Some of you may have realized that you haven’t heard a whole
lot from me (Christen) this past semester; whether it was my lack of blog
updates, emails, or phone calls. I
apologize for being so distant – that was not my intention. We began preparing for the school year in
August and I feel like I have been running on pure adrenaline ever since
then! As most of you know, I am pregnant
and due this March. It has been such a
joy going through the different phases in this process and learning to trust
the Lord when I clearly have no control over my situation. The month of August was a rough one for me
though, filled with nausea, vomiting, and being way too tired. Plus I was scared all the time – how much of
what I was feeling was because I was pregnant?
What if I had eaten something bad and that’s why I wasn't feeling well
and it was hurting the baby? Is this how
you’re supposed to feel when you’re pregnant?
My mom never really experienced much sickness while being pregnant and I
figured that it would be the same for me – man was I wrong about that one! It doesn't help that my doctor speaks only a
few words of English and I am in a developing country – it was very easy to let
fear begin to sink in and take hold of my life.
On top of all these crazy changes going on in my body, I had a school
year to prepare for. They don’t teach
you what the first week of school is supposed to look like in student teaching
and I feel like last year I failed at it miserably. My goal this year was to present a clear
classroom management system that would help students know my expectations in
all situations and more time would be spent learning instead of dealing with
behavior problems. Any time I was not
sleeping (whether on a couch or the desks in my classroom), I was figuring out
just how I would communicate that to my middle school students.
A constant theme for me this past semester was how God is so
faithful. It seemed that whenever I was
lacking something – whether ideas in the classroom or rest – He would provide;
it was just a matter of my asking Him and giving up my control to allow God to
take the lead. One of these ideas came
in my classroom management. Last year
was a huge learning experience for me and I felt like my classroom management
was constantly changing – I never had a clear set of expectations for my
students. This year I spent the first
week of school clearly communicating to my students what I would be expecting
of them this semester from their behavior to school work and how I would be
pushing them not only in science but also in their English development. I am confident that my classroom management
has been an area of success for me this year because of my ability to listen to
God’s voice and allow Him to be in control in my classroom!
I had three classes to prepare for this semester – 6th
grade devotionals, 6th grade physical science, and 7th
grade Earth science. I figured planning
would be a breeze this year compared to last year since I've done it all once
before, right? Wrong! As I took out my plans from last year and
began to prepare for this year, I realized even though everyone else thought I
had everything together last year, I really didn't. My plans seemed like a big joke to me! What had I done? My students must not have learned
anything! There was so much to change,
so much to improve upon. I instantly
began to recognize my need to completely re-vamp all I had done last year. I realized that this second year of teaching
that I thought would be such a breeze was actually going to be filled with many
nights and weekends of taking work home.
Although there was so much to change I found that I was able to create
clear learning targets for my students that were actually aligned with
curriculum standards. There was some
awesome learning that went on in the classroom this fall where students were
active participants instead of instruction being teacher-centered. It’s amazing the amount of learning that
takes place when students are active learners instead of just waiting for the
teacher to feed them information!
Last year my least favorite class to teach was my 6th
grade devotionals class – probably because I had never done anything like that
before and really felt unqualified to do it.
It is tough when it’s just you coming up with curriculum and the Bible
is so vast – where do you begin? And
what do 6th graders need to know?
This year, to help me be a little more on top of my game, I met early in
the year with our discipleship director, Patrick Pace, and asked him for some
advice. I knew the theme I wanted to
incorporate for the year – What is true
about God? – But how do I teach that?
Last year we received training from ACSI (Association of Christian
Schools International) for Biblical integration in our classrooms – he suggested
I start with that. We began the year
discussing what is truth? What is the
difference between absolute and relative truth?
Then we started to dive into the Bible and see what is true about God,
creation, mankind, moral order, and purpose.
