Each day was a mental fight. As soon as I woke up, my first thought was well crap.. Then I would get ready for the day. Get breakfast. And at 5:55 a.m., the bus would pick us up to go to school. Before the month started, I didn’t know I was going to be thrown into a classroom full of kindergarteners. Pretending to be their teacher. But actually just babysitting 30, 5 year olds.
I would be staring at all the kids running rampant in the classroom. Thinking, why in the world was I ever an elementary Ed major. And then I would pray, I definitely could not do this without His strength.
Fun facts:
- These kids didn’t have an actual teacher because the previous teacher had quit. The school was currently interviewing people.
- I was the main “babysitter.” The other teacher, only spoke Spanish. That made it impossible to communicate with her. And she still had classes in the other part of the school.
- I don’t speak Spanish very well. My vocabulary at that point consisted of donde esta el baño? (Where’s the bathroom.) and hay café? (Is there coffee?)
- Now my vocabulary consists of that and sientese, escuchan, and Mira! (Sit down, listen, and look!)
- Fortunately that was enough Spanish to get the 5 year olds focused on a coloring page to occupy their time.
- At this point in the month, all the teachers and kids were running around trying to choreograph for the Honduran Independence Day parade.
- Sometimes a teacher would bring their class to mine. And leave them with me because they had parade things to do.
- 45- five year olds in my class. Yikes!
After awhile I was moved to teach 5th grade.
God blessed me in that classroom. Yes, there were mischievous boys. But there were also some pretty neat kids, as well behaved as expected for a fifth grader. We had a blast! We were at a bilingual school. So by fifth grade they were only allowed to speak English. Whoooo! I may have also led them to believe I knew Spanish. But that’s only because if there’s one thing I’ve learned. – Never let children know you don’t speak their language. Otherwise, they do whatever they want. And don’t listen. Even if they know English.
But not this class, they listened well. And I taught them how to make flip books. How to make their characters move from page to page.
That month was quite crazy. But the Lord re-affirmed.
I absolutely love children. I love working with them. Maybe not in a kindergarten setting. Possibly in a fifth grade setting. But I most definitely want to work with them.
