thankful thursday

Slice of Life Challenge Day #14

I’m thankful for…

• The opportunity to live in Singapore and learn new things about the people and culture here.
• A classroom of 22 students who knows how to laugh, learn and love.
• The unchanging hot and rainy weather in Singapore. 
• The cool breeze that comes through my balcony at night.
• Moments of laughter as I get to know my students better.
• Seeing students be able to share their reflections, growth and learning with their parents. 
• Fresh salads from salad stop
• Loving and meaningful interactions between students and parents.
• Delicious lemon bars from our school cafeteria.
• Conversations with friends over free steak sandwiches. 
• Being able to do what I love everyday. 

What are you thankful for today?

a place called home

I walked back to my apartment and I passed by the familiar durian stand with the strong pungent smell, the seedy motel with “interesting” late at night guests, and the comforting signs of 7-11 on the corner. After a long thanksgiving weekend in Malaysia, I was glad to be back. Sure it was nice staying at the fancy Shangri-la hotel, but the minute I got to my apartment, I felt relieved to be back home.

Living abroad, it’s easy to get confused about where your “home” truly is. My permanent address is my parent’s home back in New York. Yet, I don’t really have my own room there anymore. A bunch of my winter clothes and books are stored in the basement in boxes.  Every year as I go back to visit, it feels a little less like my home and a bit more foreign.

After 4 years in Korea, it felt like my home. Now that I moved, I miss Korea terribly at times.  After 4 months of being here in Singapore, this foreign place is slowly starting to feel a bit like home. Even though they say home is where the heart is, what do you do when pieces of your heart are scattered all over?

Where is home for you? 

The Slice of Life Challenge happens every Tuesday and is hosted by the Two Writing Teachers.

Survival of the First Month of School

I am so happy that the first month of school is done with. It was a great time, but incredibly stressful and overwhelming all at once. It definitely had its highs and its lows. However, I wanted to remember how I survived it all!

• I survived my first month of school! This is a big deal. At times, I felt like a first year teacher all over again. As I was dealing with a new curriculum, a new school, and a new country, many days I could only focus on one day at a time, in order to prevent myself from drowning!
• I survived back-to-school night, where almost all of the parents came. Partly because I’m a new teacher, and they are scoping me out!
• I survived my first round of progress reports. It’s nice that the format is open for us to choose and they are not required, but of course I still did them for all of my students!
• I survived a field trip to a water park with 280 5th grade students on the second week of school.
• I survived on our school’s amazing cafeteria food (Mr. Hoe’s catering) for lunch, and many times breakfast and/or snacks during our meetings. This food has given me energy, life and possibly a few extra pounds?!
• I survived figuring out our 24 day rotating schedule with only 1 small mishap so far.  Yes, we have 24 DAY ROTATING SCHEDULE!  Somehow, it’s not as complicated as it sounds.
• I survived my first month of school, despite the overwhelming pressure I gave myself to do the best job possible, especially as a new teacher.

I’m still trying to figure out how to balance school life with everything else, including blogging. I hope that I can at least keep up with the slice of life Tuesdays, even though these past few weeks, sleep became a priority over blogging. Thank you to everyone who has been leaving comments on my blog! I’m so thankful to have this writing community because it helps me feel at home, even if I’m 9,500 miles away from my physical home.

What are some of your accomplishments in the first month/weeks of school?

An Unexpected Knock on the Door

I was sitting at my desk with some free time in between conferences when I heard a knock on my door. To my surprise, it was two 8th grade boys. To me they will always be my fifth graders from my first class here in Korea. It was a fun year, full of adventure and of course some drama. I really do miss all of them. There are a handful that are still at the school, while many of them have moved to other countries and other schools.

They came to my room after hearing the news that I’m leaving our school. They asked me why I was leaving. One of them seemed to understand, he has always been very mature. The other student asked me when I would come back to Korea and our school. I explained that it has been four years here in Korea and it’s time to move on.

We start remembering the different kids from our class and the memories we have. We were called Team Eureka. We talked about their favorite soccer players they used to always mention. When they saw the stuffed animals, Winnie-the-Pooh, Eeyore and Tigger, sitting in the front of my classroom, they asked if I still throw them around. I told them that I still play that game with my students.

I discussed plans with them for a reunion for our original 5th grade class. They planned to make a Facebook event to invite all the kids. Hopefully, all the kids that are still in Korea will be able to get together. I look forward to hanging out with them one last time before I leave. I can’t wait too see how much they’ve grown, matured and changed in the past 4 years.

A Rare Moment

Last period was  finally approaching on this long Monday and we had some extra time. I wanted to try something different. I explained to my students that we would write poems about what they are thankful for. We would share these poems at our thanksgiving celebration on Wednesday. I gave them the prompt,”I am thankful for…”

Then, they opened their writer’s notebooks and wrote, but unlike the other times, where I walk around and meet with students, I decided to write as well. I opened up my writer’s notebook, which I admit was gathering some dust in my bookshelf, and got out my inky teacher pen and wrote. I crossed out some lines and struggled to come up with what I wanted to say exactly. However, I managed to put something together. A rough draft. A beginning to something. After about 15 minutes of writing, I walked around and encouraged students to expand and be more descriptive on what they wrote.

I read aloud to them what I had so far and had a few other students share as well. Afterwards, one of my students came up and asked, “Is that your writer’s notebook? Can I see the cover? Oooh, lucky…” Unfortunately, I didn’t decorate the cover of that writer’s notebook, but my student still seemed to like it.

