DESCRIPTION of VOLUNTEER SERVICE
Peace Corps Volunteer (PCV)
Name: Craig Andrew Smith
After a competitive process stressing applicant skills, adaptability,
and cross-cultural understanding, Craig Smith was invited to serve as a Teaching
English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) Volunteer in the northeastern village of Aydoon
Beni Hassan, Governorate of Al-Mafraq, Kingdom of Jordan. Craig Smith entered
Pre-Service Training (PST) on October 19, 2011, participating in an intensive
eleven week, home stay-based training program. Training sessions included:
·
Language: 153 hours
of spoken and written Arabic instruction with a focus on the Jordanian dialect.
·
Cross-Culture: 44 hours of formal sessions on
Jordanian values and traditions with an emphasis on history, economics and
culture, reinforced by living with a Jordanian family throughout training.
·
Technical: 72 hours of sessions covering English
teaching methodology, practice teaching, and a community-based practicum.
·
Personal Health and Safety: 20 hours of introduction
to common diseases and prevention, HIV/AIDS awareness, nutrition, and first
aid. Strategies for personal and transportation safety, assault risk factors
and strategies for reducing risk, safety and security incident reporting, and
the Jordan-specific Emergency Action Plan.
Craig Smith was sworn-in as a Peace Corps Volunteer on January 3rd,
2012. His service ended on January 5th,
2014.
* * *
Craig’s primary assignment was as a co-English
teacher (TEFL Volunteer) at the Aydoon Beni Hassan Secondary School for
Boys. Jordanian students from Grade Two
through Grade Six, as well as Grade Eight, benefitted from Craig’s instruction
of the English curriculum developed by the Jordanian Ministry of
Education. Furthermore, Craig effectively
co-taught every single lesson with one of four certified Jordanian English
teacher counterparts at his primary assignment.
Both Craig and his counterparts have noted specific benefits to this
team-teaching model: 1) Increased
student engagement due to greater teacher-student monitoring, greater variety
of instructional methods, and greater energy on the part of the teachers; 2) Increased
student behavior due to innovative and positive classroom management
strategies, greater student achievement leading to increased student confidence
and interest in the subject matter, and increased student collaboration and
cooperation as modeled by the team-teaching approach of the teachers; and 3) a
professional instructional environment based on mutual learning and respect.
Given below is a summary of the Peace Corps
training events and workshops that Craig attended as a Peace Corps Volunteer
after his completion of PST. It should
also be noted Craig’s Jordanian counterparts accompanied him to the entire 11
hours of Program Design and Management Training as well nine hours of Technical
Training.
·
Language, Cross-Culture, Health, and Safety: 71 hours of spoken and written Arabic
instruction, in addition to cultural and personal health and security training.
By the middle of his service, Craig Smith received a Language Proficiency
Interview (LPI) rating of Intermediate High in Arabic. By the end of his service, he received an
(LPI) rating of Advanced Low in Arabic.
·
Technical: 22 hours of sessions covering English
teaching methodology, classroom management, assessment, teaching with and
beyond the Ministry curriculum, and team-teaching.
·
Program Design and
Management: 11
hours of sessions on project planning, communication,
budgeting, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation.
·
Brain Camp: 15 hours of
sessions on teaching and developing activities related to mindset, critical
thinking, and problem-solving.
* * *
One of the major accomplishments of Craig’s
service outside of his primary assignment was the $10,000 English Language
Education, Resources, and Facilities Renovation and Improvement project in his community. Using the skills that he and his Jordanian
counterpart gained at the Peace Corps Program Design and Management Conference,
Craig partnered with Aydoon Society for Social Development (ASSD) to secure a
$4,800 grant from the Peace Corps / USAID Secondary Projects Assistance (SPA)
program. Furthermore, the total cost of
the project was nearly $10,500 meaning that the ASSD and the community itself
contributed 54% of the total project cost.
The remarkable thing about Craig’s project
with the ASSD is that the majority of the time and energy of this project was
spent not on purchasing equipment and spending money but on instruction. Often times, PCV SPA projects primarily
involve the purchasing of equipment and supplies to be donated to a center or
school. In contrast, after Craig and his
partners renovated the facilities at the ASSD and provided it with English
language resources for teaching and learning, they spent an entire semester
delivering English instruction geared towards six different populations of
Aydoon’s residents. Craig himself taught
one course for adult females and one for adult males. In addition, two Jordanian English teachers
from the community taught English courses for school-aged males and
females. In all, eight separate sections
of English courses were taught that first semester; six of which were taught by
Jordanians.
