Only been a month and I'm already taking people to the hospital

It’s been almost a month since I boarded a plane once again cringing as I put my suitcases on the scale hoping and praying they would be under 50 pounds.  It’s been an adventure once again.  We had two meetings of preparing for the next school year.  I was able to attend a great conference and listen to rich teaching of the Word.  After two weeks, the students came.  It was probably the most excited I have been to return back to school.  My schedule is definitely crazy teaching four to five periods in a row every day.  I return home and put my feet up because wearing flats all day is not the most comfortable footwear, but it is what I have to do.  I’ve already started making a shopping list for whenever I go back to the states and some Dr. Scholl’s inserts are first on the list. 
I’ve enjoyed having the students back.  I have one group that I taught last year and then three new groups.  This year we decided to make a change to the curriculum and place Geometry before Algebra 2, which means instead of ninth grade taking Algebra 2 like before they are in Geometry and tenth grade having already taking Algebra 2 is also in Geometry.  Since I teach all the groups of ninth and tenth grades, I teach pretty much the same lesson four times a day with a few differentiations based on the group I’m working with.  It’s a lot of Geometry for sure, but I also have my once a week elective Personal Finance and my once a week advisory class, which is eleventh grade, so we are focusing on getting ready for the SAT.
Yesterday was definitely the craziest or most adventurous day I have had thus far.  The day was just a really long day.  I had the first two periods free and then moved into my marathon of five classes in a row.  I was exhausted by the time I was walking down the stairs to go to my car.  My roommate and I began our drive home weaving through the traffic that always seems to exist.  Some parts are more open than others.  In one such part, I was cruising in third gear when out of nowhere a car blew a stop sign and pulled out almost right in front of me.   Immediately, I slammed on my brakes, but as the car got closer and closer I knew it was not going to be in time.  I somehow managed to pull some race car driver move and swerved around the big SUV that thought it owned the road.  After nearly missing by inches, I was a little in shock.  My roommate was in the same condition since she would have been the one worse off had there been an accident.  We made it home and were able to relax.
At around nine that night, my roommate came into my room and said, “I cut myself.  I need you to look at it.”  She said it very animated and then said along the lines of needing to put her hand above her heart to slow the bleeding and then when she did that, she started dripping blood all over the floor. She quickly ran into the bathroom, sat down on the floor, and put her hand over the sink.  I looked at it, and at first it didn’t look very bad.  She had cut her thumb while cutting a giant papaya.  At first I thought it was just bleeding a lot because it was her finger, but then I looked at the other side of her thumb and saw she had actually cut through part of her nail and to the other side of her thumb making more sense to why she was bleeding so much.  I temporarily wrapped her up with some gauze and we drove to the emergency room.  We walked in and the security guard told us to take a seat.  Nobody came to see us or ask anything although her hand was covered in blood.  Finally a nurse came by and told us the doctor would come by when he could.  When the doctor finally came, he didn’t even look at her and moved on.  We were told by a family member of another person that had been there for four hours that since we weren’t major trauma it could be hours before we were seen.  We decided to find someplace else.  We left that emergency room and went to another one where we were seen right away.  We were grateful we’d made the decision to leave the other one.  She had two stitches put in and we finally left the hospital at around midnight.  Five and half hours later, I was awake and getting ready for school.  I’m tired, but happy that everything worked out amidst the madness.
It’s been an eventful start to the school year, but it’s going well.  I’m enjoying working with my students, and just in the first two weeks I’m seeing them grow and learn.  I even had another teacher tell me that a student had listed me as his favorite teacher.  I also joined the school improvement committee, and I am the chair for the data analysis group.  So many things are going on, and I’m very excited for the rest of the school year.

