Cotinga Foundation Trip 2023
The trip in 2022 was called by the team the ‘Great Escape’. In spite of the circumstances, strange situation and harrowing trip home, 5 of those teachers, plus Terry and Bob Lancaster, made the decision to return in June, 2023.
The team of 2023 consisted of Kathi Ritchie, Ellen Nicholl, Amy Manzcuk, Ann Matoushek, Terry Lancaster who returned as teachers. Bob Lancaster went along to help with all kinds of background jobs with luggage, kitchen duties and electrical jobs.
Since last year, Geovanni Calles has made great strides in using the resources from Cotinga Foundation. They have taken the curriculum and documents that we have written for them and incorporated them into their high school curriculum. Because of that work, the government is now giving those students an adapted diploma. This diploma allows the students to get a job. It may be one of the only special education schools in the country that presents this diploma.
The attendance at Geovanni Calles has risen to 158 students. There was one year that attendance had dropped to 80, since many of the parents did not see a reason for the school. Geovanni Calles is now the desired school in the area. The government is building three more classrooms by putting a second floor on one of the buildings. However, they still do not invest in curriculum or books for the special education schools. With your help through the Amazon wishlist, we were able to take another 100 books in Spanish: numbers, shapes, classic fairy tales, and fun stories like Franklin books and Dr. Seuss. All of the classrooms now have a shelf with books that we have taken to them or printed for them when we were there. Everything is treasured.
There are several groups of people that gather supplies for us throughout the year. This allows our resources to be used for curriculum for the teachers, while blessing the teachers with some needed (and fun) supplies. This year we took 150 sets of fat markers, 150 sets of skinny markers, 100 sets of colored pencils with sharpeners. A set of markers costs about $10 and when your family makes $350 a month, that is impossible. We took 1000 Cotinga pencils.
Beautiful washcloths, hats, headbands were knitted by many ladies in the St. Louis area. They were given as gifts to students and cooks and translators and ladies in the church. They were loved by all.
We had enough supplies that we were able to share them with the Preschool teachers, UDAI, and the inclusion supervisors. Those materials and curriculum will be spread throughout many schools across a large area of the country.
In the mornings, each Cotinga teacher had a translator. They were assigned 4 classrooms and visited these classrooms each morning. They were able to get to know those teachers and students well. It was very effective in meeting the needs of the students and helping the Geovanni Calles teachers feel more comfortable with us. We can be intimidating. A big part of the work we do in preparation involves learning how to best the teachers at their level of teaching. We learn how to approach the teachers with humbleness; as fellow teachers that are just there to share with them and help them succeed. When we are able to meet them where they are, we are much more successful in getting them to apply our ideas and curriculum. They were very open this year with their questions.
In the afternoons, we tried something entirely different. We usually held seminars on each subject (Math, Writing, Reading, Behavior, Trauma) throughout the week. However, the school teaches age 4 through high school. It is hard to reach the needs of each teacher. Instead, we had Make It-Take It afternoons. After introductions of the materials, we laid out tables full of curriculum (calendars, number lines, vocabulary sets, books with questions, writing pages) along with tables full of supplies (printers, cardstock, colored paper, markers, fun shape scissors, laminators). We encouraged them to make things for the level of their students that they could use in their classrooms right away. The Cotinga teachers spread out and talked to them with ideas of how to use each resource. The first day was difficult, but by the second day, it was amazing. We saw them creating things better than we imagined. We would stop everyone to share an idea that someone had, and by the end of the week, saw them sharing ideas with each other. This is something that is not done in this culture, so we have tried to develop it over the years.
Sharing things we have learned or things that we know or things that we have created is an expectation for teachers in the United States, but it is something that we constantly have to push and model for Geovanni Calles and at all the seminars that we teach. We need them to share with each other throughout the school year. UDAI is now sending teachers from other special education schools throughout the area to visit Geovanni Calles, so we need them to share with teachers from other special education schools that come to visit. We are teaching the teachers at GC, UDAI administrators and the inclusion supervisors to be a valuable resource to others. We have created Google drive folders full of curriculum and books that can be accessed by the teachers throughout the year.
A Preschool Seminar was planned for 2022, but had to be canceled due to the indigenous strike. We were able to present it this year to a group of 40 teachers from the area. Right now, they do not need to be teachers to work in a preschool and have no expectations for any instruction. It is all play time. Our goal was to give them ideas and resources to start teaching letters, sounds, numbers, counting, throughout some fun themes. We created a Google Drive of beginning letter books, sound books, beginning math ideas that could be incorporated throughout their day to move the students along. Another goal was to supply them with some checklists of things to look for in potential diagnosis of students. Right now, if a student wiggles too much or talks too much, they are often sent to a special education school. We supplied them with some concrete ideas of things to look for when choosing their school. We shared forms to store this information that could be passed on to their elementary school. They moved through 4 different stations so that each Cotinga team member could spend time with them.
The Inclusion Supervisors also attended this seminar, along with everything throughout the week. Each of these 7 supervisors oversees as many as 10 large general education schools that have a few special education students in each classroom. I was able to spend time with them in discussions on how to apply this information to every grade level and teacher level. They would like for me to present a day long seminar for inclusion teachers again, like we did for the 100 teachers in 2017.
With your help, we have been able to effect change in a very large area of Ecuador. This change can continue between our trips as our teachers share with others that visit. Thank you for your ongoing support.