Assessments to Giggles

Originally I had planned for this post to be about camp and school.  But this weekend took a different turn.

This weekend was homecoming at VU.  All of my sorority sisters posted Facebook statuses like "Going to Valpo for the fest," and "Keg and Eggs".  I didn't really expect this to hit me hard.  I mean, my Dad went to VU in the seventies, now lives in the same town and has maybe made it to homecoming five times in the last thirty years.  No big deal, right?  Well, I got a phone call from my friend Kelley (also my Grandlittle in the sorority) about some sorority family updates.  She told me about the sisterly plans and it made my heart sink.  Boy, do I miss college.  I miss homecoming, having old alumnae come to our chapter room, and the usual lecture about showing up sober to this event.  I miss the stupid VU football game that they never win.  I miss going out to eat with my real family after church on this particular Sunday.  Above all, I wish that I could have spent this weekend with my Delta family.

On Friday, a bunch of the volunteers went to see a movie called "Moneyball".  It was about the Oakland A's and their story of triumph.  Usually I'm not a fan of sports movies.  This one was awesome though.  At the end, the main character's daughter wrote him a song.  Part of the lyrics are about her being caught in the middle and growing up.  She says, "Just enjoy the show". I absolutely love that.  Sometimes we get caught up so much in our issues/life that we don't stop to enjoy it.  This past week at school I've been working hard to get my kids where they need to be at for the end of the quarter coming up.  On Thursday, I had my first parent meeting.  Then Friday, one of my kids had the best day he's ever had the last six weeks.  Sometimes I get so caught up in teaching and forget that my kids are only six years old.  They still need their moms.  They still need hugs when they get stung by a bee or to wiggle in their sits.  I kind of had a break through when one of the girls asked me to fix her hair.  I plopped her on my lap, which caused the kids nearest me to get a fit of giggles, and to braid her hair.  It was one of those "Ah Ha" moments that so many teachers talk about.  The last two weeks I've been caught up in a mess of standards, assessments, and classroom discipline.  I forgot to let my kids BE six years old.  They need to laugh.  They need to giggle.  They also need those belly laughs that God gives.

That's my goal this week.

Just enjoy the show

Sly Foxes

“I want a life that sizzles and pops and makes me laugh out loud. And I don't want to get to the end, or to tomorrow, even, and realize that my life is a collection of meetings and pop cans and errands and receipts and dirty dishes. I want to eat cold tangerines and sing out loud in the car with the windows open and wear pink shoes and stay up all night laughing and paint my walls the exact color of the sky right now. I want to sleep hard on clean white sheets and throw parties and eat ripe tomatoes and read books so good they make me jump up and down, and I want my everyday to make God belly laugh, glad that he gave life to someone who loves the gift.” 
― Shauna Niequist, Cold Tangerines: Celebrating the Extraordinary Nature of Everyday Life

 

Today the volunteers had to go to a lecture about living in community by a visiting priest.  At first I wasn't feeling it.  I was tired, cranky, and very emotional from a rough week of teaching.  He talked about accepting your selfishness, using God's gifts that He can you, and the truly listening to one another.  He also brought up the idea of expectations in relationships versus demands.  All of these things have come up in my life recently.  It was weirdly accurate.  There goes God again.

 

From time to time, I remind myself of Niequist's quote and how we can it apply it to our daily lives.  It's about not taking yourself too seriously and remembering you too deserve to act like a kid every once in awhile.  That's why on Wednesday I taught my students how to act like foxes and slyly walk from our building to the other elementary building.  Every so often I would turn around and they would stop in their tracks with a scared look on their faces.  Must have been because I told them if I caught them that the enemy critter would eat them....... 

Too Much

Things I've Learned the Past Week and Some Things That I Already Knew But Resurfaced:

1.  If you don't have anything nice to say, then don't say anything at all.
2.  Sometimes kindergarteners seriously need a nap and then everything will be a ton better.
3.  No matter how rough today was, tomorrow is always a new day.
4.  Trusting in God's plan may be difficult. 
5.  Knowing that I need to trust in His plan makes each struggle worth the battle.
6.  Six year olds have more germs than eight year olds. Doing "air fives" instead of high fives will save a teacher from numerous colds and sore throats.
7.  Having a strong support system here and back home may be the only reason I survive my first year teaching.