It's summer

It just doesn't feel like it's summer until I arrive in Monte Plata.  After the school year finished, I spent some time on the beach relaxing and recuperating from my first full year of teaching.  I arrived with the intern that is with me for the summer last Saturday, so I have now been here for a week.  Since the school year lasted so long and I have to be back so early in August, my time in Monte Plata is about half of the time that I normally spend here, so I am actually only here for just under two more weeks.  We spend our weekdays out at the orphanage Casa Monte Plata working with the four youngest boys with reading and math.  It's always a day filled with unexpected events.  Some days the boys are eager to do work and other days they would rather just draw pictures of butterflies (I'm pretty sure they just recently learned how to draw them, so they're really into it). 
With the program that we are working on, we are seeing the boys progressing every day. They are all at different stages but they can see themselves improving every day, and they seem to be gaining confidence with each challenge that they get through.  After we complete the reading and math portion, we take time to do a devotional.  It always begins with song time with includes each of the kids receiving a percussion instrument.  I find myself back in my mother's music classroom only instead of being a student, I am her.  They love the tambourines most of all and when we sing the song about the story of Jonah about midway through none of them are sitting in their seats any more because they are so into the song (I don't know what the words are but they sing plenty loud enough to not notice). 
After we finish our time of learning, we have play time.  Usually play time is hide and seek or tag or any game that makes Bethany have to run really hard.  It has been raining pretty much every day so everything is wet which just makes the games even more fun for the boys as they get a kick out of watching me try to turn a corner and have my feet go out from under me.  My shoes have not entered the house for the last week just because of how dirty they are.  We eventually have to stop the games to eat lunch consisting of rice, beans, and something else (chicken, eggplant, fish, okra, etc.).  We have just recently had the routine of reading books after lunch.  Sometimes the kids read them, but most of the time its us reading the books (they especially love the Dr. Seuss books, which are only Green Eggs and Ham and The Cat in the Hat).  One of the boys absolutely loves The Cat in the Hat and when I finish reading it to him he will ask me to read it again. 
We only have one more week of working with the kids, which seems like not very much time, but I'm sure we will enjoy every minute of it.  After next week, we will be heading out to camp for the remainder of my time here, which is the girls camp.  I'm not going to be here for the whole camp so I'm not exactly sure what I will be doing, but I've already had a couple kids asking me if I'm going to be at camp this year.  Its been a couple years since I've been at camp, but I'm definitely excited to be going back.

It's the end of the school year...almost

On Friday, I had my last day of teaching normal classes for the school year.  I use the term normal classes because the system works here completely different from schools in the states.  Twelfth grade actually finished their final exams two weeks ago, but because they still have to take their national exams (required for graduating 8th and 12th grades) they continue taking classes to prepare them for these exams.  There is no more homework and no more grades, but they are still expected to come and be on their best behavior to prepare for these mandatory exams.  On Friday, I had three students.  I have to say it is not my favorite system.  While 12th grade takes their final exams and then classes for national tests, all the other grades are still on the normal schedule.  The last day of classes for 9th, 10th, and 11th grades was on Friday.  Now those grades enter into a week and a half of final exams, so I no longer am teaching them, but I am still continuing to give class to the few 12th grade students that decide to make an appearance. 
Friday felt like a day of madness.  In addition to having final exams, the students are required to complete a final project for each class.  As much as I tried to convince my students not to leave the project to the last minute, the majority did not heed my advice.  On Friday (the due date of their final project), I suddenly have a mad rush of students asking questions, and then even more questions as they receive grades much less than they had anticipated mostly because despite reading through the description of the project multiple times in class, they still did not follow them. 
Right at the start of the day I had one student come to me and ask "Miss, when is the project due?" My response was "I believe you were sleeping when I told the class the due date of the project on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.  Find somebody who wasn't."  I had another student tell me "I'm going to fail the semester no matter what, so I'm not going to do the project." He then proceeded to ask me if I thought it was worth it to take the final exam.
Looking back on this past school year, I cannot say these are unusual circumstances.  I have seen a huge lack of motivation in many students.  So much so that finding students that are highly motivated is surprising.  After the first month of school, I wondered if I would get anywhere with these students.  Looking back at the school year, I have seen some students go backwards but so many others make improvements. Some made huge improvements from failing first semester to having the fourth highest grade in the class, and other just small improvements, but I take anything I can get. 
After my first year, I love teaching these kids.  I love the students that I have even the most difficult students.  God has opened so many doors to share the Gospel whether it be one on one during lunch break or to the whole class as I broke from teaching math to answer students about who I think is "good enough" get to heaven with the response that no one is good enough but that it is by God's grace demonstrated through the death and resurrection of Christ.  I know that this is where God wanted me to be this year, and I believe it is where He wants me to be for at least the next year.
Although normal classes are over, there is still another week and a half of final exams and 12th grade classes.  After that week and a half is over, I still have another week of closing out the school year, while giving classes for students that failed either first or second semester in preparation for their "completivos" which are essentially second chance exams.  If they fail those exams they have a third chance to take "extraordinarios" which are in the two weeks before school starts in August.  Needless to say, it is very difficult to actually fail a class.
After I finish the school year, I will go to Monte Plata where I have been working the last five summers for a couple weeks, and then return home in the middle of July. The madness is far from over, but I am happy that I no longer have to make lesson plans and lose my voice from teaching all day. 

