International Contacts

I have been in contact with both of my international contacts throughout the past few weeks.  My first contact, Kristin DeYoung, is a friend of mine who teaches in the Dominican Republic.  We met as freshman in college roommates in the dorm and have remained in contact ever since.  My second contact is actually my second cousin, Diane Barlow, who lives in England.  She, however, retired from education in 2005 and is speaking with some younger friends of hers to provide me some current information on the educational system in her community.

  

Below Kristin paints an excellent picture of what it is like to teach in the Dominican Republic.  Also you can infer from her writing that many inequities exist in education throughout the Dominican Republic.

“I taught first here for 1 year at an orphanage school for orphans and slum kids from the local batey (Haitian sugarcane village). This is considered a private school, and is fully funded by outside donors and sponsors in the states, Canada, Europe, etc. So it is tuition free for the orphans and slum kids who are in need. I was there one year to start a special education program, because prior to that the kids at the orphanage and in the area with special needs didn't go to school and just stayed home. The teachers there mostly had 2 year teaching degrees, but I don't think all of them had degrees. Teaching strategy was basic, mostly the teacher wrote on the chalkboard and the kids all copied, there wasn't really more than that. Even the pre-school (2 and 3 year olds) had spiral notebooks and were expected to copy from the board... a few of the teachers did some other things but creativity was extremely limited. Discipline was also really tough because they had somewhere around 37 kids in the first grade classroom and many were street kids, and would come in with learning problems, emotional problems. The school often didn't know where to place kids and I worked with a lot of different kids and tried to get foreign tutors to tutor kids, but it was hard because they might get a 15 yr. old right off the street who doesn't know the alphabet or even number identification, so they might throw him in 5th grade which he still is bigger than his peers but struggles because he functions around Kindergarten level. So it was tough sometimes, but it was really awesome to work there. I think most the teachers were paid around $200-300 USD a month, but I'm not positive... I was there as a volunteer so I received a stipend of $65 a month. That's why I couldn't do more than a year there.  The Christian school we are at now is also a private school, it is considered one of the best in our area (but is still lacking in many ways). About 2/3 of the teachers are American from the states and we teach English immersion (everything in English) so the kids become fluent in English. Parents mostly send their kids because they want them to become fluent in English so they can better jobs and opportunities. Some go onto college here, and a small handful have gone onto college in the states (maybe 1 or 2) Teachers get paid around $350 USD a month, support staff get paid around $150-200 USD a month. Few have teaching degrees. We use Abeka home-school curriculum which is very advanced and not always best for our English language learner kiddos. Most of the kids are Dominican but we also have a handful of missionary kids and some kids from other countries like China, Guyana, Venezuela, Haiti, etc. The tuition varies by age but I think my kids (first grade) pay somewhere around $100 a month for tuition, which is not cheap here. There are many kids who get discounts though if their parents work at the school, and also "barrio" kids (low-income) who get scholarships from sponsors in the states. I think most of the kids' tuitions are paid for by a relative who lives and works in the states and sends back money so the child can go to the "best school".  There are a lot of other Christian schools and NGO's working in education throughout the country. There are also a few private international schools which are VERY expensive in the more touristy, high money places, where I've heard high school kids can pay up to $20,000 USD a year in tuition and get an American high school certificate. Those teachers make comparable to U.S. salaries.  There are also many Catholic schools run by nuns, and public schools (which are the worst, but where most kids go, anyone in middle to upper class home will say public schools here are only for the very poor people, which there are a lot of). Ironically though public school teachers make more than the private schools (usually) at around $400-450 USD a month. Public schools are tuition free but that doesn't mean that every child is entitled to go. If a child cannot afford to buy a uniform (ALL schools have mandatory uniforms), cannot afford materials, or does not have a birth certificate (like most Haitian kids here), then they are not allowed to go to public schools. This accounts for tons of kids on the streets that don't go to school at all, unless a Christian or NGO organization tries to help them out.”

Kristin with her first grade class!