my limited Spanish vocabulary. I believe that the journey that we have undertaken together will possibly have some sort of influene on them in the future. Because sometimes you need to be patient with others because we are not all the same. Clearly my students exemplified this skill and practised it as we endeavored to help each other learn the other´s language.