Lembongan and Teacher Talk

Last weekend we took our first trip outside of Bali to Lembongan!

We caught a ferry in Sanur, a city on the east coast about an hour’s drive from Canggu; in 30 minutes we went from the normal black sand beach to white sand beach with crystal clear water! I knew the diving would be good, but I didn’t know the island would be so beautiful. We spent Saturday and Sunday in Lembongan. They had diving, snorkeling, paddle boarding, and banana boats! I went the relaxing route-$10 full body hour long massage followed by an afternoon of tanning and sunset dinner with friends. It's amazing how rejuvenated you feel after going away for a weekend! 

This next part is teacher talk! 

For starters, one of my goals for this year is to not use the printer. We have journals for math, writing, homework and thematics, and I improvise for other things. For example, I use Starfall for calendar time instead of a bulletin board (partly because I didn't have room to pack my sweet calendar set) For assessments like running records, I just keep on my computer in student folders. Homework is a daily entry in their journal like:

Find a pattern in your home.

Practice skip counting by twos.

What book did you read tonight?

Write a sentence about...

Write the four greetings in Indonesian

Of course this is easy to do with only 14 kids! 

This past week was Challenge Week. Here is an article from the Green School Newsletter shares all the activities in the different grades with pictures. http://www.greenschool.org/weekly-newsletter/sep-12-2014/challenge-week-update

The idea is to take time and assess the whole child. Challenge Week is a time to focus on intellectual, creative, social emotional and physical developments.

My teaching experience has been in NC public schools and an American school in Kuwait, so I basically have no experience in holistic education! I want to share a little bit of my reflection on this subject and try not to ramble!

What does it mean to provide child-centered education? Is my class subject-centered or child-centered? How does my schedule reflect this? 

I have always worked in a school where the schedule tells me when to teach Language Arts, Math, Social Studies and Science. The goal is to integrate all the subjects and for the children to understand the concepts presented. 

Now I am teaching in a school where the day has blocks for thematics, English, Math and "specials." Our next theme is Indonesian Fairy Tales. I teach first grade, when they still believe in magic. The tooth fairy visits when they lose a tooth, and when I asked last week what they want to be when they grow up, I got two princesses and a fairy. How can we teach Indonesian fairy tales in a way that is relevant to the children? So the next question: 

Is childhood its own culture? Do I speak the language? How do I provide time for kids to be kids? Should there be time for play? 

Many of my students come from a home-school or un-school setting. Some parents want their kids to play most of the day, others are ready for academic rigor. My goal is to find a balance. 

On Thursday, I put out math manipulatives with no instructions or rules for what they could or could not do-this was really difficult for me!! At one center, I put out a balance scale, where two of my students who are learning English, played for 20 minutes. They put in crayons, pencil sharpeners, erasers, then took everything out, sorted the materials, and counted how many were in each group. First-I would have never thought to have a center with a scale and art tubs! Second-they were completely engaged, talking to each other (some in English, some in their native Hungarian and Japanese) and doing math related activities! My Indonesian teacher and I just watched in amazement!

And my last question: Do we allow time for development? Is it okay if Cindy can't add yet, because she is still learning her numbers? Is it okay if Johnny can't label the life cycle of a frog? 

Last year I would have said no, it's not okay. If they don't understand it's, because they're not putting in effort to learn the concepts. One of my colleagues would say "I just want to throw out the whole schedule and do project based learning!" I think I understand why now! 

This year will be a lot more work-planning, reflecting, and research, but I'm excited to see how my teaching philosophy will grow and change! 

And to any teacher friends who read all of that-thank you! : )