agradecido

Tuesdays are a rough day. We do writing, which is the least favorite part of English class for the majority of my students (and the hardest to teach for me), the week stretches out ahead of us, I need to start thinking about planning but don't want to, and the word looks really ugly when you write it out. Tuesday. Seriously? Not an attractive word. I rarely wear my Tuesday socks because of that. Also because they're actually really ugly.

Anyway. I should ban myself from posting on Tuesdays, as I'm usually pretty beat by bedtime.

This has been a rough week though. I had a good number of students do poorly on a quiz, and because I really don't want them to fail and I want them to know the material, I contacted parents and offered a study period and make-up quiz during my free lunches. In theory (and probably in reality) it was a good idea, but my goodness. So much extra work to communicate with all the parents and all of a sudden, all these kids have questions, which is GREAT but also I have about a billion things to do and I feel the extra drain of this on my time. I didn't get my quizzes made, my study guides for next week, or my lesson plans done on their normal days. I've been scrambling to catch up in every spare moment.

Sorry. Too much rant. Needless to say, I was very tired and wondering if it's really worth all the life I put into this.

Then today, I was awarded Teacher of the Month for Middle School. The award itself, not a big deal. I mean, I'm a little pleased to have received it, but I also know it could have gone to any of my colleagues because they're all quite deserving (more-so than me, in my opinion). It wasn't the award. It was the wording that went with it that noticed the work I've been doing and the effect it has on my students and the promising future I have ahead of me.

I needed to hear that it matters, and there's promise there, especially after this week.

I am thankful, both for the award AND that tomorrow is Friday.

Please notice the wonderful use of the BFF conjunction pair both/and. Yeah 6th grade :-)

PS - Agradecido means thankful. It's a word I've seen in a lot of the parent communication I've received this week.  Estoy agradecido por sus agradecida.

The things I don't know, and wouldn't mind learning sooner rather than later

I don't know how to be this person.

I don't know how to balance whole group instruction with the very real needs of individual students.

I don't know how to balance doing my job well with having a normal life.

I don't know how to do my job well.

I don't know how to develop real, unforced friendships intentionally.

I don't know how to balance the fact that this is truly one of the greatest things I've ever done and that this is also one of the hardest things I've ever done.

I don't know how to convey all those emotions to people who aren't here without giving them the impression that it's all good or all bad. It's new. It's good and bad.

I don't know how to give up all the stress and anxiety and worry and doubt and anxiety to God and trust that he's working through me.

I don't know.

But I'm working on it.

I don't know what else to do.

As seen or head in Room 4...

"I'm excited because I will be Mr. Kroon" (journal entry speaking about ring excited to travel with me for Festival Catracha. Written by a female student.)

"Once suppon a time..."

"Ms. Kroon plays x-box all day. Ms. Kroon barks like a dog. Bears are made out of cheese." (build your own sentence with subjects and predicates.)

"Ms, you should have 5 Grammys. You are Angelina Jolie."


"meeeeees...."

"mees?"




"Hello Ms." (at lunch)
"Hi, did you need something?"
"No, I just came to see you."

Roots

Today I feel dry.

My skin, well, yes, it's been a while since it's had any sort of proper care. Silly 5:30 am showers.

But not really my skin.

I am in the midst of my 4th week of teaching, and I'm feeling drained. My enthusiasm, my ideas, my stamina... it's all waning. I'm feeling my inadequacies more, I'm feeling my inexperience more, and I'm feeling my inaccessible standards of success weighing down on me. I'm also feeling my English slipping away with each verbal or writing interaction with students. Whoops.

I sat alone in my room today, and I felt it all. The weight that has been building over the end of last week and this week finally hit me, and I felt the real threat of being crushed by it.

I came home, called my mom, and fell apart. I sent facebook messages to people who I trust. I gchatted with dear friends. I even got a "short" phone call in. All those roots, the relationships that, although they are farther away than I'd really like, dug in to hold me into place.

It sounds corny, I know. Nerdy, yes. But it's truly what I feel and see when I think about tonight.

It's so nice to have people to draw on when I feel like I've got nothing left.

Thank you.

And there are even purple rocks here.

Sometimes I feel like I'm in a foreign country. Usually I don't. Yes, my students are all ELLs, yes, I buy food with Spanish labels and wait in long, inefficient lines to buy it with thousand of lempira, but still, everything seems relatively normal. People ask what Honduras is like and I say busy, because right now, for me, Honduras is more or less equivalent to teaching on my own for the first time, which is more or less equivalent to spending all my time at home or school.

This weekend, my roommates, two other teachers, and I went out to Honduras' famous lake to stay for a couple of nights. This was because we had Friday off for Honduran independence day, which was another foreign experience for me. I should post about that too. Man, more to add to the to do list.

Anyway, as we were hiking through beautiful mountain jungle (the next mountain over is home to jaguars, ocelots, and toucans, but ours mostly contained blue morpho butterflies, coffee plants, beautiful flowers, gigantic lemons, and banana trees) to get to a real live waterfall, it hit me. I live here. I live three hours away from jaguars. I live in a county where there are just random waterfalls and you can hike out there and swim in them for free (at your own risk, of course, although, there really aren't any signs). I live in a country of lush green mountains. I live in a country of flowers that we would have killed for at my landscaping job back home. I live in a country where mangos and oranges and guava and avacados grow freely.. I live here!