Today was ultimately the hardest day I've ever had as a teacher. I can't get into details. I can tell you though that I reached my breaking point.  Yes, I'm here to teach.  Yes, I know why God put me at this school on this reservation.  No, I wasn't prepared for the incident that happened today.  Today really made me wonder why God specifically put me in this kindergarten position though.  I wasn't ready for kindergarten.  It takes a special gift to work with the kids at this age level.  My mom has it as does my friend Holly.  Alas, I've always known God did not give that gift to me.  I came to Red Cloud knowing that, but I wanted to be out here on the Rez badly enough that I just thought of it as a learning experience.  My heart yearns for the second graders again. 

I want kids in my classroom that can read, tie their shoes, and remember to raise their hand to talk.  I want kids that do not have "accidents".  That hasn't proven to be a part of God's plan though.  He has me with the germiest, youngest, most undisciplined, and squirreliest ones of the entire elementary school. Maybe this just goes to show that God has a deeper understanding of what we need....gosh,  He's done it again.

Come Back Martin Luther

Today I went to another mass, but at a new place for me.  Honestly, I'm tired of trying to understand being Catholic.  Since I'm working at school that teaches Catholic/Lakota values, alot of our volunteer community is Catholic.  Little did I know how much this would affect me.

I want to worship with other Christians.  Going to mass each week with members of my community let's me do so.  But to me, this isn't my path.  Everything about the Catholic service still seems so foreign to me.  Yes, the Lutheran denomination is the closest to Catholicism that you can get.  Yet my synod, ELCA, is the furthest away from what most Catholics believe.

I miss being able to take communion.  I miss having lots of little kids at church.  I miss our choir.  I miss actually having a youth ministry.  I miss everything about my church at home.  Most of all I miss my church family-the people that I feel comfortable serving the Lord with.  While being out here on the Rez, most Sundays feel as if I'm just "playing church".  My faith has not grown while out here.  I haven't found people to hold me accountable about my faith journey like I do at home and at camp.  Apparently, most Catholics don't like to "free pray" like us camp counselors.  It's all the traditional kind of prayer that makes it hard for me to see God at work.

Even though this struggle continues, my teaching has gotten better and so have many relationships with friends out here.  We all challenge each other with rants about the way our school system works or what really proved to be most important to our school community.  I've grown very close to one of the guy volunteers and care about him alot.  It's a very different type of relationship than I've ever been in and people in our community never saw it coming.  I learn new things about him everyday and appreciate him challenging me to be a better person. We're very different but for some reason we mesh.

 He loves football.  I don't understand it.  I do understand his passion for coaching though and that's all that matters.  He hates lying down in grass.  I love being outdoors.  He's Catholic.  I'm Lutheran.  It's something we're still working on together.  He gives me compliments.  I don't know how to react to them.  This is one time in my life that I'm willing to take this experience slow.  So many of my past relationships went way too fast and have paid the consequences. I've learned so much about my journey with Christ and the person that He wanted me to be this past year.  Maybe just maybe, we've both finally gotten the timing right :)

Meet Squeakers

Yesterday I noticed the worst thing ever....my voice started to get deeper.
In the life of a camp counselor/teacher that can only mean one thing-----utter chaos.  My voice went completely out today.  Even when I tried to talk normally to my students either a squeak or a whisper came out.  They kept asking, "Miss Abby, where did your voice go?"  I said if I knew, then I would go get it. 

I wrote out these huge plans for my two aides at 6:30 this morning, but decided to stay in the classroom the whole day just in case something went wrong.  My aides did really well with the whole group reading instruction and discipline.  Thank God for people who are willing to step up.  In the morning we had kindergarten through eighth grade mass at the chapel here.  My little ones sat between the eighth graders.  I hadn't warned them and it showed.  A few of the youngest kids were terrified but eventually warmed up to the big kids next to them.  It easily made my day.  During the afternoon one of my kids took a number 2 in his pants.  Apparently, his family had a case of diarrhea throughout the week.  My aide, Mikey, had to deal with the bulk of it by helping the kid clean himself off.  Got to love the life of a kindergarten teacher. 

My voice is still crapped out as of right now.  Off to write more lesson plans for my aides tomorrow.  The adventures of teaching continue....

Kindergarten-Boogers, Untied Shoes and Being a Mom

It's been way too long since I last posted. 

I'm officially a kindergarten teacher.
I'm officially a certified bus driver.
Apparently God finds some humour in these things and the way my life has turned out.

Life on the Rez got really serious the last three weeks.  I'm done with two solid weeks of teaching my twenty students.  Honestly it feels like I've been "playing school" as my mom's put it.  But, now it's time to teach my little ones how to read.  Crazy.  I always hated relearning phonics in college and now I have to teach it.  Not one of my favorite scenarios.

