God is good! While adapting to a new culture where punctuality, norms, and the culture itself is different, we have found encouragement through prayer, each other, and feedback from the teachers that we have been working with. We keep reminding each other of the reason we are here and we're all getting a lot out of this experience. We are learning to be both humble and grateful.
Tom, Mike, Luis, and the Brittanys led the morning teaching session on formal and informal assessment. The teachers here truly enjoyed the engagement strategies that were demonstrated such as verb relays, scavenger hunts, informal nonverbal response quizzes, name tents, and different mental maps. The morning development was three hours, but the teachers stayed an extra hour to ask questions and talk.
While the morning group taught, other members of the team found ways to serve. Chris mowed the lawn, Leslie and Lauren headed up painting nails for the girls, Claire always finds a way to use her art abilities to create with the kids, etc.
When we went into the city in the afternoon, we were thrown a bit of a curve ball. We thought that we would be teaching a bunch of teachers, but the reality was that we were teaching teachers, students who wanted to be teachers, and students who simply needed to know how to communicate effectively in their community. We were split into three teaching groups. Kasie, Amanda, and Brittany H led a group of Elementary teachers. Chris, Mike, Brittany M, Luis, Tom and Claire expected to have HS teachers, but they ended up working with High School students. Jennifer, Valerie, Whitney, Lauren, and Leslie prepared for a group of Pre-K and Kinder, but had HS students who needed teaching knowledge also. They adapted and met the needs of the students despite their initial plan. What a great group!
Several of us were thankful for time to share a little bit of our testimony with the teachers that we were with. We explained our desire to help other teachers in a way that is glorifying to The Lord. We want to be teachers who serve because Jesus not only serves, but died for us and loves us unconditionally. We ended the day with Just Dance 4 in the Comidor. There were 4 controllers, but 30-40 people getting their moves on. It was such a fun time!
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