Scroll down and stay a while...

Scroll down and stay a while...

Thursday, February 26, 2015

Update on teaching

Hello and happy almost Friday,

We've been teaching for three weeks now. Our days go very quickly and time seems to be flying here. We are still so thankful to be living here and continue to soak up each day. We were actually just talking the other day about living here, right where we feel called to be. Mitch brought up the fact that we need to remember to continue to seek God's will, even now when we feel we are where we need to be. He mentioned that moving to Managua was only the first step, not the final step. Now that we are here, we need to continue asking God what He has in store for us. That was a good reminder for both of us as we are starting this new phase of teaching.

We're both settling in to our new teaching roles. Lauren is enjoying being an assistant, with all that that brings - free evenings, extra time to cook, time to read, more time to write blogs, and do all the other things that she often put to the side during her teaching days in Virginia. Although Lauren doesn't have work to bring home, she sees the work ahead of her this year in working with the teacher of her kindergarten classroom. Right now, she's helping a lot with classroom behavior management and will begin this next week with implementing small group times in the classroom. Every teacher at NCA has, or is working toward, a degree in teacher education; however, the methodology taught here is much different from what we were taught in our courses. The techniques we learned at EMU are not often seen in the majority of the classrooms, and we are adapting every day.

Speaking of classrooms, Mitch is in a lot of them each day. While he's figuring out his role and responsibilities at the school, he also has to oversee the other 4 teachers in the English department. Since he is the coordinator, he spends half of his time teaching and half of his time advising. He teaches 3 classes each morning: 5-6th grade advanced, 7-8th grade advanced, and 9-11th grade advanced. In his afternoons, he observes the other teachers and offers feedback. Though his work comes home with him after a long day at school, he doesn't seem to be overwhelmed at all. We both feel so encouraged by our school community, and it's a great place to be.

The past 2 weeks, we've also made more of a point to get over to CINAFE, Fortress of Hope, after school almost every day of the work week. We walk Emre over and sometimes stay for 15 minutes, sometimes an hour. We get to help the kids with homework and just hang out with them. Without the obligation of teaching English each afternoon there, we are really relishing the time we have to continue building relationships outside of a "classroom" setting.

This past weekend we enjoyed such a great, short trip to Granada with some new friends that we are making here in Managua. It's definitely different not having a close friend group nearby, but we're comforted by our little family of 2, and a dog, as well as our family at CINAFE and our school community at NCA Nejapa.

Thanks for thinking of and praying for us continually, we'll write again soon! And next time, we'll try to attach some good pictures of our school :)

Saturday, February 7, 2015

School Days

Hello, everyone! Is it really already February? Spring is just around the corner for most of you. The seasons and weather all run together here. To us, it's just hot. Always. Hot. Although the weather doesn't seem to be changing much, our daily schedules down here in Managua have become quite different in the past few weeks. Students start school this Monday, February 9th! We're excited to get started and meet all of our students! It feels like it's been a while since we've been in a classroom and we miss it!

We began our teacher work days at NCA Nejapa (Nicaragua Christian Academy) 3 weeks ago. Just to recap, Mitch is the English coordinator and will teach 20 hours a week and advise the other members of the English department the other 20 hours a week. We anticipate that he'll get to speak some Spanish, but mostly English. Lauren is a kindergarten sssistant and will spend each day in a Spanish speaking classroom. We're excited for these different roles and all that we'll learn in the year to come.

What a difference it is to be in this Christian school system, instead of the public system we were used to. We've been adjusting well to all of the changes and are enjoying the Christian atmosphere. Our first week our principal reminded everyone of the importance of academic learning, but more importantly, of the importance of teaching about Christ and being models of Christ in our classrooms. We talked about it at home later than night and how we never had the freedom to share those things before now. It was always academics above all else. We are grateful that we're getting the opportunity to experience both sides of the coin in these early stages of our careers!

Speaking of things being said, all directions that we're given, all staff/teacher work days, all workshops, and devotions are all done in Spanish. We decided we probably get about 35-40% of what's being said at school. Directions are given, and we miss them. Tasks are divided out, and we miss them. Jokes are said and all the staff laughs, while we look at each other with blank stares. Depending on who is speaking, how clearly and how slowly, we can either pick up most all of what's being said, or we miss almost every word. We are learning to be gracious with ourselves in acknowledging that we've only been here for 4 months and there's a learning curve to learning a new language.

The first week of teacher work days, we skipped the morning session to go to a funeral of a staff member whose father passed away. Somehow we didn't catch that when it was explained to us all in the morning announcements. Lauren found out when someone came up to her and told us in English, "So you two will get to experience your first Nicaraguan funeral today!" Lauren said, "What?" She then went and told Mitch and somehow he missed the memo as well. Since then we've been careful to clarify everything that we hear in Spanish. There are several staff members who speak English very well. All of the staff in Mitch's English department speak English and help us out when we need it.

We've been trying to figure out our schedules and get into a routine so we can find intentional times to go to Fortress of Hope in the evenings. Today, we went to Fortress of Hope to begin English classes again. This was our first English class in 2 months! We decided to teach English there only on Saturdays for now and we'll hopefully add a day or two during the week once we're a little more settled in to our school schedules.

We'd love your continued prayers, especially now as we're adjusting to a new school in a different culture. Thanks for your love. We feel it all the way down where it's 90 degrees :)

Make it a great week,
Lauren & Mitchell