FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL! (post first day)

I AM A TEACHER! Holy cow… today was so funny/unorganized/frustrating/adorable/amazing/happy. I’m going to attempt to summarize what happened throughout the day but honestly it was so crazy I can hardly remember! First, I don’t think I ever actually fell asleep last night. All I remember was closing my eyes and then my alarm went off. I’m sure I did sleep but my brain sure didn’t rest. But Keiko, our next door neighbor who is a special education teacher at Inter, kindly took us to school in the morning and little did I know kids were already showing up. I thought I had at least an hour to get things ready before the kids got there but since it was the first day and the kids had all their materials and supplies their parents took them to school before work so I never actually had any time to myself in my class. Instead I was meeting kids, answering questions, meeting parents, assigning cubbies, etc. The parents I met were all super awesome. This school will be really different for me to work at with all the parental support considering the lack of involvement I’ve seen at many of the schools I’ve worked at in the past. Some of the parents speak neither English nor Spanish, however, so I feel incredibly inadequate knowing I cannot even communicate with them. I’m hoping those students will be super awesome so I can use enthusiastic body language to tell the parents how wonderful their child is ☺



So, then the typical naïve teacher in me came out and I was shocked at how little the students could do on their own without additional reminders, examples, instructions, and supports. I still cannot believe how young these kids are. I didn’t realize how big of a difference 3rd and 4th grade was but my last class was the tail end of 4th grade and this is the BEGINNING of 3rd grade. But I found out pretty quickly that I was going to need to implement the rules and other various classroom management tactics pretty quickly. The kids seemed so helpless not knowing what was coming next in the schedule. I had all these surprise activities planned but they truly just wanted to know what was up! Oh and I don’t think I’ve mentioned that in Guatemala, teachers are called by their first name. So you better believe I got a ton of “Hannah Montana” comments from both students AND parents today. I actually think I really like being Miss Hannah. Though I am strangely attached to my last name I think it makes my classroom feel like more of a community. Plus, I reallllllly don’t think there is any way in Central America my kids would be able to say McMacken, haha!

To introduce myself a bit I brought in a bag of items that described me and assigned the students the same thing for Friday. It actually went really well! I let the kids guess what items I would be pulling out of the bag next and why I had brought particular things. Each time a hand-full of them guessed, “A cellular phone!” which I thought was hilarious/sad that they thought my phone would describe me (plus I loved that they called it a cellular phone; their English is so adorable it kills me). I put a running shoe in the bag and one kid yelled, “You only run with one shoe?!” Man they are so clever! I also brought a picture of my family and told them a little bit about my mom, brother, sister, and brother-in-law and the inevitable, “where’s your dad?” question came up. I just explained that not everyone’s family looks the same but we can all love our families just as much. They kept asking so I told them that my dad wasn’t alive anymore and they all got so sad! Some of the kids hugged me and another girl told me her dad wasn’t alive either. I think it was actually a really awesome discussion to have on the first day because the kids are already showing compassion for one another and even understanding a sadness that they couldn’t even really fathom at their age. Of course, I also pulled out a foam Jayhawk and they loved him! They had already taken note of all the READ Jayhawk posters I had all over the classroom but when I asked them to guess what kind of animal it was they thought it was either a chicken or an eagle. I guess its kind of hard to explain that it’s a made up bird to native English speakers let alone to 8-year-old bi/trilingual kiddos.

The crazy parts of the day came next though as we have to eat lunch with the students in the lunch room which I wouldn’t mind at all if it weren’t for the fact that there are what feels like 300 kids running around getting their food microwaved by these lunch ladies who hang out in the cafeteria. I think its crazy that the kids bring leftover chicken and stir fry and insist that it be heated up… what happened to good ol’ PB&J?! Anyway, I was super overwhelmed in that cafeteria so I’ll have to be more strategic about what I pack in my lunches. But after lunch the day seemed to get 100% better than it already was. The kids and I worked on our puzzle pieces but decided not to put the puzzle together until one of the absent students made it to school—they are so thoughtful! I’ll post some pictures of the finished puzzle when its done.

As a class we devised a list of rules, consequences, and rewards and I was so impressed with the stuff they came up with. One student said, “We must show respect for all” in a really sky, quiet voice so I asked her to stand on her chair and shout it out and she did! I was so shocked! And then all the kids cheered for her! Oh man, I am going to have so much fun with these kids I can hardly stand it. At the end of the day, the shuffle to the school bus was absolutely NUTS and the most unorganized thing I’d ever seen but all the kids were in such good moods and every single one of them gave me a hug before they left. I also met another parent at the buses who is the father of one of my students who was fasting for the start of Ramadan today. I am really in awe of how diverse this community is; we have Muslims, non-English/Spanish speaking Koreans, Guatemalans, Americans, Canadians, Australians. Its so fun!

Anyway, after school today I was totally worthless and have almost literally done nothing all afternoon. We cleaned a little, a plumber came and fixed our washer, we sat on the roof and chatted for awhile, skyped, and bummed around. I feel ready for tomorrow because today was my long day and I still didn’t get to all the activities I had planned and tomorrow my kids have 4 specials when today they only had 1. This weekend we are having a welcome back party at our apartment with the teachers and then I am fairly positive I’m going to the ocean, dangit! I’ve been dying to go exploring since the second we got here so I don’t think I’ll be able to pass it up.

I’m all smiles thanks to your support and the attitudes of those little kids. Life is good ☺