Life as a teacher

The van was finally fixed today so we got to travel by car but in reality I didn't really like it. I would rather have the fresh air.  I was so excited on the car ride over to the school to see the kids. One of my favorite parts of being a teacher is walking into the classroom and hearing the kids yell Miss Abby. The kids at the orphanage have just started doing that and seriously just melts me heart every time. These kids also look adorable in their little orange school uniforms.

One of the main things we are taught as pre-service teachers is to be prepared for anything. We are also told that we need to be able to think on our feet when lessons don't go as planned. In Haiti we do not create lesson plans we just do our lessons based on what we think the kids need to know. I feel so unprepared when walking into these classrooms but I just go with it and try to teach as best as possible. One of the hardest things is the language barrier but they want us to fully immerse the kids in the language. I don't know how many times Haley and I have looked at each other and thought what the heck are we supposed to be doing! We are slowly learning and getting an understanding for how the school is runs.

One of the cutest things happened today at the school. So the kindergarten class was outside playing. One of the girls picked something off of the ground and ate it. Soon the teacher was asking the little girl what she put in her mouth. She just stood there and acted completely innocent. The teacher just kept asking and asking. After asking the little girl stuck her tongue out and she ate a piece of chalk. The teacher in me was saying don't laugh but I couldn't help but laugh because her tongue was all white and it had gotten on her lips. Chalk is very special out here. They have a limited supply of it and we have been told to never let go of it because the kids will take it. I guess they will also eat it!

When we got into the kindergarten classroom one of teachers showed us an art craft she wanted us to do for class. She literally had picked one of the hardest things to do. It was a flower that was more like origami. I would maybe do it with a fourth grade class but we were doing it with kindergarten. It was asking us to cut out over 300 squares to create the flower for the students to make and they gave us ten minutes to get prepared. So just imagine 21 kindergartners running around the room while Haley and I frantically cut out squares. Let's just say the craft was a disaster.

In the other classes that we were teaching today they told us to teach the kids how to type. For anyone who has seen me type I am not the greatest typer nor do I have any idea on how to teach typing. The teachers also did not tell us that we were going to be teaching typing today so they literally just threw us to the wolves. For not having a clue of what we were supposed to be doing I would say we did pretty well. Tonight we both looked up activities for the kids to do to work on typing so hopefully tomorrow will go a little better. It was also very hard because there was only one computer per three kids. So the two kids who were just sitting were getting distracted and bugging other students.

Haley and I decided to go to the beach today. (shocker) I don't think I could ever get sick of going to the beach. I love reading and listening to my music on the beach. We had one heck of a tap-tap ride back. First of it was all younger guys on the ride. Just put that together. We were very happy to get off when it was over.

Before coming on this trip I had all these intentions of changing the school and really helping these teachers. As we are on week two of the trip I am realizing that there is way too much that needs to be done in this school. There is no way we can accomplish that in the three weeks that we are here. As much as I want to help the school you can't do everything we are only human. My main goal is to love on these kids because they love the attention. I just love how they are becoming so comfortable with us. I am starting to catch onto all of their personalities and what they like to do.

With Love,
Abby