September 3, 2008
almost halfway through the quarter! What?
We are already well into the fourth week of school, and it seems like I just got started. There are more students than ever before attending this year. The ninth grade has over thirty students. One more is still on his way back from vacation, so we're going to have to find a seat and desk somewhere for him to fit in my class. There is a probabtion list given out at the beginning of each year of students who will return to the previous grade if they do not pass the first quarter, but the classes are so full now that there is no way to follow through on this. A failing student will simply have to stay put or leave school.
Last week I had to take a sick day, which I've been afraid of doing because of the difficulty of making up for lost time in the English curriculum and also the lack of substitutes. We are stretched so thin this year that even the librarian and the accountant are having to teach classes. Also, the pre-school teacher is out recovering from eye surgery, so her assistant who took on the ESL classes last year is covering for her full time. Thankfully, my missing a day worked out OK, and I've gotten all the classes back on track this week.
AM introduced me to a friend of hers who is here with the Peace Corps and is really good with crochet, so we hung out on Sunday afternoon. She's showing AM how to do fillet crochet for a shawl and I'm doing a hat. I know that it's something I'd never wear here, but maybe I'll use it as a basket in the meantime. This woman has some interesting stories about her time here. She told us about living in the interior on her own with no one to translate for her or help her get acclimated to the culture. Through what I've learned about the Peace Corps, as least as far as things go here in Suriname, it's a pretty hopelessly flawed system.
Still glad to be here despite the work load. Will write more soon.
marking my days | By Courtney | 1:56 PM
August 21, 2008
Feeling young again
Yesterday I discovered that one of the new students in high school this year is the same age as me! I thought I'd never see the day... (And don't worry--he already has a girlfriend :)
| By Courtney | 1:25 PM
August 9, 2008
literature quote
"Nature and letters seem to have a natural antipathy--bring them together and they tear each other to pieces."
Although Virginia Woolf had in mind the task of describing the natural world when she penned this, it applies to a much broader sense of "nature" in my mind. And I'm left wondering how to force this task upon young scholars for yet another year.
Writing is difficult if it is done right. One may enjoy certain apects of writing, but sometimes it is just going to be a long arduous task to push through. With this in mind, I strive to assign topics that will be both enlightening and applicable to the students. My hope is to hit on something that they will find interesting enough to put their own thoughts about it into their work, rather than just rehashing whatever wickipedia has to say about it. Sad to say, I've found that most teenagers understand "research" and "opinion" as diametrically opposed concepts. In fact, one of my seniors asked me if it would be all right to write his research paper about himself...
And so life here goes on. Just three days into the school year, and it already feels like normal. We have over three hundred students this year, which is a record breaker! And speaking of record breakers, I have been really bummed about not being able to see most of the Olympics coverage because of the time difference! I've had to settle for the Caribbean Dreams Olympic Highlighs with Bob. And I keep hearing about how GREAT the opening ceremonies were after missing them due to teacher work day!
Tomorrow will be the first of my literature class. I'll be handing out Silas Marner to the tenth graders. Wish me luck!!
| By Courtney | 10:01 PM
August 7, 2008
here safe once more
Yesterday, I embarked on the trip to Suriname, spanning five airports (for the total duration of eleven hours) and four airplanes (time spent in the air about six hours). I'm excited to be here again and looking forward to seeing all of my students on Monday.
Not much has changed since I left in the beginning of May. There are no new foreign teachers. Patsy will be taking on the sixth grade class full time. The previous teacher is back in Suriname along with his wife and son, but will not be working here this year.
It looks like I'll be teaching the same five English classes I taught last year. I hope it will give me a chance to really organize and run them better than before. Today, school hasn't been much on my mind. I've just been visiting with people and unpacking. Planning can wait till tomorrow...
Please remember my school in prayer as we begin the new year. We seem a bit stretched to cover all the classes, but He is always faithful to hear our prayers.
For those of you at my church, I hope the last few days of VBS go as well as the first. I wish I could have been there through the whole program!
Suriname | By Courtney | 1:50 PM
July 16, 2008
The Shack
Just finished reading The Shack and although I plan to reserve my more essential comments for the person who first recommended the book to me, there's one thing I want to say that no one who has read the book except perhaps another teacher may note, let alone care about.
First, in William P. Young's analogy of the Spirit of God being more attuned to "verbs" than "nouns," he gives the example of expectation versus expectancy. Please tell me that he knows that neither one of these words is, in fact, a verb.
