Tuesday is the first day of the new school year

Tuesday is the day! CCES will be beginning the new school year with lots of new teachers, and lots of new students. There are over a hundred students signed up now, and if this year is like previous years, they will continue to sign up students well into September. After that, new students will still come, but not daily.

This promises to be a very difficult beginning. CCES has several new teachers who have minimal Sign Language skills and no experience teaching deaf children. You may wonder why we would hire such.

It comes down to this: there really are not any qualified teachers of the deaf available. CCES looks for Christian teachers--and thankfully, they are abundant. But there are more qualifications. The Secretary of Education will hire only teachers who have been licensed through the university system and passed an exam given by the Secretary of Education. (Only a small percentage of licensed teachers pass this test.) Teachers who know sign language are scarce. Teachers who have a degree and know sign language, scarcer still. Teachers who have a degree, can sign, and have passed the test given by the Secretary of Education are almost non-existent--and the few that exist are already working in schools for the deaf.

So the choice they have is to either have no education for the deaf, or to hire unskilled, unqualified teachers, train them on the job, and hope they succeed. This sounds terrible, and it is, because it means that deaf students will not be getting the quality education they should unless they get one of the teachers who has been trained in previous years.  Why even bother?

It is worth it for several reasons. First, the very most important thing we can do to prepare these children for life, and especially for coming to know the Lord, is to give them a language. Most who don't attend school will not learn a language. Even with inadequate teachers, deaf children learn a language just from being around other deaf children. 

Second, the teachers who start out knowing nothing, often end up being excellent teachers within a single year or two. It's a sink or swim situation. Many learn to "swim" beautifully. Each year new teachers are added, and each year more are trained, so progress is being made.

If you are a teacher of the deaf, and you would like to come and participate as a volunteer in the training of new teachers in Santo Domingo, let us know. CCES needs you! Spanish is nice, but not absolutely necessary. ASL is required. You can offer a school year, a semester, a month, or just come for a few days and give a workshop. Interested?  See this page for details about volunteering.

As always your prayers are desired. Please pray that teachers and students will settle in quickly to the work at hand, and that in everything God will be honored and glorified.