Community Service

These past two weeks we have been working with our 11th grade students (of which I am one of the advisors) in preparing them for a community service project. Having done work in Monte Plata, one of the provinces with the highest percentage of people in poverty, the last five summers, I have seen many in need in this country.  Having experienced that and then gone to teach in a private school, which consists of many wealthy families, I realized the extremes in this country.  I was really excited about being able to take our kids who live in the top tier of wealth in this country and work with them on giving back to their community.  I was definitely nervous about how the students would respond to this.
To start our activities we showed up at school at 7:45 on a Saturday morning (not my favorite activity) to head to a public school in Guachupita (the neighborhood the kids were going to work in).  Our students were partnering with the students at this school to do their community service of going into the community and informing them about tropical diseases (malaria, dengue, parasites, etc.).  Guachupita is about a twenty to thirty minute drive from our school and is very different from the community in which our students live in.  In fact, some of our students didn't even believe it was a real place. 
The day had been really well planned out.  The kids were separated into six groups each having a blend of our students and the other school's students.  They spent the first part of the day doing different ice-breakers and team building activities, and the second portion was spent planning how they were going to present the information to the different places they were going. On Monday, the Guachupita students came to our school to work with our students on preparing all the materials.  Again we were a little nervous as we heard some of our groups planning to do powerpoint presentations especially since they were going to places where electricity was not a guarantee.
Wednesday was the big day.  We all packed into the bus once again and headed out to Guachipita.  After convincing our students that for their safety they should leave their iPhones behind, we broke off into our different groups and headed to the streets. The group I was supervising went to a local middle school.  Aside from some technical difficulties and the middle school's doctor adding in comments after every disease our students talked about, the group did a great job.  We headed back to the school and then got back on the bus and went home.
The next day, I decided to use the advisory period to have the students reflect on their experiences.  They had nice answers of "I liked it because we got to meet new people and make new friends" and "I liked it because we got to see how other people live."  I had sort of hoped that it would spark in these kids a little bit more of a response to the needs of the people that surround them, but they did what was asked of them and didn't give a bad representation of the school, so what more can I expect.
After class, one of the students wanted to continue talking about his experiences.  It was a conversation that began in one place and probably went about fifty different places, but it was really interesting to hear his perspectives.  He started with his thoughts about his conversations with the students from the other school.  He had made some comment while he was with them about having a project due and that he just wanted to be done with school.  Their response was apparently in agreement and that they hated school and thought it was a waste of time.  He then told me how he had thought about it and as much as he didn't like school, he knew that it was important.  Even if his mom said he didn't have to go to school he would still go because he knows its important.  He commented that these kids from the other school see no value in school because they don't see any positive results from those that finish school.  These kids are part of a hopeless community where the dream jobs are "police, drug dealing, or government" because they see that with the corruption that is where they can make money.  He said its what they see works, and so they see that as their solution.  After some more discussion, we came to the conclusion that experience shapes their views on the world.  He started then talking about how can we know what's right and wrong and what decides that and that religion is only going to fail because the people that make religion have faults.  It led to an open door to tell him about my relationship with God and that it's not about religion its about knowing my need for a Savior and loving an awesome, true God.  Pray for this student. I know other teachers have had opportunities to share the Gospel with him, and he's definitely looking for something more than what he is living.
Overall it was a good experience and gave me more perspective into my students.  School is busy and students' behavior is becoming progressively worse as the school year gets closer to ending.  We had parent teacher conferences this week as well and there were some unhappy parents.  Hopefully there can be some parent motivation.  Also, it is getting much hotter and much more humid.