* * *
In addition to the invaluable work that Craig
has done in, with, and for his community, Craig has been one of the most active
PCVs in volunteer committees and PC Jordan office support. He has provided significant contributions to
the Brain Camp Committee, the USAID-sponsored Enhancing Water Awareness (EWA)
Committee (later known as the Environmental Committee), and the Language
Development Committee. Craig has worked
to manage all aspects of Brain Camps for the summer of 2013. Brain Camp is a 30-36 hour curriculum focused
on mindset and developing critical thinking and problem-solving skills in
Jordanian youth. He has served as a liaison
between Peace Corps Jordan and Think Unlimited, an Amman-based non-profit that
has developed the Brain Camp Curriculum.
He worked tirelessly to inventory, organize, and distribute all Brain
Camp materials for 22 PCVs. He provided
support in the development of the Brain Camp training for 22 PCVs as well as
leading sessions in the same Brain Camp training. Finally, he provided logistical support
throughout the summer as the PCVs delivered their Brain Camps in their
communities.
Craig’s dedication to the Brain Camp Committee
is representative of his unwavering commitment to the development of Peace
Corps Jordan. This is further evidenced
by the support he has provided to staff and other PCVs in the EWA / Environmental
Committees in which he regularly sought out community partners to support
PCV-sponsored water initiatives.
Returning to the office, the Language and Cross-Cultural Coordinator
(LCCF) here at Peace Corps Jordan regularly turned to Craig for advice and
support in the development of language materials and activities for PCVs. This includes an extensive PCV-created
Jordanian Arabic Grammar Manual of which Craig was the primary editor.
Not to be outdone by his secondary projects,
Craig also consistently provided support to Peace Corps staff and other PCVs in
the content of his primary assignment, TEFL.
In addition to supporting the PC Jordan TEFL Program Manager in the
development of sessions for TEFL trainings, Craig presented on a variety of
topics within the TEFL field to his fellow trainees and volunteers and to
Jordanian English teacher counterparts during PST, Mid-Service Conference
(MSC), and at TEFL Regional Trainings.
His responsibilities for these trainings included identifying
PCV/counterpart needs, designing training curriculum and materials, and leading
sessions. His sessions focused on
Classroom Management, Student Motivation, Exploiting Dialogues, The Essentials
of Team Teaching, NEST and NNEST: Collaboration between Native and Non-Native
English Speaking Teachers, Teaching With and Beyond the Action Pack (the
Jordanian English curriculum), and Action Planning.
* * *
While the paragraphs above have focused on the
work that Craig has done as a PCV outside of his regular teaching duties, presented
below is a summary of Craig’s teaching activities. Both courses from Craig’s primary TEFL
assignment at the Aydoon Beni Hassan Secondary School for Boys and courses from
Craig’s various secondary projects and clubs are included in the tables
below. Additionally, for the purposes of
Craig’s primary assignment, one regular class is considered to be 45 minutes
and equal to 0.75 hours; therefore, a class that is listed as being taught 2.25
hours per week is understood to mean that Craig taught three lessons per week
to that particular group of students.
Academic
Year: 2011-2012 Semester: Two
|
Grade Level – Academic Subject
|
# of Students
|
Hours per Week
|
Number of Weeks
|
|
2nd Grade Boys – English
|
27
|
2.25
|
13
|
|
3rd Grade Boys – English
|
26
|
2.25
|
13
|
|
4th Grade Boys – English
|
31
|
2.25
|
13
|
|
5th Grade A Boys – English
|
20
|
0.75
|
13
|
|
5th Grade B Boys – English
|
19
|
0.75
|
13
|
|
8th Grade Boys – English
|
32
|
3.00
|
13
|
|
Grade Level – Club Content
|
# of Students
|
Hours per Week
|
Number of Weeks
|
|
6th/7th Grade Boys – English Club (Conversation,
Enhancing Water Awareness [EWA], Drama)
|
18
|
1.00
|
13
|
|
9th/10th Grade Boys – English Club
(Conversation, EWA)
|
15
|
0.75
|
12
|
|
University Mixed – Spanish I (A) (Communicative Conversation)
|
27
|
1.00
|
2
|
|
University Mixed – Spanish I (B) (Communicative Conversation)
|
28
|
1.00
|
2
|
|
University Mixed – Spanish II (Conversation, Pronunciation, Music)
|
30
|
1.00
|
4
|
|
Total # of Students /
Total # of Hours Teaching
|
273
|
176.25
|
|
Craig’s first semester as a TEFL volunteer was
shortened by four weeks due to a strike by the Jordanian Teachers’
Association. Despite the strike, Craig
attended school on a daily basis to interact and develop relationships with his
colleagues at the Aydoon Secondary School for Boys. Throughout the semester Craig only regularly
attended his primary assignment four days per week as once per week he spent
the day at the university engaged as a student in a four-hour Modern Standard Arabic
course in the mornings and as a teacher in two hours of Spanish instruction in
the afternoons.
