First day of school - This is why I am here and it has finally happened!
Good news first - We didn't have to be to work until 9am! yeah! I enjoyed every extra minute of sleep!
More good news - This day is filled with getting ready for the school year, we finally get to go into our new rooms and set them up for the school year!
The bad news...When we get to school, my computer was missing a cord, we didn't have internet, there was only one whiteboard, and it is off to to one side of the wall, not centered, there is no cabinet, and no TV, no teacher editions to my books, except for Trig, and no school supplies.
The trig teacher edition can go in the good news section as well.
So what do I do, I follow the FWCI motto and "be flexible." I know that I have it much better than some of the other teachers, who either aren't here yet (Caleb Stokes), or just got here the previous weekend (Ciara Smith and Brock Rose). So I begin to arrange chairs, set up my desk, rearrange chairs, rearrange chairs, rearrange chairs. No matter how I arrange them, I don't feel like the students will be able to see the white board from every spot they are sitting. So I leave them alone for a while. One of the main problems is that the outlets, that my desk need to be near are in the middle of the long walls on each side of the room. That means that my desk needs to be in the middle of the room. So I work on some lesson plans. I am really just getting to do this, except for my 10th grade class which we had to intensive work on for the Korean government side of things. I then rearrange desks and finally decide to put the desks against the back wall and only use chairs for the first week. Since the first week is going to be more of a get to know you time and get the students ready for how the class will run. I thought this might work out good. And it did for the most part. My classes range in size from 10 to 20, so I have lots of room and no room in the course of a day. Oh yeah, I decorated my room with the few decorations I brought. I got some good verses on the wall! I am so excited that I get to do that, love teaching at a Christian school!
We had opening ceremony at 3pm. So let me just explain this opening ceremony thing we had. First of all we are sent to our home room kids. I am with 7th graders. These kids stand in lines. I stand in the front of one line and Mrs. Yun the Korean homeroom teacher stands in front of the other line. One of the pastors gets up and I assume welcomes everyone to a new school year at Shema, its in Korean so I don't really know. Its what I would have done. Then we sing a song in Korean, and by we, I mean all the people that know Korean. Then one of the pastors tells us something in Korean. Then we sing a song in Korean, and again, when I say we, I mean all the people that know Korean. This excludes all the American teachers who are standing in front of their prospective homeroom classes just like me. Then another pastor says something in Korean, that ends with something like "Now Caleb Coleman will come pray." Caleb Coleman prays, he does a pretty good job. He does it in English, so I can say that. Then a Korean teacher gets up and says something in Korean. Then Mrs. Yun says something in Korean. Then Pastor Kim and Mrs Riley go up on the stage. Pastor Kim steps forward and two kids walk to the microphone and some stuff in Korean in unison, then bow to Pastor Kim. Then they play the Korean National Anthem, and then sing the Korean National Anthem. This may be the most awkward I have felt up to this point, because I feel like they want me to pledge to the Korean Flag as well. Here we are 8 Americans not pledging while everyone else does. Oh, well, I'm an American and proud of it! So then Pastor Kim speaks for a while in Korean, and finally calls the teachers on stage. He calls out each teacher, we only know this because Mrs. Yun told us to step forward as he did it. Then Mrs. Riley gave a good speech in English! Yay! And finally after a little over an hour of standing we are dismissed. But not really, because we are to take our homeroom students to our classrooms. I didn't know about this, but appearantly we were supposed to watch them while the Koreans teachers did something. My home room co teacher, stayed in the class with me. Shout out! Mrs. Yun. At around 5 pm, it was time for the students to leave the class, and the teachers to head home. The next day would be our first official full day of school! I can't believe it. I am finally going to be a teacher. And what a way to start! I think I am really going to like it here!
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