Newspaper Article Published Today

As part of my job, I write an article now and then for the local newspaper.  Here is the original text - unfortunately, when they printed it today, the paper left off the information about the Starfish Kids website! 

Here's what I wrote:

This picture taken by our friend, Beka Mech, was published with my article.

                As the plane dropped low for landing, I peered out the window at thin cows nonchalantly grazing at the edge of the tiny runway and knew I was in a very different world.  The plane pulled up alongside three broken down aircraft at the end of the runway and within a few minutes our eight-man mission team was inside the tin-roofed terminal waiting to be officially allowed into Haiti.

                We came as guests of One Mission Society, a Greenwood headquartered agency which operates a Christian radio station, medical and dental clinics, and a seminary near Cap Haitien, a city of 200,000 (about 100 miles from earthquake-ravaged Port au Prince).  My school had graciously freed me a few extra days over fall break to enable me to spend a week working with OMS in Cap Haitien.  Yet I wasn’t in Haiti as an educator, but primarily as a learner … and I received an eye-opening education. 

                I could write endlessly about Haiti and its sights (motor scooters carrying five passengers each!) and sounds (late night voodoo drums on the mountainside!) and smells (sugar cane distilleries and open sewers!).  But since I write here as a teacher, I will limit my scope to the contrasts I noted between the Haitian and American education experience and the renewed attitude I brought back to my own classroom.

                First, physical resources.  The gulf between American educational facilities and those of Haiti couldn’t be greater.  As a teacher at Hauser, I already take our recent school-wide renovations for granted: the new field house, an auditorium and stage (with $50,000 worth of light and sound equipment), new lighting in the halls, and an expanded gym, among other things.  If the new HVAC system is off by a degree or two, we complain!

                Haitian schools, on the other hand, are doing well to have a concrete floor, an open window allowing air to move, some makeshift desks and a blackboard.  You see, Haiti has not yet established a public school system; it is pay-as-you-go. The forty to sixty dollars parents pay each semester is hardly enough to keep the doors open and pay a teacher; computers, air conditioning, and even overhead lighting are undreamed of luxuries in most Haitian schools.  Some “schools” are nothing more than children gathered around a solar-powered radio to listen to morning lessons on the OMS station.

                Given the vast differences in facilities, here’s the really startling contrast between Haitian and American education:  the Haitian students, all tidily dressed in their uniforms, seem eager – and even joyful- to be in school. American students, meanwhile, provided with top-notch technology and facilities, often complain endlessly about school. This seems a strange paradox until you consider that in Haiti, over half the population lives on an income of less than $1.25 per day.  As a result, only 50% of grade school aged children are enrolled in any school!  As is often the case, the more one has to fight and scrape for something, the more it is ultimately valued.  On my final day in Haiti, a friend and I were approached by a local teenager who begged desperately for $40 so he could return to school and finish the semester.  (It’s not uncommon to hear American high schoolers wish aloud that they could be PAID to attend school.)

                I returned to my Hauser classroom in late October with my head and heart full.  As a teacher, I decided to make every effort to appreciate my surroundings and resources all that much more and to complain less – much less!  Also, at every turn, I try more than ever to remind complacent students of the limitless opportunities they have been provided.  My overall attitude in the classroom now is this:  shame on us – teachers, students, parents, and politicians alike – if we don’t strive to consistently make the best use of America’s incredible educational resources.

                On a final note, while I work on my attitude here, I also feel compelled to offer a helping hand to our neighbors to the south.  If the plight of undereducated Haitian children creates in you, too, a desire to share some of your abundance, OMS operates a sponsorship program where your monthly donation of $25 can put a child in school and provide at least one nutritious meal a day.  For details, go to starfishkids.org. 

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I was bummed when I looked in the paper this morning and noticed the Starfish Kids website had been chopped off.  But the cool thing is, that tonight I got a call from a random stranger in town here to ask for more information - she said she had been praying for Haiti and she wanted to do something financially! 

It's pretty time consuming to write these newspaper articles, but if a Haitian kid gets an education as a result, how awesome is that??