In the summer following Craig’s first
semester, he worked at two English language / environmental awareness summer
camps sponsored by the American Language Center (ALC) at the United States
Embassy in Amman. At a one-day camp (4
hours), Craig co-taught environmental drama to 160 youth (males and females)
from southern Jordan participating in the ALC-sponsored ACCESS program for
English language and American cultural development. At a three-day camp (13.5 hours), he
co-taught environmental English to 40 young ladies from the Aqaba region of
Jordan.
This summer also marked the first time (out of
four) that Craig delivered the Brain Camp curriculum in his community of
Aydoon. Brain Camp is a curriculum
developed by former Peace Corps Jordan Volunteers designed specifically for
Jordanian youth and PCVs in Jordan.
Those same volunteers now manage Think Unlimited, an Amman-based
non-profit, that has served as an invaluable local counterpart to the
implementation of Brain Camp by PCVs in Jordan.
Brain Camp is a 30-36 hour curriculum divided into three primary
sections: 1) Mindset, 2) Critical
Thinking skills (Memorization, Organization, Reasoning, Strategy, Decision-Making,
Opinion Formation, Perspective Taking, and Creativity), and 3)
Problem-Solving. The instructional
methods employed in both Sections 1 and 2 are approximately 25% direct
instruction and approximately 75% application and practice through hands-on and
interactive games and activities. In the
Problem-Solving component, students are asked to integrate all the skills they
have learned throughout the curriculum in the form of a final project to
develop a solution to the real-world problem of the water shortage crisis in
Jordan. Nineteen 8th-10th
grade boys from Craig’s community successfully completed the Brain Camp
curriculum during his first summer and presented their solutions to the water
shortage crisis to a panel of PCVs and community members.
* * *
A summary of Craig’s teaching activities for
his second semester in his community is presented below:
Academic
Year: 2012-2013 Semester: One
|
Grade Level – Academic Subject
|
# of Students
|
Hours per Week
|
Number of Weeks
|
|
2nd Grade Boys – English
|
22
|
3.00
|
17
|
|
5th Grade Boys – English
|
27
|
3.00
|
17
|
|
6th Grade A Boys – English
|
20
|
3.75
|
17
|
|
6th Grade B Boys – English
|
19
|
3.75
|
17
|
|
Grade Level – Club Content
|
# of Students
|
Hours per Week
|
Number of Weeks
|
|
7th/8th Grade Boys – Brain Club (Critical
Thinking, Mindset, Problem-Solving)
|
24
|
2.50
|
15
|
|
9th Grade Boys – Leadership (EWA)
|
15
|
1.00
|
3
|
|
Adult Males – Conversational English
|
5
|
3.00
|
12
|
|
Adult Females – Conversational English
|
8
|
3.00
|
12
|
|
Total # of
Students /
Total # of Hours Teaching
|
140
|
342.00
|
|
It should be noted that both of Craig’s
adult conversational English classes were taught at the ASSD using the
equipment, materials, and supplies purchased through the English Language
Education, Resources, and Facilities Renovation and Improvement project that
was partially funded by the SPA program.
Of even greater note is the fact of the 153 students from Aydoon who
participated in English courses taught at the ASSD this semester, 140 youth
students were taught by Jordanian English teachers from Aydoon working
independently; only 13 adult students were taught by Craig.
* * *
A summary of Craig’s teaching activities for
his third semester in his community is presented below:
Academic
Year: 2012-2013 Semester: Two
|
Grade Level – Academic Subject
|
# of Students
|
Hours per Week
|
Number of Weeks
|
|
2nd Grade Boys – English
|
22
|
3.00
|
17
|
|
5th Grade Boys – English
|
27
|
3.00
|
17
|
|
6th Grade A Boys – English
|
21
|
3.75
|
17
|
|
6th Grade B Boys – English
|
20
|
3.75
|
17
|
|
Grade Level – Club Content
|
# of Students
|
Hours per Week
|
Number of Weeks
|
|
9th Grade Girls – Brain Club (Critical Thinking,
Mindset, Problem-Solving)
|
24
|
2.50
|
15
|
|
University Mixed – Spanish I (Music)
|
50
|
1.00
|
9
|
|
University Mixed – Spanish Conversation and Culture Club (Speaking,
Vocabulary, Poetry, Music)
|
29
|
2.00
|
11
|
|
7th-9th Grade Boys – Brain Games Club (Mindset,
Critical Thinking)
|
20
|
0.75
|
10
|
|
Adult Females – Comprehensive Advanced English
|
7
|
6.00
|
6
|
|
9th-10th Grade Girls – Girls Leading Our
World (GLOW) English Immersion Summer Camp Application Support
|
12
|
1.00
|
10
|
|
7th-10th Grade Boys – Boys Respecting Others
(BRO) English Immersion Summer Camp Application Support
|
15
|
0.75
|
5
|
|
Total # of
Students /
Total # of Hours Teaching
|
247
|
355.25
|
|
Though Craig previously taught adult
females from Aydoon and university and adolescent females from outside his
community, this third semester demonstrates Craig’s real commitment to serving
his entire community. Jordan is an
incredibly segregated society and the Ministry of Education school system can
at best be described as “separate but equal”.
