Back to Sixth Grade
Ever since I got to Ecuador two months ago, I have been giving homework help to disadvantaged working children — from the second to the sixth grade — in the South of Quito. These kids, while they usually do not live on the streets, do not have the support they need from their families. Their parents don’t help them with their homework, or even care at all whether they do it. Sometimes the parents have to work so hard at earning a living for their family that everything else seems unimportant. Sometimes they are alcoholics who simply don’t care. Sometimes, they are dead or missing — and the children live with their older siblings, aunts or cousins.
In the last couple of weeks I have mainly been teaching the sixth graders. You wouldn’t believe what challenges this involves… I have had to learn how to calculate square roots of five-digit numbers without a calculator; for this, I had to get back up to speed on addition, subtraction, multiplication and division — all without a calculator; I had to explain the movement of the earth in the solar system — movimiento de traslación, rotación y inclinación; I have had to explain the parts of the leave, in Spanish; and much more. It’s fun and it makes you realize just how much one actually learned in school — and then usually forgot.
December 19, 2006 at 05:25
Fine work, Magnus. If all of us who are educated would just give a small amount of time to such children, this world could be transformed overnight.
December 21, 2006 at 15:57
I love the new pictures of the mountains. It looks absolutely stunning! Carry on exploring the world so the rest of us can see what is really out there