Head Held High
Four years ago, I struggled to stay awake to hear the president make his "victory" speech. Had I been at home this year, I would have run into the same difficulty. However, since I am in a whole new country on a whole new time zone, it actually worked in my favor!
As I went to bed last night, the polls had not even begun closing. I set my alarm for a little early, knowing that I would want some time to catch up on the election news.
(I apologize, but you will see my political stance in this post. Please don't be offended if you believe differently, it is those differences that make us a wonderful country and my hope and prayer is no matter our beliefs, we believe in a better America and can work together to achieve that goal.)
I remember waking up from a dream just before my alarm went off this morning. I woke up thinking that my dream had been real, that Obama really had won, but I soon panicked realizing that I had actually not seen the results yet and that that may not be true. Thankfully though, my dream was reality and I couldn't be more thrilled.
I woke up quickly this morning, as opposed to my usual multi-snooze button mornings, and browsed the internet looking for Obama's victory speech as well as Romney's speech. I found Romney's but was unable to find Obama's. That's when I realized it had not yet happened! I was absolutely ecstatic that I could watch his speech live from far across the Atlantic with my fellow Americans (at least those of whom had not already fallen asleep).
I was dancing and singing as he walked on stage with his three beautiful ladies while "Signed, Sealed, Delivered" played in the background. Then, tears of joy streamed down my cheeks as the sun rose over the trees, while I sat watching as the president delivered one of the most poignant speeches I can remember. In case you didn't have the opportunity to watch it...
I walked to school with my head held high this morning; it was a day that I was especially proud to be an American. The faculty and the students were a buzz today with excitement over the results. No one that I have spoken to here was pulling for Romney, so they were thrilled and had even more questions about the election process and our political parties.
My year 6 English class came in thrilled and excited today telling me how they had seen the election results on the news. One child even ran in and proudly announced, "Miss Smith, Alabama won!"
I watched the speech with my year 6 English class and we looked at the map of results of electoral votes. They had great questions about terms, qualifications to run for president, citizenship and lots more. I loved their curiosity and was happy to take another day off of regular lessons to tell them about my home country.
A day of good lessons continued during my ICT (technology) class. Now, I do love technology, but if you have ever worked with children and computers, you know that things rarely go just as you had planned and expected. We have been talking about online safety and today's lesson was on chat rooms and what sorts of information you should and should not share online. We started by playing the game of two truths and a lie where the pupils give three statements about themselves, one of which is untrue and we have to guess the false one. Most of the pupils did really well, except for the kid who's lie was, "My hand was bitten off by a crocodile." Since he still has all ten fingers, we solved that one pretty quickly. We talked about how easy it is to fool people if you are telling them things that seem true, especially if you are doing it online. The rest of the lesson went smoothly and the kids were really engaged.
This afternoon, I had my form class for a bit and showed them the speech as well. They, too had questions and inquiries about the whole process.
PSHE (Personal, Social and Economic Education) is another new curriculum for me. It is a once a week class and the curriculum covers everything from emergency situations to friendships to changes the kids are going through. I decided today to pull out some old tricks that I knew well and give them a shot in my new environment.
My home school of Shades Cahaba was recently awarded the National School of Character - a huge honor in itself, but especially because we are the only school in the history of the award to be named as a recipient twice! At Shades Cahaba, we explicitly teach children about good character traits and are constantly on the lookout for those behaviors. Why couldn't I do that here? So, I've started fresh this week after half-term and have spoken with the kids about respect and how I'm on the lookout for that as it is our word of the month. I share quotes with the kids about respect each day and I try to praise them when I see they are being respectful, or remind them that some of their behavior is disrespectful.
And to connect with our study of respect, I started reading aloud to my kids, something I have missed as a daily routine, one of my very favorite read aloud books. I started Crash by Jerry Spinelli, a book recommended to me by my inspiring mentor teacher, Cindy Puchta, when I first started at Shades Cahaba. It's a story about a two middle school boys: one is a bully and the other a Quaker. I won't give anything away as I highly recommend it, no matter your age, but I will admit that I'm glad for those days when I could read the ending outside with my sunglasses on so the children could not tell that my eyes were welling up! The kids absolutely loved it and I have no doubt it will be one of my favorite times of the day - whenever we manage to squeeze it in!
