•May 16, 2012 •
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What a HUGE learning curve God has brought me through this quarter personally! I thought walking into this school year it would be straight forward and a lot easier because I taught first grade last year. I was sorely mistaken! God had bigger plans for me.
Seriously, every day for the first two months of school something went wrong. I am not exaggerating when I write this. I am being completely honest. EVERY DAY there was SOMETHING! For me the first week, I was understanding of “problems” because it was only the first week. However after week 4, 6, 9… (you get the idea) I found myself out of patience! I continually found myself “inconvenienced” and “annoyed” that everything I was hoping to be done or was expecting to be ready was not done in the way I wanted. I also forgot about what it means to start back at the beginning of the year with my students and adjusting to a new group of students. I kept wondering when I was going to stop having these “issues” so that I could start effectively teaching and ministering.
For the first two months of school I was missing the point of what God was trying to teach me. He wanted me to grow through all of the “inconveniences and annoyances”, not to try and get out of them. The little “issues” everyday are how He is refining me. I thought they were the problem and God showed me they were the solution to His plan: transforming me to be more like Him.
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•May 16, 2012 •
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The start of the school year was difficult for many of my students. The majority of them struggled a lot with their English comprehension. After the first few days of school, I was completely overwhelmed with how far behind they were.
This quarter I did my best to work along side of the parents in being honest about where their child was at and the help that they need at home. This required having many parent meetings! One week I remembered having 7 meetings in three days!
I am thankful that God gave me the time to connect with the parents because, in most cases, the parents were able to be honest about how the child felt about school. Understanding how the child feels about school is extremely helpful as a teacher in helping me to have more compassion.
One mom told my how her son cries every night when he has to read and how he gets down on his knees and asks God to help him to read. He also asks God why it is so hard for him to learn English. The mom told me she has to leave the room because it is so hard to watch her son struggle, but not be able to help him. She does not speak any English. Realizing the toll that learning English takes on my students has really challenged me as a teacher.
The rewarding factor to this quarter is that God has been so good in answering my prayers, the prayers of the first grade parents, and the students’ prayers! It has been awesome to watch the transformation in many of my students academic levels these past two and a half months! There still is much progress to be made. But it has been fun to encourage my students that were struggling so badly and point out how far they have come and how awesome they are doing with their English.
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•May 16, 2012 •
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In a country where it never rains, and a school that was without water for two days…. I was surprised to find my classroom FLOODED last Thursday morning!
Walking down the hallway early in the morning I saw my light on and a mop and bucket outside my door. My thoughts: “Hmm… that is weird. The cleaning guy has never left his stuff out before and my light on.” As soon as I walked through the doorway, I understood why! I COULD NOT BELIEVE IT! There was an inch or two of water covering my floor! All I could say out loud was: “OH. MY. WORD. You have GOT to be KIDDING ME!” (If there was a hidden camera in my room I probably could make money off of my shock!)
Thankfully the water did not really ruin too much. It flooded in the “perfect” spot… minus the library books that got soaked and a few kids crafts that got ruined.
Behind the bookshelf there was a spot where the paint was bulging with water so they poked a hole in it and it just poured out water for several minutes! It sounded like someone turned on the faucet!
Minor detail: All of this took place 15 minutes before the kids walked into the classroom.
Thankfully I just waited a half hour and taught in a different room while waiting for them to finish cleaning everything up! I greeted my kids with exciting news. I told my them we got to go on an ADVENTURE instead of going to the classroom… they thought it was AWESOME! That is one thing I really appreciate about teaching First Grade, you can turn the lamest thing into the coolest thing in 10 seconds flat. I have discovered it is all in your delivery and energy level! :)
Oh the adventure of teaching in Peru!
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