Profe Jim

Hard to believe it’s been two months since my last entry. The time has certainly flown by, some times more than others. During the past two months or so I have been teaching a few different classes in my community. One is in the local high school, teaching youth entrepreneurship to the seniors once a week. Another is in the next town over called Pacasmayo, where I’ve been teaching a Marketing course to a group of adults with the help of organization called the Casa de Cultura. Also a few weeks ago I started another youth entrepreneurship class in Pacasmayo with a group of 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade students from a few high schools in the area (at 5th grade they are seniors). Finally this past week I started another one in my town targeted towards youth focusing on how to write business plan.

In short, I have been pretty busy and have learned quite a bit from my short stint of being a ‘profe’. It’s a great experience for me in many ways from improving my Spanish out of the sheer need to develop a more advanced vocabulary to hopefully building some useful classroom skills down the road. So far I would say I’ve had a mixed result with my classes and it has been a good learning experience for me just as much of my students. For example, the seniors I teach in my town can be great some classes and just a nightmare to deal with the next. It was something I had wanted to do for a while though and got the opportunity to teach during one of their class periods experiencia de trabajo (job experience). This upcoming week with be my ninth and final class, culminating in a Marketing competition where the groups I created will have to present their hypothetical marketing campaign for a business they thought would be feasible to start in my community. With each class my appreciation for my former teachers grows immensely and can now realize all the things they have had to put up with.

The class I started in Pacasmayo with youth more recently has been going smoothly, especially since I have the support of the local municipality and a local professor to help keep it organized. In this case the number of students has been growing steadily from class to class which is a good sign. To promote the class I went to major high schools in the town and presented the program, also had a couple of radio interviews and we got a press release in the local paper to advertise the event. The current mayor of the town was the former mayor of my community and has been very supportive.

Lastly, in Pacasmayo I’ve been teaching at night class two times a week. The organization, Casa de Cultura puts on a wide variety of classes and workshops from traditional dances, drawing, to marketing with yours truly. The group has slowly dwindled as the class has gone on, which is to be expected, but I believe those who remain are enjoying the course and are hopefully getting something useful out of it.

I recently just got back from a trip to Cusco and of course the famous Machu Picchu, which was a blast. The Details and pictures will come with the next blog post.