Junior Achievement

Every since the day I was accepted into Peace Corps, I have been asked to conduct a Junior Achievement program into the highschool that I would be assigned to. If you don’t know what Junior Achievement is, it’s a program designed for students from middle school up to highschool about business principles. Back in the states I taught the program once to a group of middle schoolers in a summer school program. It’s fairly easy to implement, the only thing you need to really do is read and follow the directions of the teacher’s guide and your pretty much set. When I was asked to do it again, I figured it would be just as easy as before. But according to the Peace Corps model, you have to do everything with another community member so that when the volunteer leaves it would continue without them. I had no idea this would be a problem. At the beginning of the school year I asked the business professor would she like to try out the program with me. I gave the complete program to her so that she could look it over. I put her in contact with the people that are in charge of the program so that all her questions could be answered, but in the end it didn’t work out. She said the program doesn’t work with her class schedule and Junior Achievement is not willing to adjust it for her. I said Ok, maybe we will try it some other time.

Five months later, here enters my boss for the second year visit. We did the regular routine of having a meeting with the teachers that I work with. The only difference this time was that the principle and vice principle was both out for seminars that week. So they were replaced by this guy who is an administrator. Till this day I had no idea what his purpose is. All I know is that he sits in the office and talks really loud and that everyone tells me to stay far away from him. So while we are in the meeting my boss keeps pushing this idea that we need to do Junior Achievement because she feels that I am concentrating on English classes too much. Usually when someone comes from the outside of an environment and tries to push their own agenda without knowing what is going on in that environment, usually problems are caused. As soon as everyone looked at me and said who did you talk to about this program already, the only thing I can think of was, CRAP Im going to regret this!!! I said Peggy. So the administrator that I was talking about earlier ( I don’t remember his name right now so let’s just call him Napolean for now) looks at me and says you and her are going to do this next week in a commanding voice. I have been told in the past that I have a problem with authority, so maybe that’s why my face started to cringe and my throat got hot when he said that. I felt it would be best for me to just shut up. He then says also you’re going to march in the parade with us next week. I am not a fan of parades AT ALL but I just said “fine” and stayed quit. The next week I sucked it up and went to march in the parade. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. It was actually entertaining, because of the 2 professors that marched on the side of me. Both of them were wearing high heels for a 2 hour march. I was soo intrigued to see who would last the longest. One was wearing brown heels that were moderately low and the other was wearing bright red high heels for clubbin. I was torn. The red heels seemed like the obvious choice to break down first but she had the biggest calves for a woman I have ever seen in my life. It was a difficult decision. After an hour and a half the teacher with the brown heels quit and jumped out of the line and disappeared into the crowd, while the teacher with the red heels made it the whole way without one complaint. I was impressed.

The week after that I was walking to English class when I hear someone scream my name. I turned around to discover Napoleon pointing at me, “COME HERE. I told him that I need to go to class. “which class”-“English class”-“No you come here, we need to talk. Remember what your boss said…blah..blah..blah”. I didn’t understand the rest because he was talking soo loud and soo fast I just wanted to put my hands over my ears, spin around and yell ..SHUT UP..SHUT UP.. SHUT UP!!!My face began to scrunch up again and the hot feeling that I had in my throat returned. I calmly said, I will go to the office and see you after I get done. After class I went to the office. He told me that I am going to do the Junior achievement program next week. Before he continued I stopped him and said “with which professor?”-“All of them”-“I don’t understand”-“Every teacher is going to help you out”. This made so sense to me at all. Then I realized that I was told the week before that because of finals exams there would only be 2 weeks of classes left. Then I said hey we are not going to do the program this semester because there is not enough time. “What, remember what your boss said” “yea I know but the program is for 2 months and we only have 2 weeks”, “no your boss said next week”, “she doesn’t know what she is talking about, she has no idea what is going on”. Then he started to pout like a little kid that lost his toy and kept saying “I don’t know, I don’t know”. Till this day I still don’t know why he would say “I dont know” to me that phrase just doesn’t seem to fit there. Anyway this is when I looked around the office and saw everyone freeze. No one looked our way but they all stopped what they were doing and tried to hide that they were listening. After that little show down between us it’s been pretty awkward. But just when I thought it was over, someone from the meeting told the teaching that I offered the Junior Achievement program earlier in the year that I said that she isn’t willing to cooperate with me. Well at least I went a year and a half without anyone at the school being pissed at me. That’s good right?