Relationships

Now I know I have not written a blog in a while, but I was particularly inspired to write this message in the shower this afternoon. I know, the shower of all places! Well, God speaks to us all the time regardless of our location.

As I grow through life I have discovered that there are all kinds of people in this world. When we grow up we begin to learn the best ways to deal with different types of people. It is something that I deal with as a teacher everyday, trying to teach young people to see different perspectives and ways to deal with others who are very different from them. However, I have also learned that there are some people who, no matter your command of social skills, you cannot deal with. Now God has been teaching me lately that it is with these people that we can no longer depend on our own social abilities but we have to depend on Him for the wisdom to maneuver those relationships. Sometimes certain people require the absolute grace of Jesus and without that the relationship, (no matter the kind), would just explode in destruction. No matter how much I know now, God continues to teach me day after day, and I continue to need Him more and more for everyday things (such as relationships). Some days I have to ask God simply for the words that I should be speaking. I am truly helpless without Him, and I know this: God is ALWAYS faithful. He will see us through difficult relationship. He will see us through tough times. He will see us through any circumstance that comes our way. We just have to humble and cling to Him: OUR ROCK.

Better Late than Never

Okay so I admit I wrote this blog a few weeks ago, but have not had a chance to get the blog uploaded to the internet. Thus I am uploading it late! Sorry.


So this blog has been mulling in my mind for a few afternoons and it is time to put it down.

There are days where your strength absolutely comes from God. (Not that you can ever do anything on your own). Instead I simply mean that there are days where you cannot even consciously or unconsciously bring yourself to complete all the things that need done in a day. You feel like you don’t have the energy to lift your head off the pillow much less complete a day of demanding work, to come home and then end the day with everyday life’s work. It is these days that are good for us. They remind us at the end of the day that without God we would never make it. We know that it was God who had brought us through another day, even successfully completing all the things that needed done. It was only with God’s strength that we made it through the day. It is this kind of a day that makes us more grateful on the other days. When we feel like we have the energy and the strength then we can remember to praise God for getting us through the exhausted and the non-exhausted days. Truly these days remind us that we have to rely on God EVERYDAY!!

I guess this comes to my mind as I have begun the normal work routine again after a week of vacation. Not that this week was bad at all. It is more of a sleep schedule adjustment. Actually, there was one day this week that really reminded me of why I am a teacher. I also realized how important my job is as the only American teacher at Rainbow.

So I am reading “Holes” with my students. If you have not read the book the following may not make much sense. However, the gist of it is this: at one point in the book there is a white schoolteacher in Texas who falls in love with a black onion picker over 100 years ago. The townspeople kill the man after they find out, and the schoolteacher becomes an outlaw. I came to the part in the story that talks about how the onion picker could not go to school because he was a Negro. As I read it I watched my children to see if they understood what I was saying. I realized they had no idea what a Negro was and so I stopped and asked them. Basically it spurred an impromptu American history lesson about slavery, post-slavery and the fight for civil rights. It was tremendously interesting discussing this with my students as the only American in the room. Most of my students concluded that they were glad that both they and I were born now instead of 100 years ago. They felt that at least life is fairer now, and they also pointed out that my marriage is accepted now.

As far as the importance of being an American teacher, I can use my background as an American to help them understand the context of the story. I was also amazed by how little they knew about the slavery and civil rights movement in the U.S. But it makes sense because of the British influence here. Most of them did not realize that at one time in America black and white people legally could not have access to the same things.

Now when I think about it I realize how far we have come as a country. Yet at the same time I can see how much more we have to go. It is sad to sit there telling the students about how things have changed but to truly know in my heart that there is still so much unfairness that exists. I would love to say, “And now racism is not a problem in America. Everything is fair and nice. There are no problems based on race or prejudice.” Yet I can’t do that. At the same time I have thus far avoided discussing the current situation except for Obama (of course). I cannot bring myself to try to explain the intricacies of institutional racism that still exists in America, (and the other types as well). However, there will come a day when they will learn. The knowledge they are acquiring now will only lead them to understand why it is still here and where it came from.

Half-term Begins

Well I had wanted to write this much earlier, however I have time now…so now it is!

Last Wednesday I finished off the parent teacher consultations. They went amazingly well. The biggest problem was the scheduling and timing. I said that the ten minute conference makes life much easier…however it also makes life much harder. I am not the sort of person to kick people out, and often I wanted to hear what the parents had to say much more than I wanted to keep time. I know, I’m American I should love to keep time, but alas Africa must have had its’ effect on me. Overall though I heard a lot of great things from parents and had some interesting conferences. There were no irate parents. Most of them were very happy and grateful for what I do as a teacher. It is always refreshing to get that kind of feedback.

