Today, I...
saw a movie dubbed in Spanish and understood a good 89% of it! Great feeling.
missed my bud Patrick Lyons. We had a good talk on skype about school, city culture, and finding yourself. I'm looking forward to having these conversations in real life.
realized I am going to miss lazy days like today where all I do is look up chords for Disney songs on my ukulele.
learned that I really have paid zero attention to US politics in these last five months.
smiled when I looked at the collection of bracelets, hair clips, and drawings I have accumulated from my students.
--Hannah
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Day 163.
Today, I...
saw a man smoking as he ran at the track. Counterproductive much?
missed blasting music on a car ride.
realized I am going to miss all the fresh fruit. Today I had papaya, straight cas (something I had never tried before -- VERY acidic), banana, mango, and manzana de agua (a water apple that tastes like roses). Yay for farmer's markets!
learned just how smart two of my students are. Major changes are being made at the Refuge...tension about the whole being lax and forgiving vs. teaching and enforcing discipline has been mounting and transformation is taking place. My entire class got less than 30 out of 54 points on their last test, except for Karen and Kassandra who both got over 50. While I'm going back to review the chapter with everyone else, I let these two girls work ahead in our books. They completed a weeks' work of lesson plans in 40 minutes.
smiled when my students made what I call "Built-Up Build-Me-Up" poems in typing class. Each girl wrote their name at the top of a word document and then rotated to the seat on her immediate right. I gave them 45 seconds to type a nice trait about the girl who's name was on the screen and had them then rotate to the next seat. When all was said and done, each girl had a monitor full of positive comments. I always have each girl tell me one thing she learned before she is allowed to leave for the day; Ana (a tattooed and troubled girl who has threatened to beat several girls/leaders/leader's daughters) sent me a giant grin and beamed, "I learned that I have friends who really love me."
--Hannah
saw a man smoking as he ran at the track. Counterproductive much?
missed blasting music on a car ride.
realized I am going to miss all the fresh fruit. Today I had papaya, straight cas (something I had never tried before -- VERY acidic), banana, mango, and manzana de agua (a water apple that tastes like roses). Yay for farmer's markets!
learned just how smart two of my students are. Major changes are being made at the Refuge...tension about the whole being lax and forgiving vs. teaching and enforcing discipline has been mounting and transformation is taking place. My entire class got less than 30 out of 54 points on their last test, except for Karen and Kassandra who both got over 50. While I'm going back to review the chapter with everyone else, I let these two girls work ahead in our books. They completed a weeks' work of lesson plans in 40 minutes.
smiled when my students made what I call "Built-Up Build-Me-Up" poems in typing class. Each girl wrote their name at the top of a word document and then rotated to the seat on her immediate right. I gave them 45 seconds to type a nice trait about the girl who's name was on the screen and had them then rotate to the next seat. When all was said and done, each girl had a monitor full of positive comments. I always have each girl tell me one thing she learned before she is allowed to leave for the day; Ana (a tattooed and troubled girl who has threatened to beat several girls/leaders/leader's daughters) sent me a giant grin and beamed, "I learned that I have friends who really love me."
--Hannah
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Day 159.
What went down this weekend:
- Finally saw Avatar today! Very impressed by the special effects -- finally CG faces had some emotion to them. I will say some parts of the love story were a little weird, but I really wished I lived on a planet that lit up.
- Yesterday morning, I played Ultimate Frisbee with some students from the language institute. It was a good time and it made me want to play with Luke when I return.
- I also went to the pool yesterday with some girls who are going to work in Carpio after going to language school for six weeks. Let's just say my face looks like I just pulled it out of an oven.
- Overall, I walked around San Francisco (my suburb) in the hot hot heat for more than two hours yesterday. Good work out!
- Tomorrow I'm going to have a sleepover with Alanna at Carmen's house. We're going to watch the Star Wars movies with her kids.
- This last week has been somewhat of a rough one at El Refugio (that's the name of the alternative school where I teach -- it means "The Refuge"). Every single one of those girls has been through so much pain, and every single one of them is looking for something; that's why they come. Having said that, it is very easy to split the students into two groups: those who show up to study, and those who don't. There are a handful of girls who love playing soccer, coming late to class, and disrupting others. They are also the girls who have been known to threaten other students (they have a gang-related past/present) to the point where bullied girls refuse to return.
Carmen and Lorena, the cooks who live in La Carpio, have absolutely zero tolerance for this group and have hinted that these girls shouldn't be allowed to attend if they're not going to put their studies first.
Then there's Jesus, who as my host mom put it, "was known for eating dinner with sinners." What are we supposed to do? It's not right that these girls show up with absolutely no interest to improve our success rates, gain from our efforts, or learn from what we have to teach them.
But since when was it right to have those expectations? When did we get in control? Our job is to plant seeds. God is the one who is going to make them grow.
Yes, to be a teacher you have to know how to push your pupils, but to be a Christian you have to know how to display God's love. At times that love presents itself in forms of discipline, other times it appears in rivers of unending mercies. How do we know which to use in difficult situations?
