Manuel Antonio

Yesterday I took my first day trip to the beach!  We went to Manuel Antonio where the National Park is.  In this park, they have animals in their natural habitat: sloths, lizards, iguanas, monkeys, crabs, insects, birds, etc.  It was very cool.  Our tour guide used to live on the property, so he told us about his childhood home and his experience with the park area since he was little.  He showed us a picture of his home when it used to still stand on the property, and he showed us a memorial in the park that was made in honor of his father who was killed by a falling tree in the park when our tour guide was only 11 years old.  It was special to have a tour guide who knew so much about the park that he literally had lived in it before it was the park.

While we walked through, we were very glad that we had paid for the tour because otherwise we wouldn't have seen anything.  When we walked through, literally this is all we saw:

This is what our tour guide saw and pointed out to us:

After seeing the park, we went to the beach which was also gorgeous.  The sand was so fine and the landscape was just beautiful.

We went to lunch, and then hit some of the souvenir shops on the beach and hung out on the beach a little more.

It was a great day :)

Teaching Days

Yesterday, I had a horrible, awful day.  It was not really the whole day, mainly just the last hour of the day.  I was teaching a math game (multiplication baseball), and it was a whole class activity.  I knew that the students would get excited about the game, and they were already a lot more chatty than any class I have dealt with.  Therefore, I had no idea what to expect, and I should have been prepared for it to get out of hand.  The class was all screaming and laughing, and even I couldn't get the game straight because of the noise and chaos.  I did a few things to try to adjust the noise level and the way that things had gotten out of hand, but it was very difficult.  I should have pulled two girls out and given them refocus forms (a disciplinary act that my teacher does in her classroom), but I didn't remember that as an option (I haven’t had to take this measure before with this class).  Thankfully, she stepped in and did this.  In the chaos of the moment, I was trying to figure out how to make the game work and was letting a lot of classroom management techniques fly out the window.  After school, I was very upset and just felt so overwhelmed and like a horrible teacher.  I had NO hard feelings against my class, but I just knew that I had done it all wrong.  (Thankfully my teacher was VERY understanding and supportive.)  I honestly fought back tears in talking the situation out with my teacher, but she made some very good points and gave me good advice with how I could've handled the situation better.

Today, I came into the classroom with a whole new attitude.  I was well prepared.  I knew that I needed to have all of the structure ready before I started my lesson.  The less transition time there was, the better focused and behaved the class would be.  I worked specifically on showing my personality and excitement in my teaching and on maintaining classroom control.  This took saying a few different things that I have not yet tried like, “All eyes on me!” or “Give me five!”  Even some of these little rhymes that I have begun trying out worked very well.  I had the class’s attention, and I felt that students understood the lesson well.  I felt so relieved to have the day go so smoothly and to have maintained classroom control.  I am very aware that this is a work in progress, but I am very happy with the things that I am learning.  I am very confident that at the end of this placement I will truly be a much better teacher.

Community Service

On Saturday I had the privilege of doing some community service with Wendy, another student teacher, and some of the girls in the high school.  These girls are in charge of a group that organizes opportunities for community service that students at school can take part in!  They mainly work with a woman named Gale who is stationed in La Carpia.  Apparently, this is one of the worst parts of the city.  When I mentioned to my host that we went there, she was very surprised and hoped that we had been accompanied by someone (don't worry, we were).  Part of the reason that La Carpia is such a dump is because it was not intended for anyone to live there.  However, many people live there, and it is a clear place of poverty.

Gale (located at the top of the photo hugging the child) came over with the peace corps a number of years ago, and she has been here ever since.  The people who live in La Carpia all know her and respect her very much for what she has done for their town.  While she has been here there have been many many different projects that she has become involved in.  She mentioned that she had built 30 houses, she built a small clinic which is now a school building and library.  

While we were there, she told us about some people whose homes were right on the side of the mountain.  When a bad rainstorm came, there was a mudslide and many people lost their homes.  One fifteen year old girl was in one of the houses and died because of the mudslide.  One woman whose home was destroyed has 2 children and now nowhere to live.  She doesn't have a job, food, or anything else.  Gale gave her food for her and her children and gave her some laundry detergent.  She could not help rebuild her home because the land is no longer there.  

Gale is working to expand her school/ library building, so we were in charge of picking up trash, leveling the ground, mixing cement, and pouring cement.  Let me tell you, that is some tough work.  My arm muscles were definitely getting a work out (even for how big they are! ;) ) We worked from about 9:30-12:00.

It was nice to see a different part of town and to learn a little more about Costa Rica.  It was definitely inspiring and really cool to see how Gale has loved on the people of La Carpia.  I was thankful to be able to help out in a small way during my visit here.

Subtle Reminders of Loved Ones

Starbucks Morning reminds my of MY GALZ

The Angry Birds section of the book store reminds me of JOSHUA

RINNO and the Costa Rican Settlers of Catan 

Donuts with MY GALZ

The lovely journal that JOSHUA sent me with.

