So
Tuesday morning I stepped through the gate of Hope International
School of Arts and walked to Miss Holly's classroom. I'd been in it
once before, but only to peek around and say 'hi.' I found the sub
plans on the desk and began reading through them. I found a smal
white box with a red top fashioned with a bow on it, and opened it to
find the chalk for the chalk board. I scrawled my name in the corner
of the board, grabbed the black towel and wiped away the date,
entering in the new one as chalk dust collected on my fingers. A
little round face peeked in the room and smiled at me.
“Good
morning,” I greeted her.
“Good
morning,” she replied.
“What's
your name?”
“Mercy.”
“I'm
Miss Amanda.”
She
nodded shyly, hiding a smile and ducked back out to the courtyard to
play with the other kids before the proverbial bell rang. (I'm
pretty sure it was just a whistle being blown)
When
it was time for the day to start the kids lined up at the door,
waiting to be allowed in. As the filed in the room I asked each
their name, and told them mine in return. Mercy, Noella, Chloe,
Prince and Hasanni walked in and stood behind their desks waiting.
For what I wasn't sure. Chloe lead the class in saying good morning
to me, and the day began.
After
some Bible time of reading about a missionary and working on
illustrating the memory verse for the week we had some worship time
and sang a song a capella style with Hasanni and Mr. Stephen (the
Tanzanian assistant) drumming along on the desk top. Next was
language arts time and after going over the assignment I watched the
kids work together in their groups to create a cheer that focused on
verbs. It gave me time to think and remember how much I miss
teaching. Truly teaching.
Not paperwork, not meetings every second day, not politics- just
teaching. The kids were excited about learning, excited to work
together on a project. And they did such an amazing job! After
language arts it was time for break. The kids all went outside for a
little while and I got to chat with a couple of the other teachers
who asked how the morning was going (it was only 10am). After about
20 minutes we returned to the classroom to a tray of watermelon and uji layed out for the kids' snack. They each grabbed their mug
(uji (oo-ghee) is a cream-of-wheat type substance but much more filling,
made with soybeans, peanuts and different flours, etc.) and their watermelon and
headed over to the reading chair for read-aloud time. Then it was
time for math. Since it's a two grade split, there are two groups of
kids on different levels of math (acutally there's a third, one girl
is on her own level and the assistant does math with her). So one
group got some leftover work finished up while I got the other group
started on their math. Once they got the concept and we did a few
problems on the board they were ready to go on their own so I started
with the other group. They were working on multi-digit
multiplication and didn't grasp it quite as quickly as the other
group. So we sat and worked out problems with manipulatives, worked
out problems on the paper using different ways to get the answer, and
they finally started getting it.
That's
when it happened.
As
I stepped back and watched them do one last problem on their own and
they were doing all the steps and getting it right, and seeing where
they forgot a step and going back and fixing it – when I saw that I
knew – I was ready to be back in the classroom. This is my
passion. It's what I live for – being able to teach and see the
progression from confusion, to understanding, to mastery. I was so
proud of the students for pushing through and battling with the
problems until they got it! And frankly, it made me smile inside,
knowing that I was able to teach two students (one Tanzanian and one
American) how to do mulit-digit multiplication – because it took me
a minute to remember how to do it after all these years :)
Before
I knew it the day was over. It was noon and almost time for lunch!
The core curriculum at Hope is taught in the morning, then in the
afternoon it's electives time (drama, PE, art, photography classes,
etc.). The afternoons are also opened up for area home-schoolers to
come take part in a la carte type classes. I said good-bye to the
kids, reminding them that I'd see them tomorrow for picture day and
my heart was happy. The joy of teaching had been returned to me and
it felt so. Good.
The
kids were amazing, so sweet, so eager to learn. The atmosphere was
soaked in the Holy Spirit and so relaxed and fun – it really,
really
made me want to get back in the saddle especially if it's here at Hope School.... or is it on the saddle? -
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