Something I Am Good At

Our time in Malaysia has definitely been one of my favorite months thus far on the race.  When I first found out that we would be teaching kindergarten, a million thoughts and insecurities rushed through my mind.  As a former middle school teacher, I was unsure that I would be equipped with the skills necessary to tame these squirrely little rascals.  Surprisingly enough, I found that middle school students and kindergarteners have a lot more in common than meets the eye!  Both have short attention spans and need frequent reminders to keep their hands to themselves.

 
Each day started out with a gathering of the children, as one by one, their parents would bring them to school ready for a full day of learning.  As volunteer teachers, we waited inside for a sleepy-eyed child to crawl into our laps and wait for the rest of the troops to assemble.  Of course we had some criers, and an occasional screamer, who would stretch their tiny hands through the iron gates as their parents attempted to run away.  When all had arrived, the kids would stand up, clutching their water bottles and oversized backpacks, and begin to sing childhood-favorites such as Skinnamerinki, Twinkle Twinkle, and The Eensy Beensy Spider over and over until Teacher Sharmila gave us the signal to head up the stairs. 

 
The stairs helped me to work on my Wonder Woman skills this month.  As you can imagine, a set of stairs may be one of the most inconvenient things a kindergarten may have to deal with.  It all began one day as I turned my head to see a handful of rug rats from the next class begin their descent.  Although all appropriate safety precautions had been ensued, a quick push and scramble for first sent a little girl flying head over heel down the stairs.  I do not know how it happened, but the next thing I know, she was laying in my arms, a little frightened but unscathed.    Wonder Woman to the rescue!  Needless to say, the other teachers found it quite comical but necessary when I held the back collars of the little boys in my class as they climbed down the stairs at the end of each day. 

After some shuffling between rooms, I was finally placed with six 5-year-old boys and one little girl along with their teacher, (whom I still can’t spell her name, but it sounds like “ee-nah”) in a classroom no bigger than 10X10ft in dimensions.  Each day we took turns teaching classes in reading, writing, science, and math.  The students also had the opportunity to have English, Bahasa, Tamil, and Mandarin language classes, depending on their cultural background.  I am pretty sure that I have their reading book memorized by now… Peter, Jane, Peter and Jane, Here is Peter, Here is Jane, Here is Peter and here is Jane… Yep, it was monotonous, but it was so good to see the kids improve as they diligently practiced their memoriz… er,  I mean, reading day after day. 

It quickly became evident how much the little boys in my class LOVED the songs we taught them.   They would sing them while they were in line, going to the bathroom, playing outside, and of course when they were supposed to be getting their work done.  The best part was, they really did not know any of the words, but would simultaneously scream out, “I love you!” when they would get to that point in the song.  The attention span of a 5 year old is about 5 minutes, and becomes less and less the longer they sit… so I came up with some fun things like ‘making rain’ and  a little stretching routine we occasionally pulled out when they just could not sit in their chairs any longer. You learn the hard way when you tell small children to make their faces really BIG like their screaming, and you spend the next 30 seconds trying to motion for silence over the actual screaming voices, which are laughing and giggling and exploring the new freedoms of creativity and expression.  I also taught them a little thing called pretending, which you can imagine, they are masters at. 
 
The slide might have been my demise.  At first I tried so hard to make them go down one at a time, feet first, no pushing… you get the picture J  The first couple of days, I would stand at the top of the slide and literally catch kids if they started going down before the other kid at the bottom moved out of the way.  I then moved to the bottom of the slide and stood there as each kid came down.  I would look them in the eye and give them a nod.  I held out my hand, and the kids would try to give me a high five as they slid down.  Even if they totally missed, I gave them a big smile and they would run back to the stairs for another go at it.  I think I loved this part of my day even more than the kids did!

Man, I am so incredibly blessed by my experience with these children this past month.  At one point, I was dancing around completely drenched in sweat, grinning ear to ear and I thought to myself, ‘I cannot believe this is my life!’  This was the first month where I felt that I was doing something I am good at.  There are definitely other months that I enjoyed immensely, but this month was especially great because I had the opportunity to use the unique gifts God has given me to reach out and support our contacts as they began their kindergarten endeavors.  God has equipped me with a gift to teach, no matter what it is or who is learning.  It is more than simply having a set of skills or special talents.  It is the essence of who God created me to be.  We ALL have these gifts from God and when we are obedient to God and use them to bring Him glory, we experience a joy like never before!