For the last two days, schools in all of Honduras have been closed. People have been asked to stay in their homes until there is some political resolution. Although the curfew has been lifted, things are still unstable. Our school is closed until Monday. The ‘Crisis Politica’ has been a disappointment for many reasons. Janelle [...]
I have a love – hate relationship with the week before school starts. Sure, I have an impossibly long list of things I’d like to do before students arrive on Monday. Sometimes PD makes my head hurt. Some important tools and information are still “missing.” It is also the only time when all of the [...]
I started the year with a lot of short, structured writing assignments. We wrote almost every day for the first four weeks of class. We wrote literary letters, quotation responses, college application essays and Anglo-Saxon boasts. Some of my goals: to learn about the students and their writing to establish a writing environment in and [...]
Hondurans celebrate their independence for almost two months. On September 1st, we had an assembly for the official flag-raising at EIS. The students shared their presentations from their Estadios Sociales classes. It was all in Spanish. Even though I didn’t understand the presentations or the etiquette for Flag Day, it reminded me of raising the flag at Camp Anokijig. It was [...]
Well, there is at least one student who likes my class. I am partially flattered, because it is nice to hear “Miss” followed by my name. I am also seriously reconsidering my course objectives. Why is a student telling me, in Spanish, that he likes my English class? . There are a lot of reasons, cultural [...]
How did the students start the year? . The first day of school started early. Parents and students showed up at the gate at the same time we did. There was an all school assembly to welcome the students and remind them that it really wasn’t summer anymore. All of the new teachers (half of [...]
This is one of the high school courtyards. Soon it will be filled with 400 students in blue uniforms. Today there were no meetings or charlas. The staffs, “new foreign hires,” the “returning hires” and the “local hires,” were given the day to prepare our classrooms and materials for the first day of school. Preparing [...]
…yes, fishgarbage. The principal turned over classroom keys last Wednesday. After my student teaching experience in a crowded district, I felt grateful to have my own classroom. After SmartBoard, Wiki, EdLine, A-Chat and GradeQuick training, I felt hopeful. After seeing the space, I am content with twenty-three desks, a computer and a view of San Pedro’s mountains. I realize that part of this [...]