A Whole New World...

Today was my first actual day teaching on my own, and I have already learned so much and experienced so many new things.

Part of that simply comes from working with elementary school students as opposed to secondary, with whom I have more experience. It's amazing to me how quickly the children get attached to you. I teach sixth grade in the morning, and was suprised to find out how quiet and shy they were at first. By break-time, however, the girls in the class were already coming over just to say hi and observe me as I did some planning. They would wave at me throughout the day whenever I saw them, and made sure to say goodbye to me this afternoon.

Interestingly enough, even students outside my class quickly befriended me. I had a small group of 2nd grade girls telling me all about themselves at lunch time and showering me with questions about who I was and where I'd come from. One of those girls ran up to me after school and gave me a big hug and excitedly told me about a number of things.

Not all of the differences come from working in elementary, though. Some of them come from the simple fact that I'm in a different culture. You might be aware of "mas o menos" time in Mexico, which means "more or less": in other words, when you plan on meeting or starting something at 8, you're on time if you show up more or less around 8--generally, 10-20 minutes late could still be considered "on time". Well, every morning at 7:30 AM, the school does staff devotionals, and then classes start at 8:00. This morning, it made me laugh to see the staff so relaxed at 8:05 as devotionals were still finishing up, whereas I kept eyeing the clock thinking "Okay, how am I going to change around the first 10 minutes of class so that I can still get everything done?" That's something I'm going to have to get used to, but I like it :)

The second big difference---which I'm sure is going to delight some of those who come from cold places like Michigan (as do I)---is the fact that school closes when it gets too cold! In fact, we're told that there will be no school tomorrow for this very reason; notes were sent home to parents today. Now, like you probably do, I think this is a bit funny, especially given that schools like Calvin won't even close when there's a couple feet of snow; however, I should say that it is pretty cold here right now--the temperatures might not be as chilly outside as in Michigan, but because the buildings are mostly made of cement and very few have heating, it can be freezing indoors (in fact, as I write, I'm bundled up in layers of blankets).

I could keep going with the differences, because there are so many of them; however, I'm sure you'll come to understand those if you continue to follow my blog. My point with this entry is simply to say that, if in one day I come to learn so many new things, I'm excited to see what this entire semester will show me about teaching, especially teaching in a different culture.