recruiting at its best!

ok. I'm seriously over-blogging tonight. Sorry! I just thought people might be interested in this. One of my professors from Northwestern talked to our principal when he visited in March and then sent me an email with questions to answer. I thought I'd just do a little copy/paste for anyone interested!

What are the rewards and fun parts of living in rural Honduras and teaching in a local school?

I love, love, love living here. I live with 3 other teachers in a little house in Villa Verde, our backyard is a National Park, and sometimes I want to stay forever. :) I have always said I wanted to live in Colorado because of how pretty it is, but here..... Colorado might have some competition. I have palm trees right in front of my door, a mountain to hike and just gaze at, and the most beautiful sunrises and sunsets. I have never lived in a rural area (I don't really count NWC), so it's been interesting to get used to the 'inconvenience' of things... however, I've grown to really appreciate certain things a lot more and to not care about other things as much. I go to town once or twice a week, but other than that I'm just at school and home and in our neighborhood. I tell people over and over again how simple life is and how much I enjoy that simplicity. I don't have a billion things coming at me every day. I have my work, my friends, God's beautiful creation, and my kids! The school is really beautiful too. It's a private school, so that normally means that only kids with money go there, but our school district (5 schools throughout the country of Honduras) has a really awesome scholarship program that partners Honduran families with American families to help pay student tuition. We have uniforms at our school (remember when that was always a debate in speech class?) and I finally see the benefit. I could not tell you which students in my class are on scholarship and which are not. Since it is a smaller school, the kids have also known each other for a long time, but if a new student comes in, I haven't seen any problems with them fitting in. It is really a beautiful environment to be in. A couple of our students are our neighbors, but most of them live in Gracias (20-30 minutes away). When I'm in town, I usually see some of my students and I love that!

What are some of the challenges that you have been able to overcome?

The obvious difficulty is the fact that English is not the first language of my kids, so you never know if the reason they don't understand something is because they weren't listening, your directions weren't clear enough, or if it's simply because their vocabulary bank isn't as large as yours! I've also found it almost impossible to correct the grammar in their papers. I think part of the problem is that the school has only recently become a part of Abundant Life Christian Schools- the students have not had a solid curriculum and from what I've gathered, they were basically taught whatever the teacher thought of. No curriculum was used and it was rarely the same teachers the next year. Now that we are using a specific curriculum, I think that will drastically help with filling in the holes.

Having a full curriculum has been great, obviously, but it has also provided its set of challenges. The curriculum we use is Abeca Curriculum which comes from Pensacola College. So, the curriculum is very conservative. I think this is great for the most part, and doesn't really hinder the students from learning. It is a really easy curriculum to follow and teach from and the flow from subject to subject and chapter to chapter is great. However, there have been a couple things within the curriculum- Reading, for example, that I've thought were a little too politically driven for me to feel comfortable teaching. Especially to a group of Honduran students that don't need to only here stories about the US. :) However, the really great thing about being a teacher is that you can choose how/ sometimes what you teach. For one particularly ridiculous story, I decided to turn it into a listening skills activity and just read to the students... and then left out a couple unnecessary paragraphs. If you don't make too big of a deal about it, I think it's pretty easy to see the benefits of the curriculum and then just work out in your classroom what you think is necessary to teach and what is necessary to leave out for the benefit of your students.

How important is it to know Spanish?

Knowing Spanish is not necessary at all, however it is obviously beneficial. The classes are all taught in English, and actually the school sometimes prefers teachers who don't speak any Spanish because then they are forced to only speak English to the kids and not take the easy way by just explaining something in Spanish. I have a basic knowledge of Spanish, but I try not to use it too much at school. I teach the regular 6th grade classes and also the music classes for K4-6 and while I definitely notice a difference in the grades as to how much each class can speak, it's also really exciting to see how quickly 1st and 2nd grade have picked it up as the year has progressed. We have a bilingual principal and for things like Parent-Teacher Conferences, there are people to interpret for you, so in school, Spanish is definitely not necessary. As far as things like buying groceries or getting a ride or arranging vacations.... it is good to have someone who at least has some grasp of the language, but of the 6 teachers that came this year, 5 of us are able to do enough fishing around with words to get what needs to be done, done. :)

The reason I wish I knew more Spanish is for the social aspect of it. I'm a person that really likes to get to know others and hear their story so.... to not be able to do that is very frustrating. I've made a big effort this second semester to try and have conversations with people even if I know I'm not saying things right because I've realized that's the only way I can begin to learn. For those of us not fluent in Spanish, all of us have felt that our knowledge of the language has improved drastically, so that's been great.

