By Fiona Morgan
Imagine sitting in a math classroom where the teacher doesn’t understand basic math or how to teach it. That’s the case for many classrooms in Guatemala.
From Sept. 26-30, Cheryll Crowe, associate dean of the School of Science, Health and Mathematics, led an education-based mission trip to Guatemala with five students. It was Asbury’s first mission trip sponsored by the math department.
Those five students served as facilitators for two days of professional development meetings in Guatemala City. They focused on training elementary teachers how to better teach their students.
Over the two days, around 175 teachers from 75-100 schools around the city showed up. Each Asbury student trained a small group of teachers with the help of a translator. They started by teaching topics from counting to basic multiplication since many of the teachers did not understand such concepts themselves.
Crowe had previously gone to Guatemala to observe classrooms. She knew of a University of Kentucky professor who takes students to do professional development training for preschool teachers. But they didn’t have enough support for grades above preschool, so Crowe decided to travel down and assess the need for those grades.
As she sat in the back of a third-grade classroom, she noticed that every two-digit multiplication problem written on the board was incorrect. A young person called the teacher to the back, and they exchanged some words in Spanish. The teacher went back to the front and held a vote for students to decide if the answers were correct. Most of the students decided they were, and they continued on.
“Through that, it really opened my eyes to the need for starting with the foundations of math and then building from that point,” Crowe said. Many schools in Guatemala only require their teachers to complete their equivalent of high school.
She continued, “Teachers came up to us afterward saying they learned so much and that they had never known what we taught was what they were doing, that they were really just copying from the book to the best of their abilities.”
Junior education major Amanda Lee was particularly interested in the trip because of its unique education focus. She was impacted by the Guatemalan people’s desire to learn and said, “Here, we complain about getting up and going to school, but all they want is to have education and to be able to teach and understand more.”
The group also partnered with Hope for Tomorrow, a children’s home that cares for Guatemalan orphans and kids with special needs. Crowe sponsors two children, Carlos and Marcos, from the home. In the afternoons following the professional development meetings, the Asbury students spent time with around 12 kids there. They prepared teaching activities and did crafts like paper bag puppets, beaded necklaces and puzzles.
The last day of the trip, the students took the kids out to see a movie in Spanish, getting them popcorn and soda. “That was probably the most touching moment for me because they actually got to go out and experience something that they rarely get to experience,” said Lee.
Bailey Crouch, who is double majoring in Spanish and Biology, enjoyed building relationships with people through speaking their language. She was the only Spanish major to go and was able to act as a translator.
Crouch has also been on 11 other mission trips, both domestically and to Spanish-speaking countries. “Whenever you’re able to speak someone’s language, it forms a connection there,” she said. “In the future when I think back on the trip, the things I’m going to remember are the conversations I had with the people.”
Her other trips have focused on construction and organizing activities for kids, but she had never done a professional conference before. Looking forward, she hopes that more students will be able to go on this unique trip and for more days.
Lee echoes the wish for a longer trip: “I think actually the biggest challenge was leaving the kids, especially because they have nothing.”
Crowe has already committed to leading an annual Guatemala trip to continue professional development but for a longer time. On future trips, she hopes to have two days of professional development in the city and two additional days in the rural mountain regions where teachers have even fewer resources.
She speaks highly of Asbury students’ ability to train teachers. “It was neat for me to see them recognize the potential they have as teachers that I don’t think they saw until they were in this setting,” she said.
The Guatemalan school system runs from January to the end of September. Crowe hopes to plan future trips over spring breaks in order to have a six to seven day trip as opposed to only four to five days.