I was reminded today that writing with my students and getting caught in the writing process along my students is worthwhile . So here’s a little something of what I’m came up with…

I’m thankful for…

the blank pages that welcome my pen

avocados from costco, no matter the price

the songs that resonate in my soul

the warm blankets that I can snuggle underneath on a cold winter day

genuine smiles

getting paid to do what i love

my blog readers!

unexpected gifts

my family that supports me no matter how far apart we are

books that i can’t put down until i’m finished with it

my students from the past and the present

good friends that love me just as i am, no explanations needed

the excitement a student has in telling me about the book that they simply loved

hugs

answered prayers

slice of pumpkin pie, marshmallow yams and cranberry sauce

God’s unfailing love

What are you thankful for this Thanksgiving?

For more slice of life entries, go to Two Writing Teachers.

Why I’m Still Teaching…

It was the first day of school. I arrived to school late and my students were already lined up at my door and waiting for me. I went inside the classroom and my first activity for my students was NOT set up. I tried to figure out what to do with them. I thought up some random mental math question which I wrote on the board for my students to solve.  It was just a disaster. Not a good way to start the year.

Luckily, this was only a nightmare, and not a reality. Yes, it’s that time of year and I still get those first day of school nightmares. I would hope that by year nine, I wouldn’t be so nervous about the first day of school!

I still have time to finish preparing everything for the first day of school. School starts on Tuesday and I’m pretty close to being ready for the first week. In the midst of the busyness of preparing things for the first week of school, I need to take some time to stop and reflect. I need to remember why I started this profession and why I continue it.

Reasons why I’m still teaching…

• I can make a positive impact of the lives of my students through the course of one school year.
• Even though at times this can be an incredibly challenging job that consumes so much of my energy, focus and time, it is so rewarding when a student says, “you are the one who made me love reading/writing/math, etc…”  That makes it all worth it.
• Every year is so unique and memorable.  I learn new things from my group of students each year and I become a better teacher because of the experiences I go through.
• I love that as a profession, I am always learning new things and improving my craft as a teacher. It really does bother me when people say that teaching is such an “easy” job. If you are a good teacher, it shouldn’t be so easy. There’s always new research going on and different things that you can improve on in your craft. I have yet to meet anyone that has perfected teaching. I think that there is always room for improvement and that you can always find ways to challenge yourself.

If you are a teacher, why are you still teaching?  

My Very Own Fanclub

I sat at my desk after school, trying to get everything on my to do list completed. I was enjoying the peace and quiet of an empty classroom as I tried to stay focused on my work. All of a sudden, I started hearing some noise from outside the classroom.  I immediately knew who it was.The other week, I caught a few of my students spying on me after school through the windows. However, I continued to do my work. The noises continued and I decided to take a break.

As I started walking towards the door, I heard the giggling and shuffling of feet as they scrambled away. I slowly opened the door, but I didn’t stick my head out yet. I waited for a while then stuck my head out and surely I saw my girls peering from down the hallway towards my classroom. They saw me and ran away  laughing.

A few minutes later, they came to my classroom holding these white posters, not showing me what was written on the other side. As I tried to look at what they wrote they kept turning away, saying I couldn’t see it. I had to leave school so they said they would tape the posters on the door. As I left, I didn’t get to see what was on their posters.

The next morning when I came to school, the girls showed me the posters they made. Here they are!

The Senders

Feeling so loved by my students!

So funny how they wrote that I'm skinny....so Korean!

From My Fan Club!

The next time I have a bad day at school, I’ll look at these posters and remember that it’s all worth it! I am so thankful for my thoughtful and caring students.

For more slice of life entries, go to two writing teachers.

SOLC#30: Expert Advice

For the past few years, my work out routine consisted of stretching for a few minutes then going on the treadmill and running for as long I could push myself. A few times I dabbled with the weight lifting machines, but I just didn’t find much interest in them.

Over a month ago, I heard a rumor. I heard that our elementary P.E. teacher was giving personalized workout regiments to some teachers. I immediately asked her about getting my own personalized workout plan. She asked me some questions and did a basic consultation of what I wanted to work on. By the next week, I had me my own plan.

When I saw this plan, I was surprised at how detailed and long it was. She created three different categories of workouts for me: cardio, circuit and core. Then, she listed different workouts for each category. I admit that I’ve been only doing the cardio ones recently. They are the easiest to figure out what they are exactly.

After a long day of being with my students, going to a meeting, then doing some prep work for the next day, I finally made it to the gym by 5:30pm. I had a good cardio workout where I used the treadmill, elliptical, rower, and bike. I know that without her workout plan, I probably wouldn’t have pushed myself to try to use the other equipment at the gym. Also, a lot of these workouts are much harder to complete than what I normally did before. These workouts are challenging, but a good goal for me.

I was reminded of our roles as teachers again. As the experts in our classroom, we need to consult with our students, and know where they are. We need to constantly be pushing our students to reach new levels. We need them to find value in the advice we give them. We need to support them with specific goals for them.

What Makes a Great Teacher?

Photo by Martin Greffe released under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic

Today in science class, I had students answer this question: What makes a great teacher? We are working on a project where they will be teaching other students about volcanoes. Since they will be taken on the role of a “teacher” I wanted them to really think about the characteristics of good teachers.

Here are their responses:

• Explains things first, then lets you try
• Asks questions
• Has celebrations
• Strict
• Lets you experience new things
• Creative
• Speaks loud and clearly
• Smart
• Allows you to make things or experience things
• Cares a lot
• Open to your questions and opinions
• Are happy
• Gives examples
• Uses games and prizes
• Makes me understand

What is a good list of things to strive for as a teacher! What other things would you add?