language

Ahhh. I got the best call this morning. NO SCHOOL! SNOW DAY! That's the only reason I have time to sit and write this. When Zach went out to scrape off his truck this morning he had to come back in and get a broom because the snow is so deep! At least 8-10 inches fell last night! Well, I plan on being productive today - cleaning, grocery shopping, christmas shopping, paper writing... we'll see how much gets done.

Most of my (Sarah's) posts have been about school. Not surprising since that is where I spend nearly all my time. My students say hilarious things on a daily basis. Two of which happened on Wednesday. The first comment happened while I was on recess duty. A girl in kindergarten likes to follow me around and hug me and talk to me because her older bother is in my class. At one point, she stopped talking and looked up at me and said, "You look like Goldilocks." It made me smile. The second comment of the day which was funnier by far came from a little boy in math class. I wore a long sweater with a belt over the top in an attempt to look trendy. The students were lining up to switch back to their own classroom and I standing at the front of the line. A little girl in the front of the line took my hand and said, "I like your anillo (ring)." The boy behind her looked at me and said, "I like your seatbelt." Seatbelt? Well, I guess I can see that. :)

Yesterday, my coordinating teacher (CT) and I had 3 initial child study meetings. Child Study meetings are used for creating intervention strategies for specific students who are struggling academically or behaviorally or both. The student's teacher, parents, principal, special education teacher, school psychologist, and the school/community relations chair. I went to 2 out of the 3 because I had to teach during one of the meetings. For the first meeting, the mom is a native English speaker and her son looks just like her. They have the same eyes, freckles, and way of speaking. Her son is REALLY struggling academically, has speech problems, among some possible mental things going on. The kid is so sweet and tries hard but his home life isn't helping. Aside from the time she laughed a few times, mom just sat there and stared at the floor. Her son missed over a month of school in kindergarten. That's too much to miss in the early years of school because they learn so much about letters and letter sounds, exactly what he struggles with. When asked why he missed so much school, mom said she overslept then just didn't bring him in to school. A teacher from his preschool also recommended that he be placed in a program for preschool impaired children to give him extra help to catch him up and give him extra attention. She didn't enroll him there. They don't really do anything at home to help him, no reading together or practicing numbers. The little books we send home each month for kids to read with their parents stay in his folder and never get read. Mom said she doesn't work so it's not a time issue. I think she's just lazy and her son is suffering from it. This kid needs support at home and school and he's not getting it at home. Maybe mom stared at the floor because she realized the impact her choices had on her son... I don't really know.

Well, of the two meetings that I sat in, there could not be different parents - well, different moms I should say because the dads didn't come. The mother of this child spoke Spanish very well. *Sidenote: I love that I can understand what the mom was saying without the need of the translator. Of course we have a translator in each meeting because not all the staff at my school speaks Spanish, but I LOVE LOVE LOVE that I can speak another language. It makes me feel more useful. My heart is dying to go to live in a Spanish speaking country so I can become verbally fluent... my comprehension is good, my speaking is bad.* Her and her husband are so involved in their son's academic life even though they speak no English. He brings home. He brings home his little books and reads to them even though they can't understand. At parent teacher conferences, they asked us to grade his homework and send it home again so he could fix his mistakes and keep improving. The topic that kept coming up at conferences and during this meeting was that this little boy is so so very timid. He rarely raises his hand and keeps all speaking to a minimum. Over Thanksgiving break, mom said they had a conversation with their son about his timidity. She asked why he doesn't raise his hand. He said he was afraid that the teacher was going to punish him and scold him if he got the wrong answer! Mom and dad then told him no! that's not the case! Teachers are there to help you learn and they will not punish you if you get the answer wrong. They told him to try raising his hand more. And what do you know? This week he raised his hand more than I had ever seen!!! I tried to call on him whenever he did because he usually never does! His mom and dad are trying their best to have him practice his numbers and letters and words at home. His mom told us that he wants to be a doctor when he grows up. I wouldn't be surprised. He is so caring and hardworking. We encouraged mom to keep this goal in mind - the world needs more bilingual doctors!

learning.