On a more minor note, but nonetheless a grammatically irritating one, why couldn't Mr. Young get an editor who knows what the subjunctive case is and how to use it?
And lastly, although I understand that "Papa" uses expressions like "Guess that's jes' the way I is" and "Sho' nuf," in order to be down with his/her black self, why does he/she have to say stuff like,"Just one of the perks of Me being Me," as if he/she doesn't know that's not proper use of an objective case pronoun?
I guess even in these small quibbles, my greater concern already begins to take form. The reader is supposed to believe that Mack is the everyman in this story, standing in for the author and reader alike through their journey of faith, just as Christian did for John Bunyan and continues to do for his readers. But I get the feeling that Young is more truly reflected in the characters comprising his triune god. He has pin pointed and supplied all the answers to the "tough questions" of a past self.
The bottom line is, I don't get a sense of a man talking with God in these pages, but a man talking to himself in retrospect. That said, there were definitely some relevant things about the nature of man's spirituality in this book that I don't mean to discredit with the rest of it.
| By Courtney | 10:33 AM
April 18, 2008
fire and shoe polish
Today the ninth grade wrote in-class essays inspired by Mark Twain about experiences that, although painful at the time, are funny to remember. My two favorites were from unexpected sources. The first, son of a locally well-known comedian, hardly ever turns in assignments, and the second is a Chinese student hoping to find another way to improve her English than actually speaking it (seems to be a common problem among that demographic). But here both essays are just as they were handed to me.
The Hot FireThe day that it happent, but before I tell you what happent I have to tell you how it happent. It was on a friaday after school and me and may mom pickt up a friend of mine to spend the weekends. Kevin and I, Kevin is may friends name we love to play commandos and we had all the stuf you needed to be one. We had guns, knifs, walkietalkies we had every thing that you can tink of we even had a tree house. A series or a movie that we loved to watch where Rambo, Knight Rider, and Magaiver. On that friaday we had to help my dad whit some work, and we did it so that we could be free the next day. Before I forget I was only seven years old and Kevin was also seven years old I think. Well the next day Kevin and I looked at the television the hool morning until the evternoon. We looked at Rambo, Magaiver even Chips. So when it was about five in the evternoon Kevin ask me if I whanted to go and play outside. I asked may mother if we could, and she said yes but not near the fire. The gardener Theo, was burning some old leaves and stuf. Outside Kevin was standing on the other side of the fire, and he told me that he was standing in the fire. But I could not see if that was true. So Kevin told me that if I whant to be come a commando like Rambo I had to walk in the fire. And belief it or not, as stupid as I was, I did walk true that fire. And it was so hot I accadently learnd howe to break dance. I was screaming in pain, and I told Kevin to go and get help. Kevin then came back whit a botle of water, and I just started to scream more. Finaly may mom and the gardener heard and came to help me, they brought me to the hospital where I had to tell the docter that I was traing to be like Rambo, and he just started lauving and so whas every body who was there.
--D. B.
Shoe PolishI was very naughty when I was a child. In a summer holiday, I went to my uncle’s home. Uncle Joe was really a strict man, he required me to study and prohibited me to play games and watch TV.
He was always saying that education was the most important thing for a child. I hated him, because he gave me nothing funny but requires. I wanted to make him know I was not a girl without my own mind. I noticed that every morning Auntie Joe prepared everything ready for Uncle. She squeezed the toothpaste tube on the toothbrush before Uncle had waked up.
There was a “good” idea coming into my mind. I saw the white shoe polish in the corner of the room. I wanted to get up early next morning and carried on my great plan. But I got up late that morning. What a terrible thing it was! So I needed to get up early in the next morning.
At 6 o’clock, I got up quietly. I took the white shoe polish to the bathroom, but I was too short to got the toothbrush which was on the bathtable So I needed a chair. Everything that was ok. I squeezed the shoe polish on the toothbrush and back to the bed. But I did not fall in sleep. I wanted to know what would happen.
My uncle got up and then I heard he open the bathroom door. One minute, two minutes…five minutes, nothing happed: Until my uncle left home went to work, I went to the bathroom and found out what happed. Half an hour past, I forgot my practical joke. But when I brushed my teeth, oh, my dear, that was not toothpaste. I squeezed the shoe polish on my own toothbrush!
I was 6 years old that year, but I made a joke on my self, no one knew the shoe polish teast except me!--Y. C.
school | By Courtney | 9:36 PM