So Many Adventures

So many things have been happening, I somehow have lost the time to inform those of you that read this what's been going on.  School's been crazy.  It seems like third quarter is the worst quarter for our students in regards to their behavior.  It has been difficult dealing with some of the discipline cases.  I had one student that received a referral and then went and punched a wall because he was upset and broke his hand.  Of all the quarters, this has been the one that I have had to write the most office referrals.  In addition to the discipline issues, I also received an additional prep this quarter.  I now teach Algebra II, Geometry, Pre-Calculus, and Calculus every day of the week and Personal Finance and Advisory one day a week.  It is much more work.  The new class is the twelfth grade calculus class.  I was pretty nervous picking up the new class, but it's really going well and I enjoy teaching it. 
We bought a car. A manual Volkswagen Golf.  When we purchased the car the power steering was not working, so we had to get that fixed before we started using it.  It was supposed to be a one day job, but it turned into a week and a half repair.  During the time it was getting fixed, I made a trip home to surprise my family and meet my new niece Natalie.  It was great being home especially for such an exciting time in our family.  When I came back to the country, the car was fixed and we started driving it. 
The next weekend we decided to take a trip up to the north coast for a couple days on the beach.  We spent Friday in Monte Plata and then Saturday morning I decided to test my memory of driving stick shift and drove the car to the beach.  It wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be.  We made it up to the beach in about two hours, which included a long drive up and over the mountain.  I was a little nervous to be driving the mountain since it's a very curvy and steep road, but we made it up and over and to the place we were staying.  On Sunday our plan was to leave early enough to make it to the capitol to see our high school girls soccer game.  As we started going up the mountain (my roommate was driving), the car decided it didn't want to stay in gear.  We ended up having to roll backwards down the mountain in neutral (not my favorite activity).  We went to the place we had stayed the night before realizing that God always has a purpose in everything.  Another guest at the place we were staying happened to be a mechanic and checked the car for us and told us that the clutch was burned out and needed to be replaced. We left the car in the hands of the owners of the place we were staying who told us they would take the car to the mechanic on Monday since it wasn't open on Sunday. 
We enjoyed some extra time by the pool as we waited for a bus to take us back.  We went back to work on Monday with another week of school.  On Friday, we then took another bus back to the beach to pick up our fixed car.  It was like driving a different car.  I had to get used to the new clutch and its sensitivity.  I stalled it probably about five times in a row right in front of a restaurant. 
An older Italian man came up and leaned against the window and asked if I needed any help.  I told him I could do it and he told me to just calm down.  After that I didn't have any problems, except for at the gas station when I couldn't get the car to go because I forgot to take the emergency brake off and when I started going up the mountain and didn't have enough momentum and had to roll back down to a flatter part to get a "running start."  I drove it back through the mountains and then through Santo Domingo Sunday traffic, which was a little scary since rules are not observed and there are lots of cars, but we made it in one piece back to the apartment and all was well.
Monday morning I woke up at three in the morning feeling that something was wrong with my stomach.  After emptying the contents of my stomach, I went back to sleep feeling okay and thinking I had just had some food poisoning.  Unfortunately, when I woke up to get ready to go to school I felt just as bad as I had at three.  I then decided it was time to call my supervisor and the principal to tell them I would not be coming to school.  I spent the rest of the day between my bed and the bathroom.  I got some frantic calls from the teachers at school telling me I should go to the hospital, but I was convinced it was just a 24 hour bug. The other teachers were not easily convinced but they gave me 24 hours.  By the afternoon, I was feeling pretty tired and dehydrated, but I wasn't feeling sick any more and was able to keep down water and then later crackers.  Plans are to go to school tomorrow. 
It has definitely been a crazy couple of months, but I know that this is where I am supposed to be.