I re-read an amazing essay on poverty by Cranford Joseph Coulter and found this Dietrich Bonfoeffer quote: "We need to relate to people less according to what they do or omit to do, and more according to what they have suffered." It's easy for Carmen and Lorena to be frustrated with the girls -- they have had to live the same life and I'm sure they would give anything to have had the opportunities as young women that these students are presented with every day. But for some one like me though, some one who has food on the table, a roof over my head, and much more important than either of those things: loving parents (and host parents) who respect me and have my up-most respect, it's impossible to even imagine the dark, empty places my students have been to and go to every day.
This verse has really presented itself to me during this time:
And it's that same love that will keep me going.
--Hannah
- Finally saw Avatar today! Very impressed by the special effects -- finally CG faces had some emotion to them. I will say some parts of the love story were a little weird, but I really wished I lived on a planet that lit up.
- Yesterday morning, I played Ultimate Frisbee with some students from the language institute. It was a good time and it made me want to play with Luke when I return.
- I also went to the pool yesterday with some girls who are going to work in Carpio after going to language school for six weeks. Let's just say my face looks like I just pulled it out of an oven.
- Overall, I walked around San Francisco (my suburb) in the hot hot heat for more than two hours yesterday. Good work out!
- Tomorrow I'm going to have a sleepover with Alanna at Carmen's house. We're going to watch the Star Wars movies with her kids.
- This last week has been somewhat of a rough one at El Refugio (that's the name of the alternative school where I teach -- it means "The Refuge"). Every single one of those girls has been through so much pain, and every single one of them is looking for something; that's why they come. Having said that, it is very easy to split the students into two groups: those who show up to study, and those who don't. There are a handful of girls who love playing soccer, coming late to class, and disrupting others. They are also the girls who have been known to threaten other students (they have a gang-related past/present) to the point where bullied girls refuse to return.
Carmen and Lorena, the cooks who live in La Carpio, have absolutely zero tolerance for this group and have hinted that these girls shouldn't be allowed to attend if they're not going to put their studies first.
Then there's Jesus, who as my host mom put it, "was known for eating dinner with sinners." What are we supposed to do? It's not right that these girls show up with absolutely no interest to improve our success rates, gain from our efforts, or learn from what we have to teach them.
But since when was it right to have those expectations? When did we get in control? Our job is to plant seeds. God is the one who is going to make them grow.
Yes, to be a teacher you have to know how to push your pupils, but to be a Christian you have to know how to display God's love. At times that love presents itself in forms of discipline, other times it appears in rivers of unending mercies. How do we know which to use in difficult situations?
I re-read an amazing essay on poverty by Cranford Joseph Coulter and found this Dietrich Bonfoeffer quote: "We need to relate to people less according to what they do or omit to do, and more according to what they have suffered." It's easy for Carmen and Lorena to be frustrated with the girls -- they have had to live the same life and I'm sure they would give anything to have had the opportunities as young women that these students are presented with every day. But for some one like me though, some one who has food on the table, a roof over my head, and much more important than either of those things: loving parents (and host parents) who respect me and have my up-most respect, it's impossible to even imagine the dark, empty places my students have been to and go to every day.
This verse has really presented itself to me during this time:
I Corinthians 13:3Is this not the truth? We can do all the good we want in all the ways we want, but if it's not for love, it's not worth it. And above all, we must remember that these hurdles, these hardships -- they're not ours. They're God's. If camp taught me one thing, it's that I am an incredibly weak being. My Spanish is still so lacking. My patience falters more often than I want to admit. My body needs sleep. It was God's love, sent to me through the smiles and sunsets, that kept me going.
"If I give everything I possess to the poor and give over my body to the flames,
but have not love,
I have nothing."
And it's that same love that will keep me going.
--Hannah
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Day 156.
Today, I...
saw my students get excited about learning. Holy man that's a great feeling.
missed pop tarts.
realized I am going to miss meeting new people all the time. Oh wait, I'm going to college!
learned that my math class has pretty much doubled in size, half of the girls now six weeks behind the rest of the class. They're really holding their own.
smiled when I asked my students "What's one thing you learned today?" (something I try and do at the end of every day). Lorena, one of the cooks, was sitting in as an extra presence -- the bigger the class, the less control I have -- and her answer was this: "Hannah, I learned how much work it takes to be a teacher. I congratulate you." That kind of comment seems so much more valuable than any number of zeros at the end of a salary.
--Hannah
saw my students get excited about learning. Holy man that's a great feeling.
missed pop tarts.
realized I am going to miss meeting new people all the time. Oh wait, I'm going to college!
learned that my math class has pretty much doubled in size, half of the girls now six weeks behind the rest of the class. They're really holding their own.
smiled when I asked my students "What's one thing you learned today?" (something I try and do at the end of every day). Lorena, one of the cooks, was sitting in as an extra presence -- the bigger the class, the less control I have -- and her answer was this: "Hannah, I learned how much work it takes to be a teacher. I congratulate you." That kind of comment seems so much more valuable than any number of zeros at the end of a salary.
--Hannah
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