January 15, 2009

In the 9th grade class, we are doing a plant dissection and I was out in the forest picking some new ferns for tomorrow when I got a little too into the process. I found three possibly four different species of ferns. It may not be too exciting to the rest of you, but I thought it was really cool. I made rubbings and sketched them. Each of their spore designs was different, a couple I had never even thought about in relationship to a fern. It might make it more possible to identify the species but despite that, I thought it fascinating.
I am making process in some of the classes. The 7th and 8th grade is doing chemistry and I am re-learning right along with them. They seem to be the most willing to accept me as an authority figure. 9th grade, plant physiology, is also getting used to me. 10th grade however, is less than receptive to me. Anna said that it took her a long time to “win them over” so in the “short” five months I will be here, I doubt that we will connect much. I will probably only teach the 7th, 8th and 9th grades then…but not until they are more used to me and I have gotten all the kids’ names down. Today we has several kids come in during lunch because they had questions about what we were covering (ionic compounds and reactions between them). One of the students had been absent for a couple of days and so she was a little behind. Together we were able to work out what an ion is, how it is formed, oxidation numbers, and forming ionic compounds. We were able to work through the problems that had been assigned during the past couple of classes and by the time she left, she had done half of the problems, the last few done on her own. I don’t know why, but it was SO gratifying to help her and have her understand the information. I guess this really is my calling! I have had doubts. I won’t go into that here, but this is really wonderful for me.
My passion has always been obvious: THE OCEAN. However, the plan to go into teaching was much more subtle. I was doubtful for a while and when I took this internship I didn’t know if it would solidify my plan or make me re-think it all. Now I have a strong feeling that I am doing the right thing. That being here is a great gift and I will learn so much here that when I return to do my studies, I will be much more confident and hopefully be worth quite a bit as a teacher.

I couldn’t have done all this without your support though. Thank you.