As a single male living in a conservative, tribal, Muslim, East Bank
village, Craig’s opportunities for interacting with, or even seeing, females
are extremely limited. It is a testament
to Craig’s ability to gain the esteem, respect, and trust of his community that
24 fathers allowed him to teach their fifteen-year-old daughters in a Brain
Club (the same curriculum as Brain Camp spread out over a semester) setting at
the Aydoon Beni Hassan Secondary School for Girls. Furthermore, Craig was able to further work
with five young ladies in a small group or one-on-one to the point that each
one of them was invited to attend an elite English immersion and leadership camp
at a university in southern Jordan known as Camp GLOW (Girls Leading Our
World).
Further evidence of his commitment to
all Jordanians, male and female, is seen in the fact that during this semester
he and a female PCV led a Saturday leadership camp for 12 young men and 8 young
ladies in the southern Jordanian city of Karak.
I would also like to point out that
Craig invited me and my wife to present at his Spanish Conversation and Culture
Club at Al al-Bayt University. I was a
PCV in Guatemala and my wife is a Mayan Guatemalan. We gave a one-hour presentation completely in
Spanish to approximately 30 first-year Spanish majors on the culture of
Guatemala in general and my wife’s culture specifically.
Craig’s second summer in Jordan was
similar programmatically to his first.
He taught leadership to approximately 50 girls for two days at the Aqaba
Environmental English Camp sponsored by the ALC. He also managed and taught the Brain Camp
curriculum with two PCVs and five Jordanian counterparts for the fourth and
final time to a group of 7th and 8th grade boys. This fourth time around 24 boys successfully
completed the camp and presented their solutions to the water shortage crisis
in Jordan.
* * *
A summary of Craig’s teaching activities for
his fourth and final semester at the Aydoon Secondary School for Boys is
presented below:
Academic
Year: 2013-2014 Semester: One
|
Grade Level – Academic Subject
|
# of Students
|
Hours per Week
|
Number of Weeks
|
|
2nd Grade Boys – English
|
21
|
3.00
|
16
|
|
3rd Grade Boys – English
|
22
|
3.00
|
16
|
|
4th Grade Boys – English
|
34
|
3.00
|
16
|
|
6th Grade Boys – English
|
34
|
4.50
|
16
|
|
8th Grade Boys – English
|
32
|
3.75
|
16
|
|
Total # of
Students /
Total # of Hours Teaching
|
143
|
276.00
|
|
It is worth pointing out that both
Syria and the Zaatari Refugee Camp can be seen from Craig’s village and that
the massive chemical weapons attack in Syria happened right before the start of
Craig’s final semester in his village.
With talks of a US missile strike on Syria both Craig and I did not
really believe that he or the other volunteers near him would finish out their
service in Mafraq. Because of these
several weeks of uncertainty, Craig was preoccupied and unable to dedicate the
time and effort necessary to search out counterparts and students for secondary
projects in his community. As a
consolation, Craig did give himself his heaviest teaching load of his four
semesters at the Aydoon Beni Hassan Secondary School for Boys.
* * *
Pursuant to
Section 5 (f) of the Peace Corps Act, 22 U.S.C. No. 2504(f) as amended, any
former Volunteer employed by the United States Government following his/her
Peace Corps service is entitled to have any period of satisfactory Peace Corps Volunteer
service credited for purposes of retirement, seniority, reduction in force,
leave or other privileges based on length of government service. Peace Corps service shall not be credited
toward completion of a probationary or trial period or completion of any
service requirement for career appointment.
This is to certify, in accordance with
Executive Order No. 11103 of 10 April 1963, that Craig Smith served
satisfactorily as a Peace Corps Volunteer.
His service ended on 5 January 2014. He is therefore eligible to be appointed as a
career-conditional employee in the competitive civil service on a
non-competitive basis. This benefit
under the Executive Order entitlement extends for a period of one-year, except
that the employing agency may extend for up to three years for a former
Volunteer who enters military service, pursues studies at a recognized
institution of higher learning, or engages in other activities which, in the
view of the appointing authority, warrants extension of the period.
|
|
|
Jordan 15
|
|
Craig Smith
Volunteer
|
|
|
|
|
|
January 5, 2014
|
|
Bryan Butki
Country
Director/Jordan
|
|
Date
|
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