May 8-11, 2010

Sunday, May 9, 2010

Thought for the Day:

"We cannot all do great things, but we can all do small things with great love." Mother Theresa

We started our work day at 8:30 with a Team Building exercise, starting with Team Goals:

To provide English practice

To be personally enriched

To build bridges of understanding and respect

Next, we agreed on the characteristics of a successful team:

Common purpose

Mutual support

Non-judgemental

Sense of humor

Sharing ideas and experience

Involvement

Openness

Flexibility

Patience

Listening

Respect

Trust

Courtesy

Self-care

Responsibility

Enjoys the experience

The afternoon brought us a small taste of Polish culture, the everyday local variety, as well as an inkling of Polish hospitality. As special guests at the Niwiski School Community Fair, we were publicly recognized and thanked for volunteering to teach in Poland. We then joined the local dignitaries for tea and sweets. A lovely occasion.

But then, back home to Reymontowka to meet our principals and teacher colleagues and plan for the days ahead.

Saturday, May 8, 2010

The team convened at 5:30, just in time for an elegant “Welcome to Poland” dinner in the elegant Fireplace Room. The dinner table had been made even more elegant and welcoming by the students from Grala, who had prepared small bouquets of wildflowers and handmade cards.

After dinner, we introduced ourselves. Who are we?

Jim —Once an Air Force man, a “Remington Raider,” Jim spent 37 years as a teacher and drama coach. He lived and taught in Japan for a total of six years and was a Global Volunteer teacher in China three times.

Mary Martin—A Sister of Humility for 14 years, and now an Associate of the Order, Mary Martin was also an elementary school teacher in the United States for fifteen years, before shifting focus and efforts to Teaching English as a Foreign Language for the past 32 years. She traveled to Siedlce from a Global Volunteers project in Hungary, by way of a visit to Croatian cousins.

Audrey —Has also traveled over her lifetime, from her Liverpool birthplace to Wales and then to Canada as a 17-year-old. She’s been a private secretary, a full-time at-home mother and homemaker, and then a physiotherapist for special needs children, which she absolutely loved.

And then, introductions over, everyone went off to bed or, in Jim’s words, “. . . to be horizontal.”