Then on Friday was the swimming gala!! Okay so those of you not up to date on the Rainbow School news…there are four “houses” at Rainbow: Rwenzori, Impala, Ssese, & Kyoga (RISK). Every student and staff member is assigned a house and the houses compete throughout the year to win the end of year trophy. Well this was the first Primary sporting inter-house event. Let me tell you…it was incredibly fun! It was also absolutely chaotic, though not as bad as I had thought it would be. The students all divided into their houses, and us staff went to our respective houses. Then we spent the day at the pool having various races and competitions, including a cheerleading competition. Now I love Kyoga. Its’ color is blue and Lake Kyoga is where my husband is from…so it is a great house for me to be in. However, I was sorry at the end of the day for us Kyogans. We were absolutely last. It was quite sad. We were missing about 5 students, our best swimmer got sick, and all sorts of other mishaps happened. Overall, we had a good time, even though we lost miserably. (Apparently we rarely win the swimming gala…we don’t have the good swimmers I guess). I left the swimming gala excited for the half-term and proud of my Impala students (who barely won over Rwenzori).

Besides these exciting events at school life is going well. It is now half-term for me, which means that I have been teaching for 8 weeks now! It also means that I have a week to relax and refresh myself for 7 more weeks. The next half term is going to be fantastic and probably hectic as well. We will have one field trip and we are also responsible for the school production for this term. We are doing “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” which makes me exceptionally happy!! Another teacher and I will be in charge of putting together the play portion. It should be quite fun, I am sure. This year’s students are very dramatic and will do a fantastic job.


Now for the non-school news:

Today was a beautiful day! It was slightly breezy with the puffy clouds. I was hanging clothes on the line to dry and realized how perfect the day was for laundry. It has been absolutely beautiful the last few days. I think we are getting a small break from the rain, (which is also incredible). The 70 degree weather does trick my mind though and I feel like I am still in August. I really realize it is October when I hear about my friends and family bundling up for the cold and picking pumpkins to carve for Halloween. I miss the fall, but I am not going to complain about this fabulous weather. In fact, it is so beautiful today that after I finish this I am going to sit on the balcony and read a book in the sunshine. Aaahhh...life is fantastic!

Parent Teacher Conferences-Day 1

I think I will take a brief moment to write a bit about the day. This is especially for my fellow teachers who may have experienced parent teacher conferences. Well, I just completed day one of the parent teacher consultations. I want to say that I think it is much easier than the ones in the U.S., though perhaps less informative. I worked hard yesterday to come up with 2-3 targets for each of my students for the rest of the term. Just small things they need to work on. Then today I met with about 8 parents for approximately 10 minutes each to discuss their children and what goals I created for them. The meetings took place after school. It was very casual, and simple. I found myself meeting with some very wonderful parents and was mostly able to express to them all of the important things about their child: both weaknesses and strengths. Of course, I could improve a few things. We have these meetings at each term, so next term there are some things that I have learned this time that I will be able to improve for next term. (My own targets for improvement in the term!) Overall, I made it through afternoon one of my first ever parent teacher conferences and I think it went well in general.

Otherwise, things seem to be progressing well, (oh that still sounds like I am in conference…sorry)! The students are looking forward to the swimming gala and I am looking forward to having Kyoga take the top prize! Go Kyoga!!!

Yesterday's musings

Today I realized something: I am teaching in an International school in Uganda. Now some of you may laugh and say, “Well yes of course you are.” But that is not what I mean. I was sitting on the back of a boda coming home from work today, and I just looked around. I saw the beauty of the Ugandan countryside. The huge storks were sitting in the grassy swampland at the bottom of the hill by my school, just resting. As I watched them, I once again saw the sheer beauty of the Ugandan countryside. It dawned on me that for five years I have been working tirelessly in school to become a teacher, always wanting to teach internationally. This has been my dream for almost five years. Yet, here I am, actually doing it! Sometimes in the course of everyday life here, I completely lose sight of this fact. I only see the dust, or the dirt. I only see how much I have to do by tomorrow. I forget the bigger picture: I am doing exactly what I want to be doing! I am doing what God created me to do at this moment. This is exactly where I am supposed to be. Sometimes, as we get bogged down with stress, pressures of everyday life we forget to look bigger. We need to remember why God really created us. What did He create us to do? Are we doing it? If so, what is so vitally important about that particular issue or problem that it should distract us from remembering that we are living God’s purpose. When we are living God’s purpose we should have peace that we are resting in His will. When we are in His will, He will take care of us...even for the little things. Those things that need to get done, that seem so pressing will actually get done- whether or not we stress about them. It is when we lose sight of the bigger picture I think, that is the moment we start to drown. Similar to when Peter took his eyes off of Jesus: only then did he begin to sink into the sea. I must remain focused, with my eyes on Jesus and His plan. What a blessing to be in the place God wants you to be!