This week has been all about learning. Surprise, surprise I know seeing as how I'm a student-teacher and all. Last Friday, I learned how to handle conflict with students and send them to the office and converse with the principal. Monday I attended the student teacher Fire Up! Conference held at Aquinas College and learned all kinds of useful information in sessions such as: Can I Take my Christian Faith into a Public School?, Special Education and the General Education Teacher, Reducing Teacher Talk (which was hilarious), Supporting English Language Learners, and Parent Communication Dos and Don'ts. I got to practice the Parent Communication tips on Wednesday when I had to sent a certain student back to the office... this time, his mom came in and wanted an explanation from me why her son keeps getting sent to the office. So, I sat in the principal's office with the principal, the student, and the student's mother -- talk about slightly intimidating for a student teacher who has barely gotten her feet wet! This little "meeting" went well. The mother has unrealistic expectations for what she wants to happen with her son (example, she wants him in special ed. even though he's really smart) and she is in denial that he needs testing for ADHD. She's one of those parents who you have to take by the hand and lead towards every step in a process because she is not proactive. She expects everyone to come to her and cater to her so she doesn't have to lift a finger.

I guess I could rant and rave about ridiculous parents all day, but for me the highlight of this little experience (yes, there is a highlight in all this mess!), was that the whole thing took place in 95% Spanish conversation. The principal, mom, student, switched in and out of English and Spanish and I knew exactly what was going on the whole time. Knowing another language is SO COOL! I loved sitting there listening to a conversation about one of my students while the parent and principal spoke in Spanish. I could even tell that the principal is from Puerto Rico because of the way she speaks her Spanish (I later confirmed it with another teacher). It's amazing to think that the human brain can learn a whole new set of vocabulary, phrases, sentence structures, and sounds and actually communicate in that new language. It's amazing. What's more amazing is that there are students who come to our schools from various countries in Africa who can speak 5 or 6 languages!!! LANGUAGES!!! This boggles my mind. I'm convinced that learning to speak multiple languages is its own intelligence.

What's hard at Burton Elementary, and probably every school with 2nd or 3rd generation Spanish-speakers, is that the students begin to lose their Spanish by middle school. They are so pushed so hard to learn English (which is a great skill, especially if you live in the United States) that they forget their Spanish. They can no longer communicate with parents and grandparents and it's really sad. It creates a generational breakage, a language barrier, that separates families. I compliment them whenever I can that speaking two languages is a great skill to have and not to forget their Spanish.

Here's a couple of my little intelligent students.

Drama in the 1st grade.

Friday was a rough day at school. To start off the day, there was a substitute teacher and two of my students reacted very negatively. To make a long story short, I dealt with them all day and exhausted all my options and then had to send them to the office to chat with the principal. One student exploded in anger, yelled at me, then ran away down the hallway. Eventually I found her and she stomped down to the office. In all that mess I got called, "mean," "tattletale teacher" and accused of "not caring," --- all by a 6-year-old. More like an old soul trapped in a 6-year-old's body as the principal described her. And it's true. That little girl has gone through more crap than I want to know. Her home life is a wreck. All of her siblings have different dads; there have been multiple step-dads in the picture; and now mom lives with a boyfriend. This 6-year-old is dealing with the effects. She's emotionally distraught, cries all the time, and can't even verbalize what is the matter when she is upset. Behaviorally, she refuses to participate with the class. She gets out of her seat and wanders around often, doesn't do her work, and runs away when she gets overwhelmed or feels singled out. Academically, she's low. Very low. Writing her name is still a struggle; her fine motor skills are weak; and reading is almost impossible because she doesn't know what sound each letter makes. And the little boy? His attention span is shorter than that of a goldfish because all he does is play GameCube and nintendoDS all day - he plays it so much in the morning that he is late for school! This kid is falling behind because his mom doesn't have the guts to step up and be his parent. There is no filter between his brain and his mouth so he just shouts out in the middle of class. He swears and calls other kids gay. He's always in his own little world and his mom punishes him by keeping him home from school. Now I could care less about being called mean or a tattletale teacher. It stung for sure, but what upset me the most was the environment her mom is raising her in. If only parents had to come to school and deal with the child they raised... do they not see the tangled mess of a child they created?! Let them try and teach her something. Teaching. If only it were that easy to just teach. Learning and teaching is on the back burner when I as a teacher am forced to be a psychologist, parent, and counselor. Teachers are INCREDIBLY underpaid.

                            

GO GREEN!

          In case you didn't know, MSU beat the UofM yesterday for the second year in a row!!! This is a historic win seeing as how MSU hasn't beat UofM 2 years in a row since the Johnson administration... Unfortunately most of West Michigan are U of M fans so we were quite outnumbered in our joy at church this morning. The pastor even thought it necessary to make a comment about his disappointment with the outcome of the game. He said - and I quote - "Spartan fans are like new money. They're just obnoxious!" Yep. He said that. We did not laugh. Anyways, we went to East Lansing on Friday night for AGR's annual Hog Roast. All the proceeds went to support Michigan AgriAbility. (It's an organization that helps disabled farmers.) We ate some delicious pork and cheesy potatoes and got to talk and catch up with some of Zach's fraternity brothers. We had planned to watch the game in East Lansing with friends ... but that doesn't work out so well when you realize most of your friends no longer live there... it was a bit of a wake up call that things are different once again. Graduating college is bittersweet. It's much like graduating high school because you are SO SAD to leave the incredible friends you made but also excited for the new friends that God will provide. Right now it's kinda hard...I miss my old friends.

