What Would You Do With 1 million dollars?

August 21, 2013

Today was my first day to teach an entire classroom. 

Well...sort of. 

The education volunteers are doing this thing for two weeks called Model School (practice school). 575 children, grade 5-10, chose to register for class during their two week holiday. 

Chose to go to school during their vacation.... Even more showed up but we had to turn them away because we didn't have enough space...

This blew my mind. You'd have to pay American kids a ridiculous amount of money, or bribe them with a lifetime supply of junk food, to get them to go to school for 4 hours Monday through Friday for two weeks of vacation time. 

A few kids that we turned away because of space wrote a letter and gave it to another volunteer. It said that they didn't want our food. They just want to learn. They begged for us to let them in the classroom so that they could "better their education". 

Children here understand how much of a privilege it is to have an education, and unfortunately access to education is a lot more difficult here than it is in the states. It's so readily available in the states that kids don't understand how lucky they are to go to school every day. 

Another thing that blew my mind...

In "class" today, Alyssa (my model school partner) had our 6th graders write about what they would do if they won 1 million dollars. We had a few students present their assignment to the class, and the rest we took home with us to read. Almost every single student wrote about how they would buy a new house and car for their family, but then would give the rest of the money to the poor....or would build schools so that the kids on the street would have a place to go to get an education...or would buy all of the orphans food, shelter, and clothing. Some said they would move to the United States and get a job so that they could make more money and send it to their families so they could buy food and new clothes. 

6th grade. 

Think about it. 

My intentions aren't to make you sad or feel guilty. Instead I'm hoping that you'll think of ways you can help...

I'm looking forward to doing my part.