Finally, it looks like a classroom!
Trip Start
Jun 16, 2005
1
18
46
Trip End
Aug 2006
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San Jose,
Costa Rica
Monday, September 5, 2005
Well, Explorer just pulled that ''encountered an error and needs to close'' thing, so I'm going to try to recreate what I just wrote, in ten minutes or less (I have English class in an hour!).
The week was pretty eventful, at least as far as infrastructure is concerned. I had ordered 3 sets of shelves from a local carpenter, and they arrived -- two for the classroom and one for the apartment. So, we are no longer tripping over stuff anymore, which is nice, and things have places to be put, which facilitates teaching the kids how to clean up. And the classroom looks fantastic. Cool.
Argenis apologized today, so he is the first of my little thieves to come back. We went over the fact that he needs to be on his best behavior, or else he's out -- permanently, but he was very well-behaved today. After a few experiences of blessedly peaceful days, however, I'm getting better at kicking out the kids who are really misbehaving -- playing ''hamburger'' with the beanbag chairs, hitting, or in one child's case today, being overly disruptive (loudly proclaiming how easy a much younger child's work is, calling my name over and over to call attention to the fact that he is doing nothing and wishes to do nothing, etc). It's really the only solution available for really bad behavior, especially when the kids don't care anymore if they're going to get stickers.
I'm also trying to find a phrase like my kindergarten teacher had when she was mad at us: "I am appalled!" We didn't really know what that meant, but we certainly got the jist. There isn't an exact translation for anger mixed with surprise and shock -- at least in the dictionary, but I'm trying to find a suitable substitute. I'm sure it would help to be able to say something like that when the kids are completely out of line.
Generally, though, the program is going well and I'm serving about 20 kids a day, more or less.
I'm going to try to get these pictures of the classroom up now, but we'll see if that works!
Hope you all are doing well.
Peace,
Elizabeth
Mostly, though,