            Last week Friday we went on our first date since we have been married - and we went to the circus! Ha ha. Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey's was in town at the VanAndel Area and I got tickets through my elementary school so we decided to go. Zach had never been to a circus and I haven't been since I was a small child. It had your typical weird things like people who can bend in every-which direction and ladies who twirled around by their hair way up in the air. But there were also some pretty sweet things. Take the acrobats for example who flip around on the flying trapeze; they are amazing! I told Zach that I wanted to take up that profession and he said no. The best thing was probably an act where they put 7 motocross motorcycles in a steel-cage ball and they all drove around in circles at the same time. It was crazy. Here's a picture and in case you don't believe us.

On Sunday Zach's mom and dad came over to our apartment for the first time. We have their approval, so this is good. :) After relaxing for awhile we went downtown GR to take in some of the crazy ArtPrize artwork. ArtPrize is a huge program put on by the city or Grand Rapids. Thousands of artists from all over the country entered in their pieces and placed them all over downtown. There is a giant table and chairs on top of a bridge, paintings on the sides of buildings, sculptures attached to fences, a giant floating Nessie in the river, and all kinds of crazy artsy things. People can walk around to look at the pieces and then vote on their favorite. They have narrowed it down to the Top 10 and voting will continue for a few more weeks before they decide on the winner. This moose made entirely out of nails was one of our favorites and I believe he made it into the Top 10. I have also included Nessie and the table & chairs.

Settling in to a routine

Life has begun to settle into a bit of a routine. Gone are the days of sleeping in. Early, early, early rising has been the usual start of our days. Zach is working at CPS in Greenville - where he's been since May. [Sidenote: CPS does not stand for Child Protective Services...it's Crop Production Services. :) ] He usually stops in and sees a few farmers before going in to the office for a little bit. This time of year he is trying to establish relationships with farmers in the surrounding area and encourage them to purchase their seed and fertilizer from CPS. During the summer, he drove around and inspected fields to check for bug infestations or diseases. Hence the title: "Crop Consultant." He took plant tissue samples and soil samples to send in to the lab to help identify the causes and then based on his inspection and those results would recommend a solution to get rid of the problem. Throughout the winter his position will shift to more of a sales position since things don't grow up here in the Michigan winters. Of course he would rather be home managing the family farm, driving tractors, and fixing things and that's the long term hope but for now this job is good - just the fact that he has a job is good. God is good. All the time.

In other news, we think we have found a home church! It's called Crossroads Bible Church and it's literally 1 mile from our apartment. Right now it meets in a school because they don't have a building yet but they preach the gospel, they preach the Bible, and discipleship relationships are constantly formed.  It's a lot like our church back in East Lansing (Riverview) which has been kinda nice because we miss it so much. 

Elementary school has been going good for me. I love, love, love my first graders and my CT is AWESOME! She is a Christian and grew up in Haiti as a missionary kid. She loves the Lord and is really skilled at teaching. I think I'm going to learn a lot from her. The kids are hilarious and they say & write hilarious things EVERY DAY. One of my favorites was when we told a boy to "sound out" the word favorite because he didn't know how to spell it and he wrote the word "fart." E.G. "My fart color is blue." Ha ha. My other favorite day is when a kid puked in the trash can right in front of the whole class while I was reading a book. The best of all was probably when I got to see our class monarch caterpillar change into a chrysalis right before my very eyes! It was awesome!

Well, it's getting late and tomorrow is our first "date night" as husband and wife. We're going to the circus. :)

Playing Catch Up

Graduation? Check.

Wedding? Check.

Honeymoon? Check.

Moved in? Check.

Back to work and starting student teaching? Double Check.

What a summer it has been. Here's a few photos to catch you up. Wedding photos to come.

Sarah's Graduation from MSU's College of Education

Degree: Elementary Education, Specialization: English and Spanish

Zach's Graduation from MSU's College of Agriculture and Natural Resources

Degree: Agribusiness Management

Rehearsal

Rehearsal Dinner at the Farm

Me and my bridesmaids