P.E.

I'm kind of a P.E. teacher.

For the past 3 weeks (and the next few months) two of my superstar youth and I have been spending Wednesdays in the local school teaching Deportes para la Vida (Sports for Life).

Deportes para la Vida (DPV) is the program I received training for in December. It’s a really great program that uses sports and games to teach kids about HIV/AIDS, teenage pregnancy and other problems facing Dominican youth.

In our local school there is an hour set aside for P.E. every Wednesday and Friday. But as there is neither a P.E. teacher nor any athletic equipment or guidance whatsoever, P.E. hour is spent sitting in the shade and/or throwing rocks at one another. I don’t blame the teachers for wanting an hour of rest since students here have the ability to drive one completely insane, but that P.E. hour could be put to much better use. Enter Deportes para la Vida.

So far we have worked with 6^th, 7^th and 8^th grade students, as those are the kids best able to grasp what HIV/AIDS is and the ones most likely to have hormones in overdrive and/or be sexually active. The kids have been really responsive to the program and we can see instant results in their knowledge about HIV/AIDS after each activity. The students might be little monsters in the classroom but, for whatever reason, they have been really attentive and engaged when given the chance to run, play, compete and learn outdoors.

So it seems that for the spring semester, I am more or less a P.E. teacher. The great thing about the DPV program is that what I am actually teaching is Sex Ed and Life Skills but the kids feel like they’re in P.E. A nice head fake to trick the kids into learning.