Finally I have successfully updated my blog!

Okay, so I admit it has been over a month since I wrote a blog entry. I have tried several times, but every time something prevents it. It usually is the computer crashing. But this time I am determined to make it work! Alright, so it will be impossible to update you on everything that has been going on, but I will highlight a few things for you.

I have been quite busy adjusting to an entirely new curriculum and a life of full time teaching. I must give my education and training credit though. I often felt some of my classes were useless, but yet I realize how much I truly did learn from various experiences in practicum and classes. All of it I am now using, and I am glad I have been so prepared. I would not be enjoying my job nearly so much if I had not been so well prepared.

Now a brief note on teaching English language learners: I have an endorsement in that, though I admit there is still much I am learning. For example, I have one student with limited English, who speaks French. Now he is quite clever, but gets frustrated when he does not understand. I was teaching division and he spent two days absolutely frustrated with me, because he had no idea what I was talking about. Finally, after a three minute conversation with the French teacher the whole problem was solved. They write division differently in French. I showed my student the french method, which of course he knew then showed him the English way again. After a five minute discussion with the student he completely understood division in the English format! The rest of the week went fine for me and the student. I once again learned how important it is to be familiar with the students' cultures and backgrounds. Also, the feeling at seeing this student understand what was going on was so overwhelmingly good! Especially in math, I am seeing students struggle and struggle and then finally have light bulbs come on. It is this refreshing feeling that gets us teachers through!

Now, another thing I want to discuss is school closures. Yes, we were all somewhat ‘excited’ to have an early school closure day a few Fridays ago. I have had schools close for snow, for flooding, and I have even heard of schools closing for the ‘swine flu pandemic.’ However, never before have I been instructed on the procedures or had the experience of closing school early because of riots. But, yes we closed early for a riot. Mostly it was not such a safety issue as an efficiency issue. When there are riots in town, the traffic jam is horrendous. Now anyone who has been to Kampala, knows what I am talking about when I say the traffic jam. However, on the days of the riots, the jams were absolutely immovable. So, rather than having our students stuck in their cars for four hours in traffic we sent them home early to actually reach home at a decent hour. In case anyone is concerned about the safety issue, we are quite safe in this area of town, because it is a suburb of the main town Kampala. Never once, did we feel unsafe or anything of the sort. It was just a new and interesting experience. Of course, one I hope not to have repeated, but a good experience all the same.

Otherwise the teaching experience seems to be going well. I learn something new everyday, (though usually it is more than one something)! My students are so creative, noisy, fun, and loving. I have never seen such observant and open children. They notice everything! They also care a great deal, and work hard to do well on their work. They are so creative, especially with role plays. They are constantly surprising me, and often I find I do not have enough time for an activity because they are so excited they much more than I had expected.

As far as my club for this term. I am teaching five and six-year-olds how to play the recorder. I only have ten students, but that is plenty for recorders. I often look forward to this, though many may not understand this. It is so refreshing to be teaching the gift of music and the blessing of music. Yes, it may sound like noise, but we are going to make music! I was so proud last week when we were all able to play one song perfectly and together! We all stopped together, we all started together, and the rhythm was perfect. It was amazing! I know there will be magnificent music floating from my room soon. ;-)

Now life outside of school: I feel like I am well adjusted to life in Uganda. I can easily go shopping by myself. I know what things should cost, and I know where I can buy them at good prices. I also know how to get around myself, quite easily. I am making friends with other staff at the school, as well as a few friends at stores and markets who help me get nice vegetables, etc. I am loving cooking here. The food is so natural and fresh. I feel like I am in the best shape I have been in in a long time!! It feels great to have such natural food and so much exercise. I also get to bake a lot with the oven, which makes me very happy. I think I may try making Irish Soda bread today. I most often make biscuits and cookies. Anyway, we eat a lot of Ugandan food, as well as American. I have enjoyed taco salads, mashed potatoes and gravy, spaghetti with garlic bread, and hamburgers with chips (all of which I cooked!). Anyway, all of the relatively boring information is to show you that I am enjoying life outside of school as well as in school. God has been incredibly good at blessing me here. I see it in so many little things he does. He keeps us both safe and healthy. Neither of us has really been sick since moving to Kampala. Many of my students and the other staff have fallen sick, but I can feel God keeping me strong. I praise Him for all of these great things.