How do you get around?

Ohhh, transportation. This is a pretty fun topic. We walk to and from school each day, which isn't too bad, I usually leave my house 15 minutes before I need to be there. As far as getting to town, I also usually walk there, not because I need to, but because it's only about 50 minutes and it's a really beautiful walk. However, sometimes we also take moto-taxis which... I don't really know how to explain them, but they're our transportation and you can fit 3-4 people in one. (You can google it if you want :)) We have two neighbors that are taxi drivers and they are super accommodating for us. Sometimes we take the bus from school to town, sometimes one of the administrators will bring us down, but most of the time we rely on the moto-taxis. If we are traveling around the country for vacation or something, we usually take something called 'chicken buses' which is basically a school bus that they try and fit as many people into as possible. You can get a nicer, charter bus that's more expensive, but we usually just go with the chicken bus. It adds to the experience :)

How many students in your class?

In my 6th grade class, I have 21 students. There's only one class per grade right now, but our school is growing. Right now it's a K4 through 9th grade, but next year the 9th grade will stay as 10th grade and so on for the next couple years until we have all the way until 12th grade. I think the 9th grade class is the smallest with 10ish students, but most of the other classes are nice sizes... 16-25 students is our range.

Behavior problems?
I haven't seen a ton of behavior problems in my class that aren't like classes I've always dealt with. My kids are getting to the age where there's all kinds of emotional drama to deal with but I'm pretty sure that's normal. I also have the usual amount of kids that can't sit still, that can't be quiet, that have bad tempers, and that forget to turn in homework. I just deal with those in the ways I usually do. I would say as a whole, the school is VERY talkative, so as teachers we've spent a lot of time brainstorming different ideas for classroom management. (4/6 teachers are not education majors, so I've been able to help them out a little with my nwc classroom experience ;)) The only thing that I know has been a concern is the lack of a school counselor. We teachers and the principals have to take over that role often, so that has been minorly difficult, especially when it's students that would be able to learn better in a smaller group. We do have psychologists from the main school in Tegucigalpa that try to visit and check on these particular students to see if any diagnosis needs to be made, but it's a bummer not to have someone in our own school all the time.

Can you live on the money you make?

Right now, I can live on the money I make. Although we don't make very much, cost of living is way different here and I have been very comfortable living here. As a house, we've been able to get all the food we need/want, take a few trips, and pay for rent and internet. I have also cut down on costs by washing my own clothes instead of giving them to the neighbors and walking places so I don't have to pay for rides. I do have my loans deferred and only pay a little bit on them each month, so that's something my parents are obviously worried about but.... I haven't gotten to that point yet. :)

Communicating with family/friends?
We got internet in our house in January, but up until then we would go to a restaurant in town that has free internet about once or twice a week. I also have a cell phone here that I use to call home occasionally. The phones are all pay-as-you go plans. One company has a plan that if you call the US and pay for 3 minutes, then you can talk the next 15 for free. This is actually a really good deal, I just have to pay attention to when 18 minutes is up and be willing to hang up and call back. :) It is slightly frustrating that people can't call me from the US, but I'm usually able to coordinate something online or use Skype.


I would really recommend looking into something like this school (or THIS SCHOOL!) because of what a great experience it is. I will for sure be staying next year (2010-2011) and we'll see after that. :)

Also, my brother Zach sent me an Easter Egg hunt. If you click on the picture, it should open up to a larger pic if you actually want to search for them yourself! Isn't he just the best brother ever?!?!?!?!?!?..... i mean tied with flake (jake) and phlegm (ben)... ;)

easter.

