Hi, I’m Peter.
You are probably wondering who I am.
I started teaching English in refugee camps for people escaping from Vietnam and Cambodia. We didn’t have hardly anything. Shelter from the sun. We couldn’t teach when it rained because the banging on the roof was too loud. No computers, videos. Maybe a couple pens, maybe some paper though as often as not we were writing on each other’s hands and arms. Because we always each other. And a desire to learn. Big kids brought little kids and tried to get them into class too by having sit in their laps. If any kid got kicked out of the class because it was full, they didn’t go far. They would stand outside by the door and window to watch and listen in. In that time and place English was magic. A flying carpet that really could take you to whole new worlds- Australia, Canada, America. That’s who I am.
The place I come from, Washington, DC is interesting to know, but doesn’t tell you much about me.
My education; philosophy and religion at Middlebury College and later a Master’s in Teaching English as a Foreign Language, reveal how I have practiced looking at the world.
The places I have worked, studied, and lived in the world: The Navajo Nation, Nepal, Panama, Pakistan, Thailand, Hong Kong, The Philippines, Vietnam, and Japan; have each knocked me down, picked me up and made me a better person. But who I am. Who I am is the person my first students saw in me, the person they showed me I could be.
You are here now. You want to learn English. You make all the difference. And I am here for you.
You have so much to share with the world and English is one of the best ways to do that. Thank you for learning English.
I believe in you. Do you believe in you?
Keyboard Village 