On our way back to the bed and breakfast, we stopped at a pulparia (small store) to get some more water and chocolate. The little girl there was coloring away, drinking a bottle of 7 up. When she finished it, she threw it out in the grass behind the shop to pile up with previous bottles, chip bags, and who knows what else. This is such a common sight, and it's so sad to see so much trash EVERYWHERE. On the bus, I saw eyes that clearly and obviously only saw me as a foreign object to be oogled. This too happens everywhere, especially to those of us who are gringas. Every man in the country has a right to whistle, stare, or comment, because this country is a man's world. Again, as I was sitting there hugging my roommates backpack to help cover up, I though, this is where I live. I live here.

And I do. It's not always out of the ordinary, because it's becoming my ordinary. Yes, there are surprises. I suspect there always will be. But it's my life. I live here.

Why I love my job

A response for the imaginary friend project.

Chewy is my best friend,
We play since morning til the end
He lets me play with his crossbow,
But I shoot to the target and shout WOW!

He is big and hairy,
He would rather be called Murry.
His other best friend is Han Solo
and he loves the word YOLO.

When I was in high school and I got really overwhelmed or stressed, I would get physically ill. My body would decide it had had enough, and that'd be that.

Once college hit, there wasn't time for that. I don't really know how I handled stress in college. I think that maybe it didn't get to me because I was using it as a way to avoid thinking too much.

This week? No time to be sick, the only thing on my mind to escape from (or really ever) is the same thing that I'm stressing about, so that's out....my body has turned to tears. Tears brought on for reasons, out of the blue., about friends, family, fall. Tears for students, tears because of students, tears because all the uncharacteristic tears.

It's annoying, and it makes me feel weak and ashamed of myself.

But I have to remind myself that this is all new. Teaching is hard, moving is hard, new relationships are hard, change is hard. It's ok to cry. I just wish I was a little closer to people whose shoulders I know.

Total (sleep) depravity.

People who know me would probably agree that I like to be and feel successful. I've never really played sports because I'm not good at them and hate losing. Bad grades brought on mini-life crises. I struggle whenever I feel like someone doesn't like me to a point where I'll sometimes bend who I am to avoid being the bad guy.

And I can't do that, can't be that right now. I have to let some things go and do the best I can, even if it's not the best ever. I need to be willing to make decisions that my students might not like as much for their own good, and possibly for mine right now. I need to figure out when to be the bad guy.

The question that has been going through my head this past week is this: How do you know what your students know?

Am I using our time wisely? Can I be more effective? What is realistic to expect of myself?

When do I get to sleep?

Oh, first year.

On the bright side - here are after-school volunteers to help Ms. Kroon have a picture to show friends and family. Based on the line-up, I think it's safe to say there will be at least a couple more to follow.

The other bright side? Well, there are a couple every day. These kids are great. So that's a thing. But the most recent one was actually pretty dark. A big thunder storm rolled through this evening that cut out our power for almost an hour (rhyme time :-D ). A night that was supposed to exclusively be spent being productive had a nice break of chilling with the roommates in the dim light of the storm, unable to work because of my dead computer. I needed that today.

I have spent a good portion of the last couple days grading procedures quizzes. Again, a lot of students. This is the last time I'll say that. Maybe.

I realized after printing all the quizzes that there were a couple of true or false questions that were almost trick questions, so I felt guilty and therefore gave silly extra credit questions. The questions were: What is Ms. Kroon's first name? and What is Ms. Kroon's favorite color?

While grading tonight, I was a little surprised to see which students did well and which ones didn't. More often than I would have expected, the ones who I'm starting to feel like I know didn't do that great and the ones who I generally know nothing about did pretty well. The guy in the back who I think is never paying attention? A perfect 12/10. The kid who I think hates my class because he's goofing off all the time? He knows all the expectations AND the reasons behind them (which was not required). The girl who sits quietly in the front row? She knows my first, middle, and last name, AND knows that I don't usually use my middle name because I'm not convinced my names go well together. And she wrote the answer to my favorite color in purple pen.

The first week I felt invincible. I felt like the world was my stage. If I could get names down, I could do anything. Or something.

This week I'm learning how much more there is to learn. And I'm learning just how many people are listening. The responsibility is feeling greater.

Stimulation (not to be confused with flight simulation, which was the topic of one of the writing samples I read today)

I went to the market downtown this morning. So many things! Nearly every fruit and vegetable imaginable (except, of course, all the ones normally grown in Northern Michigan - apples, cherries, peaches, pears, asparagus, etc)! Liver, tongue, stomach, fish, shrimp, and other random slabs of meat just hanging around, waiting to be chunked up and sent home. Flowers and freshly prepared food, cheese and eggs, and even random juices that were ladled into bags and tied around a straw. All packed under a covering of tarps that were not QUITE tall enough for this American girl.

It was so visually stimulating! Everything was exciting and new (even though most of the food was more or less familiar) and everyone was speaking in a language that I understand to a point, but isn't MY language.

And, even though it was so good, I felt a tad bit overwhelmed and worn out.

I've been reading through my students' writing. I'm loving the chance to get to know them a little better, but I'd be lying if I wasn't at least a little daunted by the challenge a lot of their writing presents. They've got great content and ideas, but the mechanics of English verbs and prepositions need some work.

And then I remember, it's only the first week. There's been so much going on, they're moving into new building and a completely new system of changing classes and they're learning and speaking and writing in a language that isn't THEIR language. And I felt overstimulated?

Oh, my brave, creative, funny, intelligent babies.

I really think they're great.