Since I'm teaching in a private school, my kids are all on a 30 day trial.  The first week I had to tell one of my students that he couldn't come next week.  His behavior was out of control even though his academics were sound.  Talk about a rough first Friday of the school year.  Although he gave me and the aides a lot of trouble, I couldn't help but like him.  I cried when I put him on the bus.  The next Monday I had a new student to replace him.

Every day I'm learning about the kind of kindergarten teacher I want to be.  These kids have absolutely no manners.  They poke, pinch, and give each other rattlesnake burns.  They can't tie their shoes.  They ask to go to the bathroom every five minutes.  I know that I'm not going to teach this grade forever.  But, I can't help but love being a mom to them--holding their hand on the way to Religion/Lakota class or to PE, opening their milk for them at lunch, tying their shoes, stuffing their folders, or making sure that they have an extra set of clothes just in case they have an "accident".  For some reason right now, I know that God put me in the "magical kingdom" of a classroom.  Although I may not be able to see through the intense reading curriculum, I know my kids will come so far by May. 

What He has given me in challenges at school, He made up for it in my friends here.  They are very supportive and that's all I can ask for. When Claire and I finally make it out of our classrooms, we bake cookies while talking in weird accents.  Anna tries to dance on me while we cook.  Kevin and I end up wrestling when we get too frustrated with school work.  Liz makes up random lies that we can only tell she's lying when she bursts out into contagious laughter.  Tim and Maria always have a meal going when I come in at six each day from school.  Shannon talks about her days in med school and stories of the ER. Plus there are too many stories to count.  Some how we make up a huge family that just seems to work in our volunteer program.  These people challenge me to be the real Abby, not the one my college friends knew.  Thank God for these people and kids in my life.  Every day makes me glad I'm here.

Sometimes I still wonder what teaching in Indiana would have been like.  Every time I think that though, I know how grateful I am for this experience.  Hopefully I'm being the woman of God that I'm meant to be.  Even if it involves little five year olds....
God Works.

First Encounter

Our last week was filled with laughter, jokes, a failed CDL bus test (for some) and more volunteer love than I could have ever dreamed.  We all mesh so well that I know God has some A-MAZ-ING plans for Red Cloud and Our Lady of Lourdes this school year.  I thought you all would love to have a description of my new friends here in SoDak so here we go:

 imagine a three girl part harmony going on in the background hehe :)

Claire-3rd grade teacher at RC, from St. Louis but went to school in Kansas, says the most hilarious things you never know what comment will come out of her mouth, isn't afraid to be herself and that's what I love about her the most

Anna- substitute at the high school, is very talented musically and has one of the kindest hearts I know, she also hates soup

Mickey-my kindergarten aide at RC, went to school at Santa Clara and from Northern California, loves soccer and will help coach one of the soccer teams here, does funny voice overs and has a fun personality

Liz-college advisor and alumni relations at the high school, big personality, pretty much grew up on the Rez because her parents met here, has so much to offer to this community and loves to experience everything

Kevin- K through 8 PE/health teacher, was a Jesuit novice for a year and a kindergarten aide for half that time at RC, former camp counselor, very chill personality and has some serious dance skills

Andrew-high school English teacher, born in Omaha Nebraska, loves sports, very fun to banter with back and forth

Those were the few of us newer (minus Liz since this is her second year) newbies in the Red Cloud community.  We went with our sister school companions (what we refer to as OLL) out to a pub in Gordon, NE which is about forty five minutes south of here. The volunteers also call it a border town.  It was a small town pub that have cowboys at the bar itself.  Yes, good old cowboy hat and boot wearin' men.  I made the mistake of asking the bartender about his huge Western belt buckle.  He went on about it and wouldn't leave our group alone.  He then started talking about how crazy it gets in Gordon at the first and fifteen of the month since that's when the Lakota community get their paychecks/food stamps.  That's when I knew this would become a part of my life-discussions with arrogant people like him who don't know the Rez culture.  Although alcoholism is a huge problem in this area, that doesn't mean people should generalize like that.  It's something I'll have to get used to and learn to hold my tongue better.

Tomorrow, a bunch of us get another stab at the CDL (bus driving) written test up in Rapid City.  I feel a lot more confident then last time and managed to get some solid sleep too, thank goodness.  We'll see how it goes.  Prayers would be greatly appreciated :)