RINNO, our denim swap has served me well.  Your shirt has now been worn in Costa Rica.

Chaos

Teaching is CHAOS.

I think that I have not realized this until recently because of the laid-back nature of my last teacher.  It just seems that there is so much going on in my placement currently.  I am moving into taking over writing and math this next week.

What does that mean?  That means that I plan 9 lessons for the week.  Within those 9 lessons, I am planning centers for 4 of them.  What does it mean that I am planning centers for 4 lessons?  That means that I am planning 3 activities, lessons, or games for each center.  Let's make that 12 mini-lessons.  On top of that, in mathematics there are 2 different levels- low, medium, and high.  I need to differentiate each center to the specific level of thinking.  So for math, lets take those 9 mini-lessons (the other 3 mini-lessons are for writing) and multiply them by 3 because I need to do 3 different activities in order for all the students to benefit from them.  That's 27 mini-lessons for math, 3 mini-lessons for writing, and 5 full length lessons.  (At least I've proved that I've got math going for me!)  All of that is done simply for taking over 2 subjects.  And I did not include the fact that I am reviewing my cursive, my narrative writing skills, and creating homework for these subjects as well.  Planning is CRAZY.

CHAOS doesn't stop there.  The students are chatty and all at different levels.  My lesson today felt very choppy because of this.  Some of the students needed the review and a short walk through multiplying by 0 and by 1.  Other students in the class have their multiplication by 9 memorized, so of course, these students continuously shouted out, "This is SO easy!!" and the answers to the problem as soon as it came up on the board.  It's hard to feel in control of the class when everyone is talking and basically running the lesson.

Students are not only at different levels academically but also in their emotions and maturity.  This causes CHAOS in the activities and lessons that would normally be fun and engaging to the class.  One student refuses to do things--so the teacher has to drop everything that she is doing in order to solve a discipline issue.  It doesn't stop there.  The student still refuses to do what she asks.  Another student can be referred to as having frequent bursts of energy.  Those bursts of energy may include hitting himself in the face for no reason or yelling loudly or falling on the floor to be funny.  While honestly sometimes its funny even to me, it is often a distraction to the class.  Thankfully, this week my teacher has been taking care of these things while I am teaching.  However, in a few weeks, I will be in charge of this as well.  I will help one of the students fill in his discipline plan every day after school.  I will send emails home to parents who need to be notified about their child's behavior.  I will pull the student in the hallway and send them to the office if necessary.  I'll be honest in saying that I have very little practice with this.

These are only a few things that teachers deal with daily.  Be thankful for teachers.  They do so much that is unrecognized, and despite what some say, their job is hard.

Even though this sounds like a depressing blog post, it is not.  I am thrilled to be pursuing teaching.  I'm thrilled to figure out how to make this work, and I know that after much more practice I will get the hang of things.  I am especially thankful for the opportunity to be learning some of these things (such as planning, discipline, and supplementing materials) before I get into my own classroom.  I am also thankful to experience a cultural classroom and learn from an awesome teacher.

The CHAOS of teaching is one of those amazing paradoxes that are so hard for me to wrap my mind around.  What a challenging but beautiful opportunity to be teaching children, seeing them grow, and even learning from them.

Teaching is CHAOS.

Praise God for such a beautiful CHAOS!

First Day Teaching

Today I taught my first lesson!  Here are my teacher's notes about it:

Morning Meeting-
You talk with a good authoritative voice and the students respond to you. 

Math-
Good job paying attention that all students answer and participate.
>>Good use of repetition "even numbers"
>>The students were applying what you taught to their work!

Feeling good so far with some positive feedback!  I take on Math for the rest of this week, Morning Meeting, and leading the students in line and transition times.

The plan for the rest of my time here is:
October 30 >> Math, Morning Meeting, Line/Transition Time
November 4 >> Math, Spelling, Language Arts, Helping Write Morning Message
November 11 >> Math, Spelling, Language Arts, Science, Writing Morning Message Alone
November 18 >> Math, Spelling, Language Arts, Science, Reading, Morning Message
November 25 >> Spelling, Language Arts, Science, Reading, Morning Message
December 2 >> Science, Reading
December 9 >> Nothing (Observe a few other teachers)
December 11 >> Last day in the classroom

Enjoyed a Te Chai Latte this evening from Starbucks with Wendy.
(They wrote both of our names as "Wendy" on each of our cups.)

Here's to having a sun burn in October!

 Welcome to my home.

They don't go by road signs here...but I still do.

The kitties gather to make a decision.

As long as I can still have my Starbucks morning.

Farmer's market advice: Bring a bag.  Wear shorts.  Put on sunscreen.

My classroom for 8 weeks.

Beautiful view from my window.