ok. I'm blogging. It's been a little while, but I do have a lot to talk about :) Spring Break was really wonderful. It was fun to make new friends and hang out with old, but I was happy to be home after the week of gallivanting around the country! After Copan Ruinas, we went to Tela, which is a beach town. Tela is actually the place where most Hondurans go for their vacations. Most non-Honduran tourists go to La Ceiba or Roatan, but it's good because it's cheaper and you get more culture! The first day we got there, the weather was really beautiful, but I spent the two hours of prime afternoon beach time in a bank line. That was pretty fun. The next day was really rainy, but we girls went shopping around town and that was good. I mostly just browsed, because I'd completely under-budgeted for the trip but I liked just looking at all the different things! We ate at some really good seafood restaurants (I have never enjoyed seafood. Side story: Once upon a time, my dad worked at a company and we went to a conference with him at a fancy restaurant with fancy meals. The first night, I got a whole salmon. with the eyeball still in it. haven't wanted to eat seafood since... until now!) My food tastes have become really adult since being here, so that's good news. :) The third day, we finally had a good day of sunshine. The rest of the group actually went on a kayaking trip, but because of my money shortage, I opted out and instead enjoyed a day at the beach (I got some of my hair braided), and enjoying the air conditioning in our hotel room. I also finished East of Eden! Oh it was so good, if you haven't read it, you should. (I guess depending on your age, I don't really know what my reading audience age-range is so... kids, ask your parents :)) The last day in Tela was when all the local people were coming in for their vacations so we got to see a lot more activities. We got henna tattoos, saw fire dancers, ate some really good food, and met and talked with different Honduran groups. On Thursday, we traveled to San Pedro Sula to bring everyone to the airport. On the way there, we discovered that on Friday (the day we planned to go home), there would be NO buses going anywhere. So we were stuck in SPS. Tad, Rach, Mike and I dropped everyone off at the airport and then ended up staying for a couple hours and playing Euchre. This is a card game I've never learned before, which apparently is practically a sin for someone that went to a Midwestern Christian college- especially a Dutch one! but, I learned and I don't think I was too bad. We had heard of a hostel to try so we got in a cab after wasting as much time as we could in the cool airport and asked our driver to take us to the hostel. While in the car, we started talking with him, and he told of us a different place that was cheaper and nicer. SO, of course we went there! It was nice and fairly cheap :) This hostel had a rule about not eating in the rooms, but it had a really big kitchen with lots of utensils and a living/dining room for everyone to eat it. It was really neat. The night we stayed there, there was a group from Brown University, some girls from Norway, Scotland, Sweden and England, a group from Asia... it was crazy! But great to talk to people for a little bit. Saturday was our big travel day, and I was so thankful to be home after a long day on the bus.

When I got home Saturday, I actually ended up spending the evening to myself. My other roommates weren't home and I had some emails and grading and stuff to catch up on so I just worked at the house. It ended up being a good and bad thing. It was good to have some time to myself, but I think it was bad because I got to thinking about things. In the last couple weeks, there have been a few significant deaths that have occurred to people I knew or have very close friends that knew/were related to them. Obviously, death is always hard for the people that it affects, but I also feel completely helpless as a friend. I can't do anything, and I REALLY can't do anything when I'm in another country. It was one of the few times that I've been really unhappy to be here. I think it was very interesting that it was Easter weekend. Good Friday is really celebrated here with the Catholic tradition, but Easter is not really a big deal. Easter is seriously one of my favorite times of the whole year. It is so soaked in tradition for me and my family and it was really hard not to do that this year. It was hard to not be at home for my friend; to not be at home for my family to give me advice and just to be there with them; and to not eat any Jello Jigglers or deviled eggs at the McKinley's and fight with Nick the whole time! :) It was also really weird to not have a huge Easter service and to celebrate and remember why we have Easter. I had to really think about it myself. I talked to my mom a couple days ago and we talked about how it kind of sucks that I have all these sad things that have happened to people so close to Easter- the one holiday where we kind of celebrate death- but also that it's kind of interesting because as Christians we know that Friday isn't the last day of the story. Sunday comes and Jesus gives a whole new look on life and death. My door has the phrase, "Morning Has Broken" and I think it is such a beautiful picture of Easter. It is always darkest before the dawn... (Batman anyone? :)) but after that, wow. When the morning breaks, it is so beautiful.

And I know beautiful. I live in Honduras! :)