Lately I have been listening to a lot of early, Baroque, and early Classical music. Mozart, Corelli, Byrd, Bach... I have avoided Brahms and his Romantic contemporaries. So I thought I would share with you all (whoever that is that reads my blog!) a quote by Madeleine L'Engle from her book Walking on Water:
"Wagner is fine if the world around one is stable. But when the world is, indeed, in chaos, then an affirmation of cosmos becomes essential."
I find that often in this country, in this life, the world is in chaos. So I listen to music that seems to put the pieces back together. I know (pardon my music-nerdness) that at the end of every four bars, Mozart will give me a nice cadence. I can predict where a Bach piece will go next. There are few surprises; there is a lot of stability and familiarity. There's something comfortable and soothing about listening to a Corelli trio concerto after a long day of feeling incompetent in this culture and language. I know the language of the music. So maybe, in a way, this "affirmation of cosmos" music has become a safe place from which I adventure out into the Wagnerian, Brahmsian, and sometimes even Glass-ian world in which I live.
Food for thought.
Friday, November 26, 2010
Sunday, November 21, 2010
Teaching First Grade
(Warning: this is a long post. But read it - it's worth it! And there's a picture if you can make it to the end...)
This year I became a first grade teacher. Funny, right? That's what I thought, too, when my boss first told me. I have 8 six-year-olds; they are the students the normal first grade teacher labeled as stupid or badly behaved, so they gave them to me! Also funny, right? These kids are at a kindergarten level, but they are NOT stupid. Most of them learn quickly and LOVE school - they're just the kids that couldn't learn by the Dominican system, which is copying words off the blackboard into your notebook all day. I'm pretty sure my kids got the better end of the deal: in my class, we have circle time, read-alouds, centers, crafts, and LOTS of fun! Thanks to wonderful friends and family members with years of experience and lots of resources, I have an amazing "classroom" in a corner of the cafeteria. We play with magnetic letters, tangrams, lacing cards, puzzles, pocket charts, sorting games, watercolors, playdough, and LOTS of books! We are learning phonemic awareness, letter recognition, handwriting, about the calendar and the weather, and counting.
Has it been easy? Absolutely not. Has it been a source of joy? Absolutely. I'm pretty sure I learn more than my students every day. I got a lot of supplies, books, and advice in Chicago in October, and jumped in with both feet when I got back to the DR. It has been a crazy fall, but I am so grateful for the chance to teach these kids and show them that learning is fun and that they can be successful in school. I love that every morning I get greeted with hugs and "Buenos dias, profe!" I love that my students are friends! Here are some great successes, things my students have learned in the past 6 weeks:
Ok, time for "funny, right?" moment #3:
The first day I taught first grade, I had no resources, no schedule/structure, and no idea what I was doing. After class, I sat in the office with my journal, and God said, "Hey Emily, I think you're supposed to teach elementary school." To which I promptly replied, "Hey God, actually, I'm going to be a high school choir teacher, but thanks." End of conversation. The next day, God said, "Emily, seriously, you're going to be an elementary school teacher," and I said, "Um, no. Remember how I was a music major and love choir and am going to be a high school choir teacher? Yep, me too. Still what I'm going to do with my life." After about two weeks of this, I said to myself, "Maybe I really AM supposed to be an elementary school teacher... that's terrifying!" And I'm pretty sure God laughed a little.
So now I find myself in this position of being called to teach elementary school. I have discovered that I have a passion for making sure kids learn the essential skills they are supposed to learn in the first few years of school - basic literacy skills, math skills, behavioral and relational skills. I actually enjoy lesson planning, and I love reading books on teaching literacy - weird, right? And here's the kicker: I know without a doubt that there are kids in the United States who are missing out on these skills. It's not just kids in the 3rd world who don't learn to read. It's kids in North Philly, kids in DC, kids in inner cities across America. And it's kids whose parents can't read them stories before they go to bed, kids who use all their energy to survive, kids who fall asleep hungry. These kids live in the United States, not just the Dominican Republic, and they need teachers who will fight for them, teachers who will teach them to love learning.
Please be in prayer for me as I continue teaching these little guys. Pray for wisdom, creativity, patience, joy, love, and more wisdom! Also pray as I continue trying to figure out what God has for me and what my calling looks like.
So that's my story. If you've made it this far, you're a trooper! I wanted to tell it all at once so that from now on I can just talk about my class without having to give the backstory. To reward you for reading this far, here is the promised photo, plus some bonus! We did a class photo shoot the other day - have you ever tried to control 8 6-year-olds on top of a jungle gym?