Another encouraging thing God did was to bring a few of my good friends from the U.S. to bless us here in Kampala. First we had a friend here on a Compassion International trip. We were able to meet up with him and enjoy a wonderful Italian dinner with him. It was really fun to see him and catch up on the latest things that been going on. Then we had another guest from Eugene. A good friend of my mine is working in Northern Uganda for a month and stopped by our house on her way up there. It was so much fun to have someone else in the house. We were encouraged to have her with us and to bless us with her presence. She is such a good friend and we are excited to see her more as she stays in Uganda for awhile.

OH, yes this last paragraph is dedicated to Erica Shawan!!! So, one of the other classes in our school did a wonderful assembly for Key Stage 2 (grades 3-6) a few weeks ago. They were talking about heros. They had Spiderman, Wonderwoman, and all the rest, but the best part was when they had famous people as heros. One of the students played the part of Michael Jackson. This student did the best rendition of Michael Jackson dancing to Smooth Criminal that I have ever seen from a 10 year old before! It was the funniest thing I have seen in a long time!!!! He even did the splits and a one handed handstand! It was amazing, and I wanted to share it with you all.

Well, I am planning on updating this again sooner than last time. Sorry again for the long delay. Just know that God is good and that He is always faithful! Trust Him for your everyday needs and He will look after you. He loves us more than anyone else ever could! I have seen this everyday, so I know it is Truth.

The first day of school!!

Well the first official day of school, with children, has finished. It is now five o’clock and I feel like I can relax. I have made the list of things to do tonight and have organized the class sufficiently enough for my peace of mind. Now I think I will go home as soon as I finish my blog entry. Overall, as a cooperating teacher once told me, if they are all still alive then everything is okay. Everything is okay!

Actually, this day has been great! It was really fun to finally have my own class and to be able to do things the way I want to do them. However, because I have never really done this before, I am still designing systems. I am working out how many baskets I need, etc. They all have exercise books for each subject that I keep here and need their own baskets. Then there is a place to put homework, work to turn in, etc. It will simply take time to create these systems. There also have to be behavior systems that are designed around this schools system and that will take some adjustment. But now everyone has two cubbies, and there are enough exercise books for all the students. In time though all the other things will be fine.

As far as my class is concerned, they are wonderful! I only had 19 students today because the rest are still coming back on holiday, but they are all terrific. I had two new students, both of whom are ELL learners with first language French. I have never been so glad that I took French instead of Spanish in high school. One of the students spoke some English, but the other used 0 English. It was kind of fun to use my ESOL endorsement in my teaching. I really needed it today!! Overall though, I think they will do fine. I also have a couple of students with IEPs who were also wonderful. I really enjoyed differentiating for them impromptu. Their schedule is not really set, and my lessons are not really grounded this week so I had not planned ahead for them. I did however, differentiate enough for them to participate in everything. I think it was successful.

I hesitate though to say that all went well because there is always, always room for my own improvement. However, overall, I think the students had a good day, and I did as well. I also think that with the first day of school jitters out, as well as a few seating changes, tomorrow will go well. I now have my first day of school nervousness out, and am ready for tomorrow. It know it is going to be a good school year!! Yay for this job!

Adjusting to the first year teaching in Uganda, does not seem like it will be any different from adjusting to teaching in any other school. Of course, most of this is due to the fact that I am teaching in an International school, but otherwise everything in my training is proving exceptionally useful in the classroom. I have used my SPED minor and my ESOL endorsement today, as well as sooooo many other things. I have to adjust to a new school, a new handwriting style (which was the most difficult part of the day-writing everything in legible cursive), and a new curriculum. But, it is absolutely a lifesaver to have two other teachers who know what they are doing, as well as two exceptionally helpful TA’s to assist me.

Overall, it has been a good day! Other than that, I think I forgot to mention in the lack of blog that I have been settled into a new flat in Kampala. We are upstairs which means our balcony views the valley below and at night we have a good view of the city lights. It is quite nice, and I do not spend enough time out there! The rest of the flat is quite comfortable. I have a stove with an oven!!!! This is my favorite part, as well as the hot water heater for warm showers to wake me up in the morning before school. There is also an extra bedroom for visitors!!!! Hint, hint. J It is also very close to the school so I can walk when I feel like I need more exercise or I need to get some extra energy out. God truly blessed us with this flat. I think it is a very good fit for us, especially compared with the other teacher’s houses, (which are wonderful but just different).

I could probably go on and on about things, especially how God is truly good, and is watching out for my new family, job, and life. However, I should probably leave school before six so I need to stop now!