2010.10.09: Jim Wolter served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Malaysia from 1961 to 1966
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2010.10.09: Jim Wolter served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Malaysia from 1961 to 1966
Jim Wolter served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Malaysia from 1961 to 1966
He was given a science teaching assignment in a small coastal town, and each morning he would cycle to the market to buy goat organs that his students could dissect - or, in some cases, take home for dinner. He later moved to a school that supposedly needed a math teacher. But when he got there, he found students who were so advanced that they didn't need his help. They earned some of the nation's highest scores on a standardized test, but when he was praised for his teaching genius, he protested that he hadn't really done anything. "I got a reputation as a great math teacher - and very modest," he said.
Jim Wolter served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Malaysia from 1961 to 1966
Pioneers in the Peace Corps
50 years after Kennedy proposed the Peace Corps, some of the earliest volunteers look back with pride
[Excerpt]
Jim Wolter, 71 Malaysia, 1961-66
The telegram informing Jim Wolter that he had been accepted into the Peace Corps arrived at a fortuitous moment.
"I was actually supposed to get married, but my fiancee and I weren't really sure about that," he said. "So for me, (joining the corps) was a socially acceptable way of standing up to my mother and prospective mother-in-law."
He was 22, a Chicago kid who had traveled only as far as DeKalb, when a plane whisked him off to Malaysia. He emerged into a blast of heat and humidity and a vista so green that it looked artificial.
He was given a science teaching assignment in a small coastal town, and each morning he would cycle to the market to buy goat organs that his students could dissect - or, in some cases, take home for dinner.
He later moved to a school that supposedly needed a math teacher. But when he got there, he found students who were so advanced that they didn't need his help. They earned some of the nation's highest scores on a standardized test, but when he was praised for his teaching genius, he protested that he hadn't really done anything. "I got a reputation as a great math teacher - and very modest," he said.
He stayed a teacher when he came home - joined by a wife, it so happened, he met in Malaysia - and pursued a career in special education. Even stateside, the lessons he learned in the heat of the tropics proved invaluable.
"Problem solving, getting resources, working with people and having absolute confidence you can handle anything thrown your way - that's what the Peace Corps did for me," he said.
Links to Related Topics (Tags):
Headlines: October, 2010; Peace Corps Malaysia; Directory of Malaysia RPCVs; Messages and Announcements for Malaysia RPCVs; 50th Anniversary of the Peace Corps
When this story was posted in November 2010, this was on the front page of PCOL:
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Story Source: Chicago Tribune
This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; COS - Malaysia; 50th
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