First Week of Semester Two

Back in December, we finished first semester with a week and a half of final exams, and then I took off to go home for a couple weeks for Christmas break.  It was a lot of fun to be home and with everyone there.  I was able to spend a lot of good quality time with family including many nights watching the Bulls with grandpa Miller and reconnect with friends.  As 2013 began I had some time to reflect on the past year and how much I have been blessed in and enjoyed 2012.  I came back a couple days early to spend some time in Monte Plata.  I always love returning to Monte Plata and try to make visits there as much as possible.  I got a lot of rest there being away from all the distractions at home that would keep me awake far past my bedtime and also got some good exercise playing basketball and soccer in the hot sun.  Then on Sunday, I returned back to Santo Domingo.
Monday was a staff development day and we spent the day going over and giving input on what we what the students of our school to be able to do and the character we would like them to have.  It was definitely a long day and I was concerned I would have trouble staying awake during the meetings since I was back to the schedule of waking up early which my body was certainly not used to, but thankfully the meeting were very interactive and engaging so my eyes stayed open.  One of the last days of first semester, I was informed that due to some changing of positions with faculty that my schedule was going to change and I would have an additional class every day, which was fine with me since I felt my load was pretty light.  The plan was that the other math teacher and I would have four classes each two of those being honors, which meant she was going to take the 10th grade honors class.  I was a little sad to lose that group since they are a highly motivated and fun group, but it was how things worked out.  As a result of the changes, we had to make changes to everyone's schedules, which meant the first day of second semester would be chaos. 
About halfway through the first day of classes, we realized the was a schedule conflict with our 11th and 12th grades.  For the rest of the day we had people working on schedules trying to get them to work, but in the end there was no way to make it work other than to give me one of the groups from twelfth grade.  I went home extremely concerned that I was supposed to be teaching a calculus lesson to twelfth grade the next day (most likely at the start of the day) without even knowing the topic or having a copy of the textbook.  On top of that, I had never worked with that grade at all.  At least with the other groups I had had all of those students during first semester.  I had heard many stories about this grade and some of their behavior issues and I was concerned about how they would respond to me and all the changes.
The next day I got the textbook right as classes were starting and flew by the seat of my pants.  I didn't have any behavior problems and for the most part everyone was engaged.  It was surprising to say the least, but it was nothing that I did but rather what God is doing.  Each of the high school grades are separated into two groups (A and B), so when they come to math it becomes a blend of A and B since they are divided into the honors class and the regular class.  I knew I had some difficult groups with my regular classes because for many of them they did not make the cutoff for the honors because of behavior, so it becomes a really tough blend of students who choose to be disruptive and students who struggle with math and really need help.  There is one class in particular that I simply feel exhausted after working with them.  There was one day where I only had about five students that wanted to learn so I just put them together in a group and gave them the lesson and the others didn't care.  Sometimes we ride home with the dean of discipline since she lives down the road from us and I was telling her the students that I had all together in this particular class, and at first she said, "how can they do that?" Surprised that all these kids were allowed to be in the same classroom together, and then she let let out a little chuckle of disbelief and said, "that is a bomb." I knew it was rough, but I was working through it, I never felt like it was out of control, and I really enjoy all the students in that class. The class has definitely been better this first week of the semester.  Students that wouldn't even bring paper to class now bring their notebook AND take notes! Seriously it's huge progress.
For a lot of these kids, they lack motivation.  They have been given pretty much everything they wanted, and they see their parents money as all they need to succeed in life and a way to pay their way out of anything.  It is a really unique situation, and I really love doing what I'm doing. It's easy for an outsider to see how empty these kids are, and how much they are in need of God, but they themselves think they have it all and have no need for God even though they seek to fill a whole with things like relationships, alcohol, and drugs.  My job is to teach them math, but the other part of my job and what I feel God has called me to do is show them His love.  I find that it is really about those little teachable moments.