Tuesday, February 14, 2006

My English classes refused

I have blogged about the volunteer classes that I teach a few times a month for a local organization that works with children who refuse to attend regular schools. I have been doing these classes for about two years now, and it has been a struggle for me to get there and teach classes for the few kids who manage to get themselves out of their homes to come have fun with English. It isn't easy or even fun sometimes, but I feel that if the kids don't have the opportunity to have some fun outside their home, they may never get out, and what I have to offer is language.

Anyway the organizers of the group closed the place that they had been in for the past two years because they couldn't raise enough money to pay the rent. I was curious why they hadn't tried harder to get kids into the English classes, and they said that they had tried. (I mean when I lived in that same neighborhood, strangers would knock on my door and ask me if I was offering English lessons to children. Seriously, they saw a foreigner walk into his home, and they accosted me about English lessons. One woman had even talked to a group of other mothers and came with a yen figure in mind. I told them, as I tell anyone who asks, I don't teach classes outside the university, which is technically a lie, but I don't teach for money outside the university.) The problem turned out to be that when parents came to inquire about the classes and were told that they may be in the same group with kids who refuse to go to school or who have learning disabilities, the walked away.

My guess is that the people who came to inquire about the lessons were the same ones that darkened my doorstep earlier, and were tickled at the thought of getting their kiddies enrolled in a cheap English class, the procedes from which would go to the organization, taught by the fellow they had hit up so many months ago, but when they found out that they would be sharing time with real children with real problems, they got scared. The result is that the facilities were closed, and we are thrashing around trying to find a spot to put our class in now.

Sometimes I hate dealing with people.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

That's amazing, and somehow predictable all at once. Good luck trying to find a new location, as it sounds like you've been offering a really valuable service to the community. People can be really small minded, don't let them get you down.

I'm in the process of setting up a free English learning resource called Open Source English at the moment. It's
built on the free, open source CMS Moodle, and the idea is to offer a nice range of free, advertising free, English lessons, resources and multimedia projects for ESL/EFL learners. I'm hoping that the online format might reach even those who can't or aren't inclined to leave the house.

Take a look if you get a chance. Of course contributions or comments are always welcome.

In the meantime, good luck with getting your project up and running again!