In the "lineup" photo, L-R: Nairoby, Alicia, Monica, Wander, Keila, Ambiorix, Alidia, Cristina
Here's my "classroom": in the corner of the cafeteria (hence the plates of food on the table) with a tape square for them to sit on during circle time. That windowsill is my storage place during class where I keep all the stuff the kids aren't allowed to touch. The kids drew those self-portraits when we were learning our names - I think they're pretty cute.
This year I became a first grade teacher. Funny, right? That's what I thought, too, when my boss first told me. I have 8 six-year-olds; they are the students the normal first grade teacher labeled as stupid or badly behaved, so they gave them to me! Also funny, right? These kids are at a kindergarten level, but they are NOT stupid. Most of them learn quickly and LOVE school - they're just the kids that couldn't learn by the Dominican system, which is copying words off the blackboard into your notebook all day. I'm pretty sure my kids got the better end of the deal: in my class, we have circle time, read-alouds, centers, crafts, and LOTS of fun! Thanks to wonderful friends and family members with years of experience and lots of resources, I have an amazing "classroom" in a corner of the cafeteria. We play with magnetic letters, tangrams, lacing cards, puzzles, pocket charts, sorting games, watercolors, playdough, and LOTS of books! We are learning phonemic awareness, letter recognition, handwriting, about the calendar and the weather, and counting.
Has it been easy? Absolutely not. Has it been a source of joy? Absolutely. I'm pretty sure I learn more than my students every day. I got a lot of supplies, books, and advice in Chicago in October, and jumped in with both feet when I got back to the DR. It has been a crazy fall, but I am so grateful for the chance to teach these kids and show them that learning is fun and that they can be successful in school. I love that every morning I get greeted with hugs and "Buenos dias, profe!" I love that my students are friends! Here are some great successes, things my students have learned in the past 6 weeks:
- to recognize their names and their classmates' names
- to read a book by looking at the pictures
- to read, write, and hear the five vowels
- to track words (put a finger on each word as they read it) as they read repetitive sentences
- Green Eggs and Ham. They have literally learned it - memorized most of it!
- what rhyming words are (they also learned this one through Green Eggs and Ham!)
- to think creatively and logically (still working on this one) with puzzles and tangrams
- to work quietly in pairs during center time, and clean up after themselves
Ok, time for "funny, right?" moment #3:
The first day I taught first grade, I had no resources, no schedule/structure, and no idea what I was doing. After class, I sat in the office with my journal, and God said, "Hey Emily, I think you're supposed to teach elementary school." To which I promptly replied, "Hey God, actually, I'm going to be a high school choir teacher, but thanks." End of conversation. The next day, God said, "Emily, seriously, you're going to be an elementary school teacher," and I said, "Um, no. Remember how I was a music major and love choir and am going to be a high school choir teacher? Yep, me too. Still what I'm going to do with my life." After about two weeks of this, I said to myself, "Maybe I really AM supposed to be an elementary school teacher... that's terrifying!" And I'm pretty sure God laughed a little.
So now I find myself in this position of being called to teach elementary school. I have discovered that I have a passion for making sure kids learn the essential skills they are supposed to learn in the first few years of school - basic literacy skills, math skills, behavioral and relational skills. I actually enjoy lesson planning, and I love reading books on teaching literacy - weird, right? And here's the kicker: I know without a doubt that there are kids in the United States who are missing out on these skills. It's not just kids in the 3rd world who don't learn to read. It's kids in North Philly, kids in DC, kids in inner cities across America. And it's kids whose parents can't read them stories before they go to bed, kids who use all their energy to survive, kids who fall asleep hungry. These kids live in the United States, not just the Dominican Republic, and they need teachers who will fight for them, teachers who will teach them to love learning.
Please be in prayer for me as I continue teaching these little guys. Pray for wisdom, creativity, patience, joy, love, and more wisdom! Also pray as I continue trying to figure out what God has for me and what my calling looks like.
So that's my story. If you've made it this far, you're a trooper! I wanted to tell it all at once so that from now on I can just talk about my class without having to give the backstory. To reward you for reading this far, here is the promised photo, plus some bonus! We did a class photo shoot the other day - have you ever tried to control 8 6-year-olds on top of a jungle gym?
In the "lineup" photo, L-R: Nairoby, Alicia, Monica, Wander, Keila, Ambiorix, Alidia, Cristina
Here's my "classroom": in the corner of the cafeteria (hence the plates of food on the table) with a tape square for them to sit on during circle time. That windowsill is my storage place during class where I keep all the stuff the kids aren't allowed to touch. The kids drew those self-portraits when we were learning our names - I think they're pretty cute.
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