Students learned specific biblical principles that they will (hopefully)
begin to look for in their content classes and the world around them. We closed out the semester by talking about
what is true about the Nativity story – many kid’s (and our own) perceptions of
Christmas are skewed by gifts and stories of Santa Claus they have heard
growing up – but we looked deeper at what events really took place leading up
to, during, and after the birth of Christ.
I plan to continue the theme of “Truth” when we return from the holidays
as we dive into the Gospel of John.
As many of you may remember, Doulos is an expeditionary
learning school. Each semester students
have a unit of focused study that involves learning through experience whether
that is field work or learning from experts in a particular area of study and
culminates in a night of celebration sharing work with parents, community
members, and Doulos staff. This semester
I was tasked with being in charge of two expeditions at once. 7th grade would be focusing on a
unit on caves which was the same as last year; however, 6th grade’s
expedition changed this year and it was my job to create/plan their new, more
curriculum-aligned expedition. I already
knew that there was much I wanted to improve upon for the 7th grade
cave expedition. I wanted it to be much
more curriculum-based instead of purely informational. With help from our new Curriculum Coach,
Danae LeMoine, I was able to focus our cave unit on building upon what students
had learned throughout the semester. By
activating prior knowledge, students were able to apply what they knew about
Earth’s waters, rocks and minerals, weathering and erosion to help them learn
more deeply about caves. We were unable
to find any cave experts this year to talk with students but were still able to
visit a cave on the North Coast which included a lagoon that you could zipline
into! The kids had a great time and it
was so fun to see them applying what they learned as they saw in real life the
different cave features that we had been discussing in the classroom. Our final product was a brochure that the
students created for the Cave we visited (Cueva Dudu) that will be passed out
to future visitors. Expedition night
found our students acting as tour guides for the life-size model cave they
created in a corridor behind our amphitheater.
Students did an awesome job and took so much ownership of their work – I
hardly oversaw any of their work but was so impressed with the quality of what
they did.
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| 7th grade students in front of the entrance to the cave |
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| Students swimming in the lagoon and checking out the underwater stalagmites |
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| Abel jumping from the zipline! |
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| The life-size cave model packed full with Middle School students! |
Although the 6th grade expedition was a work in
progress and there is much to be improved upon for next year, it still was very
successful. Students were able to apply
what they had learned about energy transfer and use the steps of the scientific
method to help them investigate applicable questions on energy. Students were able to plan an experiment and
test their hypothesis thanks to a ton of collaboration from my fellow middle
school teachers. Their final product was
a brochure they made for parents with recommendations of different products
that used less energy (light bulbs, fans, vehicles, batteries, etc.) based on
their findings. Students also wrote lab
reports that were based on high school requirements and made exposition posters
that shared their work in Spanish for their parents.
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| Annaly, David, and Frandi comparing amperage between an incandescent and CFL lightlbulb. |
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| Ariela, Marcos, Heidi comparing amperage between a box fan and rotating fan. |
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| Maria Jose and Ashley compared MPG between cars with a diesel and gasoline engine. |
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| 6th grade students presenting their findings |
Overall the semester went great. Although it required a lot of work and I was
exhausted all of the time, it was so awesome to hear students literally
PLEADING with me to give them a test because they understood the learning
targets! It was also amazing to see our
community rise up to help me in any way they could, whether it was for expedition
night, lesson planning, or a friend being there when it had been a tough
day. Finally, I felt most blessed to
have Joe. His support this past semester
has been unmatchable. Many nights I
would come home, unable to do anything but lay on the couch. He would take care of dinner, take care of
dishes, our dog, and sometimes even help me grade papers. I am constantly amazed by the love Joe has
for me and the servant leader he is in our family and at our school. God has truly blessed me and I cannot help
but give Him thanks for all I have! My
prayer is that you would experience His abounding love as I have and pass it on
to others. Wishing you a very Merry
Christmas and a Happy New Year.
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| Joe, me, and snowflake baby B at a Christmas party! |
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