I walked to school with my head held high this morning, proud to be an American, and I walked home this evening with my head held high after a great teaching day! But now, I guess I should think about what to teach tomorrow... :)
As I went to bed last night, the polls had not even begun closing. I set my alarm for a little early, knowing that I would want some time to catch up on the election news.
(I apologize, but you will see my political stance in this post. Please don't be offended if you believe differently, it is those differences that make us a wonderful country and my hope and prayer is no matter our beliefs, we believe in a better America and can work together to achieve that goal.)
I remember waking up from a dream just before my alarm went off this morning. I woke up thinking that my dream had been real, that Obama really had won, but I soon panicked realizing that I had actually not seen the results yet and that that may not be true. Thankfully though, my dream was reality and I couldn't be more thrilled.
I woke up quickly this morning, as opposed to my usual multi-snooze button mornings, and browsed the internet looking for Obama's victory speech as well as Romney's speech. I found Romney's but was unable to find Obama's. That's when I realized it had not yet happened! I was absolutely ecstatic that I could watch his speech live from far across the Atlantic with my fellow Americans (at least those of whom had not already fallen asleep).
I was dancing and singing as he walked on stage with his three beautiful ladies while "Signed, Sealed, Delivered" played in the background. Then, tears of joy streamed down my cheeks as the sun rose over the trees, while I sat watching as the president delivered one of the most poignant speeches I can remember. In case you didn't have the opportunity to watch it...
I walked to school with my head held high this morning; it was a day that I was especially proud to be an American. The faculty and the students were a buzz today with excitement over the results. No one that I have spoken to here was pulling for Romney, so they were thrilled and had even more questions about the election process and our political parties.
My year 6 English class came in thrilled and excited today telling me how they had seen the election results on the news. One child even ran in and proudly announced, "Miss Smith, Alabama won!"
I watched the speech with my year 6 English class and we looked at the map of results of electoral votes. They had great questions about terms, qualifications to run for president, citizenship and lots more. I loved their curiosity and was happy to take another day off of regular lessons to tell them about my home country.
A day of good lessons continued during my ICT (technology) class. Now, I do love technology, but if you have ever worked with children and computers, you know that things rarely go just as you had planned and expected. We have been talking about online safety and today's lesson was on chat rooms and what sorts of information you should and should not share online. We started by playing the game of two truths and a lie where the pupils give three statements about themselves, one of which is untrue and we have to guess the false one. Most of the pupils did really well, except for the kid who's lie was, "My hand was bitten off by a crocodile." Since he still has all ten fingers, we solved that one pretty quickly. We talked about how easy it is to fool people if you are telling them things that seem true, especially if you are doing it online. The rest of the lesson went smoothly and the kids were really engaged.
This afternoon, I had my form class for a bit and showed them the speech as well. They, too had questions and inquiries about the whole process.
PSHE (Personal, Social and Economic Education) is another new curriculum for me. It is a once a week class and the curriculum covers everything from emergency situations to friendships to changes the kids are going through. I decided today to pull out some old tricks that I knew well and give them a shot in my new environment.
My home school of Shades Cahaba was recently awarded the National School of Character - a huge honor in itself, but especially because we are the only school in the history of the award to be named as a recipient twice! At Shades Cahaba, we explicitly teach children about good character traits and are constantly on the lookout for those behaviors. Why couldn't I do that here? So, I've started fresh this week after half-term and have spoken with the kids about respect and how I'm on the lookout for that as it is our word of the month. I share quotes with the kids about respect each day and I try to praise them when I see they are being respectful, or remind them that some of their behavior is disrespectful.
And to connect with our study of respect, I started reading aloud to my kids, something I have missed as a daily routine, one of my very favorite read aloud books. I started Crash by Jerry Spinelli, a book recommended to me by my inspiring mentor teacher, Cindy Puchta, when I first started at Shades Cahaba. It's a story about a two middle school boys: one is a bully and the other a Quaker. I won't give anything away as I highly recommend it, no matter your age, but I will admit that I'm glad for those days when I could read the ending outside with my sunglasses on so the children could not tell that my eyes were welling up! The kids absolutely loved it and I have no doubt it will be one of my favorite times of the day - whenever we manage to squeeze it in!
I walked to school with my head held high this morning, proud to be an American, and I walked home this evening with my head held high after a great teaching day! But now, I guess I should think about what to teach tomorrow... :)
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