The Peace Corps

The Peace Corps is an agency of the U.S. government. Established in 1961, the Corps has three goals. The first is to provide trained manpower for Third World nations. The second goal is to teach foreign people about American culture, through contact with Americans. And the third goal is to afford volunteers the opportunity to learn about other cultures, again through firsthand contact. The education function of the Peace Corps pertains to all three goals. As one African educator observed, "Peace Corps teachers have been a force for development and change, and they still are" (Rice, 1986, p. 32).

Much of the Peace Corps' current recruitment strategy involves encouraging the participation of college undergraduate students, particularly those with liberal arts backgrounds. The agency maintains recruitment offices in major metropolitan areas of the United States. Recruiters visit colleges, speak at career planning functions, and disseminate literature about the Corps: "College students interested in joining the Peace Corps are tailoring their academic and extracurr

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ns that are similar to those of their students. Students are likely to see their teachers in the marketplace, in the parks, and on the streets, where informal parent-teacher conferences are possible. As one teacher in the South Pacific noted, "The kids I taught were always with me, and I loved them even more than I once loved my privacy" (Martin, 1995, p. 95). Rigid theoretical curriculum is a challenge faced by most Peace Corps teachers. School authorities in many host countries are committed to a pedagogy that is characterized by rote memorization, translation, and recitation. The didactic model of teaching is used, in which the teacher mainly lectures and writes notes on the board. The students mostly listen and take notes. Their progress is evaluated by means of written tests. Besides the tests given in the classroom, a significant number of students around the world are subjected to periodic national tests. Thus, test preparation is given priority over creative learning: "Because the overseas schools emphasize preparing students for extremely high-stakes national tests, teachers must cover large amounts of curricular material" (Bombaugh, 1995, p. 41). Peace Corps teachers are often given syllabi at the beginning
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