Hi friends and family! Just wanted to take some time to update y'all on our first week in Bali, Indonesia! Sorry it's wordy tonight!
As you know, I had my first day of orientation on August 1st. The next day, we had informational meeting in the morning, and another fun activity in the afternoon-a Balinese mixed martial arts and yoga practiced in a mud pit! It was a crazy team building activity where we found ourselves wrestling and throwing instructors in the mud, dancing in a circle and doing yoga with a duck on our heads! It was a blast!
The next day we had a morning meeting with our head of school. He is inspirational to any educator who hears him speak and he is so passionate about Green School. While all of these ideas and philosophies are exciting, it can also feel overwhelming in that I will really be pushing myself as a teacher. When we were done, we went for another excursion-this time we rode in the back of a truck to a place where we could climb through Subak tunnels, which is a traditional Balinese irrigation system. At some points it was really scary-you had to completely trust the person in front of you. Afterward, we went to a Hindu temple for a blessing with Ibu Kadek (she takes care of all of the food at school and is like a mom, so it was really special to attend the temple with her.)
After dinner, we hopped back in the truck to head to school. It was pretty dark and I grabbed the railing where a nasty spider was sitting. It bit me! (If you know me, you know I'm terrified of spiders!!) Thank goodness there are rarely deadly poisonous spiders in Bali. It just hurt and my hand went numb for a bit. Don't worry mom and dad, my arm didn't fall off!
Orientation since then has just been lots of programming and curriculum work. Sorry, this paragraph is for my teacher friends : ) I received 3 pieces of good news today.
1. As of right now, I only have 16 students!
2. The library is nice and is fully stocked for guided reading!
3. The other Grade 1 teacher sent me really amazing resources for our thematic units!!
I'm still learning exactly what resources are available. For example, we have math manipulatives even though they are made of plastic, because it was not realistic to make each material. I've learned there are 3 frameworks, proficiency (math and language arts) thematics (taught by me and my Indonesian co-teacher) and experiential (art, music, yoga, PE, etc. taught by specialists).
Okay enough teacher talk. This week, while I have been at work, Michael has been working really hard trying to find us a place to rent for the year and taking care of other errands. I'm really not sure how a new teacher at an international school does everything on top of a busy orientation schedule!
Michael and I keep having to remind each other that we have only been here 6 days! We are so looking forward to this new lifestyle, but we are not there yet! We need to find a place to live first and then we can unpack our things, Michael can find a job, get a surfboard, we can join a church, I can find a yoga studio, and we can spend our weekends on the beach : )
As you know, I had my first day of orientation on August 1st. The next day, we had informational meeting in the morning, and another fun activity in the afternoon-a Balinese mixed martial arts and yoga practiced in a mud pit! It was a crazy team building activity where we found ourselves wrestling and throwing instructors in the mud, dancing in a circle and doing yoga with a duck on our heads! It was a blast!
 |
| a few of the teachers after the mud fun! |
The next day we had a morning meeting with our head of school. He is inspirational to any educator who hears him speak and he is so passionate about Green School. While all of these ideas and philosophies are exciting, it can also feel overwhelming in that I will really be pushing myself as a teacher. When we were done, we went for another excursion-this time we rode in the back of a truck to a place where we could climb through Subak tunnels, which is a traditional Balinese irrigation system. At some points it was really scary-you had to completely trust the person in front of you. Afterward, we went to a Hindu temple for a blessing with Ibu Kadek (she takes care of all of the food at school and is like a mom, so it was really special to attend the temple with her.)
After dinner, we hopped back in the truck to head to school. It was pretty dark and I grabbed the railing where a nasty spider was sitting. It bit me! (If you know me, you know I'm terrified of spiders!!) Thank goodness there are rarely deadly poisonous spiders in Bali. It just hurt and my hand went numb for a bit. Don't worry mom and dad, my arm didn't fall off!
Orientation since then has just been lots of programming and curriculum work. Sorry, this paragraph is for my teacher friends : ) I received 3 pieces of good news today.
1. As of right now, I only have 16 students!
2. The library is nice and is fully stocked for guided reading!
3. The other Grade 1 teacher sent me really amazing resources for our thematic units!!
I'm still learning exactly what resources are available. For example, we have math manipulatives even though they are made of plastic, because it was not realistic to make each material. I've learned there are 3 frameworks, proficiency (math and language arts) thematics (taught by me and my Indonesian co-teacher) and experiential (art, music, yoga, PE, etc. taught by specialists).
Okay enough teacher talk. This week, while I have been at work, Michael has been working really hard trying to find us a place to rent for the year and taking care of other errands. I'm really not sure how a new teacher at an international school does everything on top of a busy orientation schedule!
Michael and I keep having to remind each other that we have only been here 6 days! We are so looking forward to this new lifestyle, but we are not there yet! We need to find a place to live first and then we can unpack our things, Michael can find a job, get a surfboard, we can join a church, I can find a yoga studio, and we can spend our weekends on the beach : )
Baaaah! Im so excited for you tones!! Im so glad they have a stocked library and manipulatives available for ya! 16 students!!!!!!!!!!!!!! dream!! I almost teared up reading this... Im just so happy for you and can't believe you're actually there after all of your hard work and waiting... its happening!! Keep up the updates!! Love and miss you!!!
ReplyDelete-Nichocho <3