Not Organize

Organizational structure, or the lack of it, is a significant concern in regards to Xa Me. The owners of the organization seem non-existent in terms of their presence and the rules that are supposed to be in place. Besides the past week in which we were informed at the last second that we had to change the dates in which we could volunteer, I have only saw one of the two person in charge for the second time. In our encounter I was quite shocked by her attitude and honestly quite angered and irritated because she was very nonchalant about it. She could easily sense that we that we were not particularly happy about moving the dates¸ especially no one had notified us in advanced. Rather than being apologetic she shifted blame onto us by stating immediately after that she was not informed about us missing a week due to the central trip. In a very sad, overly dramatic tone, she said that the kids were worried, which worried her because she didn’t know what was going on. We told her that we were under the impression that our teacher had inform her and we had already informed the children. This was not a matter of changing days and inconveniencing us that bothered me but rather because of her attitude and from an organizational standpoint, her wanting us to communicate to her about specific details but for us to not expect the same treatment. Nevertheless, both owners are hardly ever there and there are both negative and positive implications.

On the one hand, it gives us a great reign of freedom to facilitate and teach whatever curriculum we so choose. In this regards, I feel that the flexibility if harnessed in the correct way can be very effective in helping the children. Unlike many of the other stories I hear from my fellow peers about their organization and the strict structure, there is no supervision and we are free to do pretty much anything we want. This way we are not constrained by guidelines or rules that say we can’t do this or that, but it definitely has its downfall. In the first couple weeks, I think we fell victim to this very relaxed and unconstrained environment and we also had a lack of structure and formal instructions. We “hung out” a lot with the children and although it was necessary to build a relationship and gain the children’s trust, it was not going to teach them the things they would need and eventually use. At the end of the second week, I began to feel somewhat useless and because we had gotten so use to the unorganized/informal setting, I think everyone was a bit frustrated. Further, I could see that the children were becoming more restless and rowdy because they were under the impression that our objective was to come and just play with them. When there is down time, it seems that the children are more likely to fight and argue with one another. These occurrences seem to be very frequent and in my opinion it is due to living with no real structure and guidance. So we decided to change that immediately by introducing structure and although we encountered some turbulence along the way, the transition has been overall smooth and the results more effective.

With this new knowledge and ability to harness the freedom derived from the lack of organizational structure, we ourselves have begun to implement our own structure into the organization and it has gone a long way. Having a structured plan and implementing it has been very effective in teaching the children English as well as relieving the stress on ourselves. Every day in which we come and volunteer, the children now know what to expect and so they can prepare themselves. For us, there’s no longer stressing over what to do next or how to control the children because in this setting, the children are very well behaved. Regardless of the children’s background or how they were raised, every children can learn to function in an organized, structured environment given the time and patience. I can see that a lot of the children want to learn and by giving them structure and providing with them with a platform to learn, I think they can achieve their goals.