You have nothing to fear but a class of high school students (Celebrating World Fair Trade Day, part 2)

In March, Yannina told me she wanted to visit a class to celebrate World Fair Trade Day in May. “Kids are the ones who grow up to change things, so better we talk to them about fair trade than organize a march or something.” Sounded good to me. We discussed her ideas for a presentation to an elementary school class, confirmed that Sam and I would go with Yannina to present, that Sam and I would plan the presentation, but that we would all deliver it together and that we would have an artisan to demonstrate his or her craft and talk with the students.

I went with her to a school meeting to present our ideas to the administration and we left with two dates in May to present to the 5th grade. Since they weren’t keen on Simon coming along, Sam or I needed to stay behind each day. Therefore, Sam and Yannina were to do the first presentation on Thursday, in English, and Yannina and I would do the second one on Friday, in Spanish.

I worked on our presentation. One day, I was asking Yannina about different May dates we had held in our calendars for various Manos Amigas responsibilities. As she went through her calendar, she gasped. “Dios mio! I am scheduled to go to Lurín with a college group all day on the 25th, the same day that you and I are going to the high school. Ay! What should we do?”  I looked at her blankly, not really sure what I should say. I was pretty sure that “Let’s cancel it” wasn’t an appropriate response.

“High school?” I said. “I thought it was 5th grade.”
“Yes,” she said, “5th grade of high school.”

I didn’t quite get it. “How old are the students?” I asked. “10?”
“Oh, no! They’re 16 or 17.” She thought for a minute. “Christina can go with you.”

Based on the lack of communication at Manos Amigas, I wondered when and if Christina would find out about this. Probably the morning of, I thought. Ok, whatever. My new worry was that I was presenting to a class of high school students.

The next week, Yannina told me that Christina wouldn’t be able to go to the high school presentation with me. “What should we do?” she wondered. Argh! ¿Por qué? ¡Porque Perú!
A: “You are sure that I’ll have an artisan with me, though, right?” 
Y: “Yes! Yes! Of course! Rosa will come. I will call her right now.”

I wondered why she was asking the artisan that lived the farthest away – 2 hours by car – to come to the presentation, when there were far more that were closer and could speak to fair trade just as well.

But at this point I felt helpless. I was about to be set loose in front of a class of high school students who would mock my Spanish, or my clothes, or my hair, whatever – they are high school students! they are ruthless! I remember! – and I would have no official-fluent-Manos Amigas-kind-soul there to save me.

A: “What do I do if Rosa doesn’t show up on time?”
Y: “I will tell her to arrive to your apartment at 8:30, so she will be there by 8:45. Then you can take a taxi and get to the school on time.” Yannina seemed so confident that it would all work out that I figured it was worthless to try nail down details, phone numbers, backup meeting places, etc.

I tried not to worry that I was
1) DELIVERING A PRESENTATION,
2) TO HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS,
3) IN SPANISH, and
4) ALONE.

Any one of those by itself would be fear-inducing to me, let alone four of them together!

I prepared for the class, wrote out what I wanted to say, practiced, etc. In some ways I was excited to deliver a speech in Spanish. It was something I would be proud of myself for doing afterwards, but dreading right up until it ended.

And so it went. Sam and Yannina’s presentation went fine. Sam had adapted a presentation that one of his volunteers had designed for students, an activity where they were the artisans and had to buy materials, create a product, and sell it for a pretty low price. They didn’t end up having an artisan with them, but Sam’s activity was excellent enough that it didn’t matter. The teacher also didn’t pick them up from the office until 15 minutes into the class, so they didn’t have all of their time to present anyway!

I hadn’t planned to do Sam’s activity since I am not as fluent in the language of fair trade as he is, and I would have a hard time facilitating a conversation about the principles of fair trade (in English, let alone in Spanish) and how they related to their artisan activity. Instead, I was planning to split my presentation three ways: who Manos Amigas was/what they did; have the students present each of the 10 fair trade principles and I’d give an example of how Manos Amigas complied with each one; and the interview with Rosa.

On the morning of my class , I took a taxi to the school once Rosa hadn’t shown up. (I called Yannina every so often to see if I should keep waiting for Rosa or if I could leave yet, and each time she promised Rosa was “only 5 minutes away!”). I got to the school several minutes before the class started, thankfully met Rosa at the security desk, and went in.

In general, I am good about having a poker face while frightened, so while I was super nervous, I tried to be friendly and joke around with the students as I set up my presentation and attempted to involve them with questions, mostly met with silence. I went through my presentation, full of colorful pictures of the different products Manos Amigas sells, who the artisans are, to which countries Manos Amigas sells.

I had budgeted about 15 minutes for Rosa to deliver her presentation and explain more about her products, fair trade, etc, and had reviewed it with Yannina beforehand. I’m not sure Rosa knew, though. I had a number of questions to ask Rosa in case she was quiet, and had given her about six to answer as her presentation. But I didn’t have nearly enough questions prepared!

Rosa was mute. The class was mute. Even the teacher was mute! I had thought he was my ace in the hole, having provided him with questions to ask Rosa if the students didn’t have any of their own. “OK, great,” he said. “Thanks for giving me that.” But then he asked only one, despite my prodding. I kept asking questions, trying to pull more of her fascinating story out for the students, but I didn’t do a compelling enough job to get anyone talking. She showed the class two or three of the dozens of products she had brought, and they were impressed.

But their favorite part of the presentation by far was when Rosa answered a cell phone call while I was asking her a question.

And so, when we had 10 silent minutes to go, I thanked the class and we left. The class gave us a round of applause, which echoed down the hall and stairway as we slowly walked out. I felt so bad that Rosa had traveled so far, bringing lots of samples, but with so little actual interaction with the students.

On my bus ride home, I thought through several things I could have done differently. I’ll make those changes for my next high school presentation… which will be never!