Journalism Club!!

Malo le soifua tou Susuga! (Greetings and health to all!)

I am feeling optimistic (possibly momentarily, but I have to cling to my enthusiasm!) this week- I’ve started a project that I think has great potential to help some of my students, and I am really happy to have gotten something so simple and useful started! For the last 6 weeks I’ve been struggling with teaching, and watching my students struggling with their education… some are bright and trying so hard, and some just don’t care and don’t have any basic skills, such as reading and basic math. (These are 14-18 year olds.) The range of skills in my class is so disparate that it is enormously challenging to figure out what level to teach to. I feel so badly for the few students in each class that are prepared, paying attention, and understanding my very basic topics, I feel that the others hold them back, and then when you throw the appalling classroom behavior into the mix… it leads to a very difficult learning environment to the few who really try to learn!

I think I’ve found a way to help those students that really aspire to something besides having babies or working in the family plantation, and I even have the essential support of my principal and several teachers behind me! I’ve started a Journalism Club, and invited about 35 students to join- I expect a core group of about 20 after the second week, though. Of the 35, unfortunately only 8 are male, but the girls are mostly very enthusiastic, proud to be included and happy to have something more challenging to help improve their English.

I’m having them meet twice a week after school with the goal of putting together a monthly “magazine”. I hope to have them get excited to write about a variety of topics- news, sports, culture, travel, music, opinion, creative writing… it will be interesting to see what they actually write about. Most, if not all, have never written anything besides a school assignment, much less done any creative writing on topics of their own choice. I think it will be a great chance for them to improve their skills with writing, comprehension, speaking English, and also learning how to edit and hopefully gain some more outside knowledge about future careers. Most students are still struggling with very basic grammar, so I don’t anticipate anything mind blowing, but I am really looking forward to working with a group of wholly motivated students who want to learn.

Additionally, the magazine will serve the dual purpose of providing reading material for the rest of the school who will certainly find a student produced magazine far more interesting than their text books (of which there are very few, anyways!). I think that it will probably have a hugely positive effect on the entire school, as there is no library, no reading materials, and no sense of importance attributed to reading. Several teachers have suggested that I attempt to sell our publication in the local villages, as they are also greatly interested in school events, and are very likely to want to read anything produced by our students. (This will also encourage my students to work harder at the writing!)

This is where you all come in! I had many of you tell me before I left that you wanted to be a small part of this, and to let you know if I wanted anything! I’m calling those offers

in now! To make this work, I need some help funding some basic supplies for my Journalism Club. My school has nearly no resources- no desks, chairs, rare electricity and certainly no funds for this project. I need some financial help with the following supplies, as my Volunteer monthly allowance would in no way cover the majority of these costs!! Palagi money goes far here, so just $5, $10 or $15 dollars would help immensely!

The supplies I anticipate needing for my Journalism club are:

1. A decent stapler to assemble the magazines, and staples. This will probably cost around 30-40 tala, which is about $15 US. Office supplies can be expensive. (If someone wants to mail me a good quality stapler, that would be great, too! Just send lots of matching staples with it!!)
2. Lots of staples!
3. Printing costs: This is where I expect to spend a lot of money. Printing rates run about 10-20 sene a page. Our Club plans to sell the magazines, but for a small amount, maybe 50 sene apiece, and I anticipate several pages (3-5?) in each magazine (nothing high tech here, just black and white printing on plain white paper). I expect to print about 200 magazines each month. Best guess is that I’ll spend between 100-200 tala, which is about $40-80 US. After selling the magazines, that will reduce the costs for the following month, but I’m not sure this will ever be a “profitable business”, financially- I think the rewards will be in the learning and motivation my students get.
4. Dictionaries. I can’t even tell you how important these are for my students. Each class of 35-50 shares 2 or 3 very beaten up dictionaries, many with half the pages missing… so if they want to know a definition for a word that starts with A-F, they are out of luck! I’d like to have a stock of 3-5 dictionaries to keep in my room, and would also like to use the ‘profits’ from the Club to purchase more. Ideally, I’d love to reward my hardest working students with their own dictionary, this would be a gift that they would value and use daily! The cost of dictionaries runs from about 20-40 tala ($7-15 US), or if you tucked a used one into a package (hint!) it would go to excellent use. Some use the tiny portable ones, I think the gigantic Websters would be a bit much for daily use, but anything smaller than that would be so wonderful!

Initially, I just need about $100-150 US, mostly for printing costs. If you’d like to help out, please mail me cash here- I haven’t had any big mail thefts, so I’m not worried. (I got a check here once- I can’t use them, so please just cash!) If you aren’t into sending cash, please send dictionaries!! My school is so under resourced that these will be highly appreciated, and well used! As I said, even small amounts of cash can go a long way here.