Ministry this month starts with my team and I hoping on the school bus at 9am every morning!
We pile on the bus with these smiling kids and head up the mountains to Mount Carmel International School.
It is summer for the kids here in Hakah. But, lucky for us, there are summer school classes with about 60 kids from Kindergarten through 8th grade and only 3 teachers. These three teachers cannot handle the kids all on their own or make lesson plans for them, and that is where we come in!
My team and I have each taken on a class completely on our own! We are the only teacher. We make the lesson plans. We make the schedule. We run the class.
My class consists of sixteen 7th and 8th graders! We are in this middle school building on the top of one of the mountains the school is located on. The views are stunning.
Each morning, I walk into my class and get greeted like this:
((This is a video from Shay’s second grade class, which I had to substitute for because Shay was sick.. But even my seventh and eighth graders do this!))
These kids have a great respect for their teachers, even random teenage volunteer teachers from a different country. The way they treat us has amazed me. I feel so appreciated and can tell how thankful they are to have us.
My class has truly blown me away with how smart they are. They know a lot of English and maybe even more math than I know. Honestly, it was a challenge for me to come up with a lesson plan because I had to find things they didn’t already know!
But this is what I came up with for the first week, and so far, it’s worked very well. I feel like a real teacher!
To my surprise, they are a very quiet class and they work hard.
They are very eager to learn and love to ask questions, some of which even have me stumped.
My class’s favorite part of the day (with Science as a close second) is going outside to play games!
The weather is always amazing and its a nice break for the students (and me) to get out of the classroom!
The days go by way too fast, but come 2pm its time for us to hop back on the bus full of kids and head home for the day.
I’ve only spent one week with these kids so far, and I already can tell that time is going to fly by and I will be heartbroken saying goodbye to them in just two short weeks.
I have truly fallen in love with their sweet and welcoming personalities, their desire to learn, they energy they have, and the ways they love!
