Preparation

So back in January of this year I decided to take this fall semester off to pursue volunteer opportunities.  My motivation stems from my interest in the power of information, and also the influence of technology in education. The One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) mission was precisely that.  To bring laptops to every child no matter where.  As I started to surf the web and survey my options, this seemed like a great place to start.    

Back in February I contacted the people at OLPC, and was put in touch with Adam Holt.  After a few back and forth emails he introduced me to Sora, the mind behind Project Rive.  http://projectrive.wordpress.com/  After reading up on Sora's blog and seeing the brilliant work being done by her and her peers, I knew I had found the right fit for me.  The project, in short, is a designed curriculum to teach both teachers and students how to use the XO laptops as a tool for education.  But it goes far beyond that. I really do recommend that you scroll back up and click that link I gave you.  Project Rive is just one project of the greater organization that is Unleash Kids.  Due to questionable distribution methods and a failure to follow through on training and maintenance, OLPC is on the verge of dying.  Unleash Kids is the organization picking up where they left off.

After talking with Sora for a while I started my first bit of preparation by beginning to learn Haitian Creole, a language based in French, but with far different grammatical rules.  As reality set in that I would be spending my fall semester abroad, I began to look into the impact it would have on my scholarship/financial aid.

After I was bounced around a few times I ended up in financial aid where I was told that in order to keep my scholarship, I had to be a full time student... yeah.  So the solution I came up with was to take 3 independent studies, 4 credits each.  Most teachers I approached seemed bewildered by my proposal.  But I kept emailing hoping for at least one helpful person.  And lo and behold I found her.  Professor Jennifer Law-Sullivan is the Associate professor of French, and the department chair of the Modern Language department.  Right away we set up a meeting and started working out the logistics of what I would need to do in order to receive credit.  She then put me in touch with Professor Alan Epstein who is sponsoring my second independent study for International Studies.  Mark Navin helped coordinate my third independent study with Professor Mark Rigstad on the topic of Global Political Philosophy.

From that point forward the preparation has seemed to be non-stop.  Wake up, practice creole, read, go to school/work, sort of have a social life, repeat.

As time grew closer and closer to my departure date, I began to plan the lessons that I will be teaching in Haiti.  Naturally, as a physics major, I started to play with the ideas of sound, and the universe.  Space is my truest passion and it seems only natural that I share that with the people I meet.  Even as I write this post 6ish days before I leave for Haiti I continue to tweak my lessons in the hope that they will be a success.  My first workshop will be taught on September 27th in Port-Au-Prince, at Delmas 28.  The topic will be music, with the following weeks workshop on space.

The preparation has been a long road.  I'm definitely a little nervous, but mostly I'm anxious and excited to finally be doing something I truly believe can make a difference.    

Hopefully that gives you all a good idea of how I got to this point.  I'm currently in New York training with some of our IT people, and I fly out of LaGuardia at 6am a week from today.  Be sure to stay tuned as my voyage is bound to get much more interesting from here.

Hang on,
Sean