Exchanging ideas: Administrator from mission school Respire Haiti trains in Cape Girardeau schools

Editor's note: The following story has been edited to correct the elementary school in which one of the sources taught. The Southeast Missourian regrets the error.

For one Haitian educator, differences between schools in Cape Girardeau and Haiti provide a great way to explore new methods for each.

Ritha Antoine of Respire Haiti visited Cape Girardeau schools for two weeks in August.

Respire Haiti, a mission school founded by American native Megan Boudreaux in 2011, is in Gressier, a city of about 25,000 people, but with another 100,000 in the surrounding area.

Antoine, an administrator at Respire Haiti’s elementary school, said the differences between education in Gressier and in Cape Girardeau were not as stark as she had expected.

“It’s different, but in some ways, it’s almost the same,” Antoine said. Teachers dress more formally in Haiti, she said, and supplies are different.

For example, some of the teachers in Haiti have laptops, but definitely not the students, Antoine said.

Even supplies such as paper, pencils, crayons and markers just aren’t as widely available.

Respire Haiti board member Becky Harding said books are treasured in Haiti — even kept under lock and key in some places.

Right now, at Respire, the board is trying to gather enough funds to put in a library, Harding said, which will make a big difference to the 550 students there.

Asked whether the students in Haiti are different from students in Cape Girardeau, Antoine shook her head, laughing, and said, “Kids are kids.”

Antoine is the first educator from Respire to come to Cape Girardeau for training, she said.

In her role, Antoine acts mostly as an assistant principal would in the U.S., she said.

“I work with the director and the teachers,” she said.

“When they need supplies, I get them supplies,” she added. “Usually, when I have time, I visit the teachers, see how their classrooms are working.”

If she sees something she doesn’t like, she and the teacher can work together and figure out a better solution, she said.

The idea behind her visit to Cape Girardeau was for her to grab ideas and bring them back to her teachers in Gressier.

“It’s a lot,” she said, laughing.

Antoine was able to shadow Amy Dunn, a teacher at Blanchard Elementary School, and she said she learned from her — not a lot of concrete items, but she said she has plans she can bring back to her teachers.

One item Antoine told the Cape Girardeau educators about was the way students get the teacher’s attention.

“Here, students raise their hands to get the teacher’s attention,” Antoine said, but at Respire, the students will call, “Madam?” and hold out a different number of fingers to indicate what they want: two fingers if a student needs a pencil, four if he or she wants to go outside, and so on, Antoine said.

Antoine said one of the major challenges her teachers face in Haiti is a language barrier. Haitian Creole is the common language, she said, but French is the language used to teach students in most Haitian schools.

“That can be hard for students,” Antoine said.

In first grade, Antoine said, the children can read or write just about anything in Creole, and they start with French later. At Respire, they teach English beginning in third grade, which is another major difference between Respire and most other schools in Haiti.

Students at Respire learn French, math, social science and experimental science from second to sixth grade, Antoine said, and they have Bible study because they are a Christian school.

In Haiti, there is no public-education system, and often, children from poorer families will move into a house where they do household chores in exchange for room and board. Known as restaviks, they often grow up uneducated, and it can be hard to escape that cycle of poverty, board member Harding said.

At Respire, an afternoon class called Jumpstart is aimed at helping older children, about age 8 and older, who haven’t been to school learn to read and write or learn other basics, Harding said.

“The restaviks have to work in the morning at their house; then in the afternoon, they can be with us,” Harding said.

A staff member at the school who operates much the same way a social worker would do in Cape Girardeau will keep an eye out for children who would like to learn but don’t see a way to it, Harding said, and the school will try to work with the children’s caregivers to see whether education is a possibility.

Respire doesn’t just educate children in the community of Gressier. Harding said the school also has a weekend feeding program for community members — some of them students but not all — which is somewhat similar to initiatives in Cape Girardeau’s public schools, such as the backpack program that supplies students who qualify with extra food and supplies to get them through the weekend.

Antoine said several students in Haiti would qualify as problem children.

“The first thing the teachers have to have is love for the kids,” Antoine said. “Some of them — not all, but some — if you don’t really love them, we can’t work with them. They need to be shown what love is.”

Kim Newman, who teaches English at Central Middle School and also has visited Respire Haiti for training, said transportation is another hurdle for many students at Respire.

Most walk, she said, and some will get a moto, or motorized bicycle, but the taxi system in Gressier can be expensive for children who likely don’t have the funds.

Newman said education has changed a lot in the 20 years she’s been in, moving from a punitive discipline model to a more supportive, intervention-based approach, for instance, but in Haiti, she’s seen teachers eager to benefit from professional-development training in everything from collaborative learning to positive behavior training.

“They’re really receptive,” Newman said of the teachers in Haiti.

At Respire, Harding said, one of the hardest things for founder Megan Boudreaux was and is the importance of keeping class sizes manageable.

“To keep the integrity of the program, we have to turn some away,” Harding said, adding, “How do you turn away a child begging to go to school? That’s very hard.”

This educator exchange between Respire Haiti and Cape Girardeau area schools is a program Harding said she and the board hope to continue, despite challenges.

“Visas are hard to get,” Harding said, and before coming to America, the Haitian teachers would need to be fluent enough in English to benefit from the program.

“Our plans are to continue,” Harding said.

mniederkorn@semissourian.com

(573) 388-3630

Pertinent address:

1900 Thilenius St, Cape Girardeau, Mo.

Gressier, Haiti