Conferencin'

21:00 16 January 2009

It is the last day of our In-Service Training Conference today. It has gone by in a huge blur and has, in my mind, really been a success overall. While, as large conferences tend to have them, it did contain dull moments, the vast majority of the information I was provided with I found useful I think that overall it will make me a better volunteer. At the beginning of the conference was a three day session where we worked in conjunction with our counterparts. In addition to merely giving us an opportunity to better our relationships with our counterparts, it also allowed us to really focus in on the goals of team-teaching (namely making the TEFL English teaching program more sustainable). Since it is a new program, it is difficult for some counterparts to work with their Volunteers in the classroom. I hope and have faith that the workshops of this conference will better my and most volunteers’ work in the classroom.

In addition to being a good experience from a professional standpoint, it was also an incredible opportunity for the K-16 Volunteers who live all over the country, some days from others, to get back together again and socialize as a group with other Americans. Through this experience, I got reunited with many of my close friends, had a great time, and realized to what extent I could become uncomfortable when surrounded exclusively by Americans. I have always considered myself as somewhat of an introvert, but my service has actually revealed to a large extent how deeply I value human contact. However, despite this value, my introvert tendencies towards the end of the week seemed to exert greater influence on me as the some of the stereotypes of Americans began to become too strong.

Nevertheless I consider the past week a big success, both on a volunteer, psychological, and work level. It was a great opportunity to learn more language, more culture, more about ourselves, how to work with counterparts, and the experiences of other volunteers.