Around 2 months ago, Shadia mentioned about helping out at a school in Chosica, a place 2 hours outside of Lima. She wanted us volunteers to help with the teaching of English in a school called Colegio Mayor. But it was not until about a month after we agreed, that we found out about more about what this 'helping out' would involve. The initial idea of having English topic speaking classes had turned into all 4 of us standing infront of 800 14-16 year olds talking about the enviroment, linking to the forthcoming World Environment Day, so not quite how we had imagined.
1) We are no geography experts
2)Public lecturing is not our forte.
However, after the panic had simmered, we stopped to listen about the real cause behind the presentation, the kids that go to Colegio Mayor.
Colegio Mayor is the first of its kind in Peru. The school is for 14-17 year olds and was setup 3 years ago as a governement initiative to allow the top students (only one per school) from schools across Peru, regardless of its location or standard of teaching/reputation. This school allows these children to learn together atr a school offering a high standard of education and more importantly, important links to universities (even Havard) and so greater opportunities for future careers. Students from far and wide board at this school during the week, sharing dorms and can return home at the weekend be it Puno or Iquitos.
Bascially we would be lecturing to genius kids, those who would grow up to be the future leaders of the country. No pressure then...
So we all prepared our sections of the presentation ; pollution, global climate change etc. and set off from Lima at 7am to do our best not to fall over whilst speaking infront of all these kids. We arrived at the school after scoffing down some breakfast en route and were literally thrown at the front of this school hall full of 15 year old glaring faces.
It was Lisa who was in charge of 'breaking the ice' so to say and the closer my turn came, the harder my heart beat in my chest. We were petrified as silly as it sounds infront of kids, but its always harder than it seems..
After 3 continuous presentations with 3 different groups of kids, we had finally did it, it was OVER! They answered our questions and even understood us, despite two of us being scousers haha! The best part was being interviewed like a celeb by the school magazine!
The most hilarious part...? Being individually introduced as lecturers before every presentation, apparently Heather, Hannah and Lisa are fluent in Italian.... haha, news to them!
What's incredible is that the majority of the kids didn't even speak English before arriving at the school, some of whom had only arrived mere months before!
What a brilliant school with even more brilliant kids!
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