My first day as a teacher! Well, kinda :)

I started my job at Quisqueya Christian School today. What an awesome opportunity the Lord has provided me! I was already semi-familiar with most of the high school teachers because I had met them at the open house for Dustin and Ashton’s classes. All the teachers are so friendly and really welcomed me in today and made me feel like a part of the team!

My day started out with Mr. Dakoter. He is the elementary school principal. He took me on a quick tour of all of the facilities and introduced me to a bunch of different teachers that were not busy at that time. I also sat in on one of the classes that I will be teaching. Mr. Hersey, the director of the school currently teaches 10th and 11th grade English, and those are the two classes that I will be teaching for him. In 11th grade English, the students are just finishing up reading Huckleberry Finn. If you know me at all, you know how much I love reading the classic books, so when I found out this was what they were reading, I was very excited! The class is very energetic and has a number of different interests. I’m excited to get to know them better and really start digging into the material. I will be just an observer for this week and then slowly ease my way into teaching.

I ate lunch with a bunch of the teachers. They were all so kind, and they all knew that I was going to be teaching there because of an e-mail that was sent out to the staff. The other high school English teacher was super inviting and really took me under her wing and let me know that she would help in any way shape or form. It’s really great to know that the teachers are so close here. It is a small family, and I’m excited to be a part of it.

After lunch, I read for about an hour because I had a break, then went and say in on the other English teacher’s class, just to get a feel for how she teaches. Her class is going through Antigone, which I have not read, but I really learned a lot from her teaching style.

And that was my first day of school! Pretty low-key, but also very fun. My awkwardness definitely came out today, but I quickly put it away and became a normal human again, haha!

But I got a double-dose of teaching today!

Every Tuesday, the Roberts teach an English as a second language class at the First Baptist Church of Penier. I had taught it once before, but really found the curriculum they had to be mundane and not helpful. So today, I decided to make up my own curriculum, with the help of an ESL book that was given to us. I had about 10 students in my intermediate class and we went over the verb “to be” and how to use am, is and are. It was a great class, and I really enjoyed it this week because I knew what I was teaching and how to teach them effectively. The students really enjoyed it as well. They were asking me to bring worksheets for them every week so they could learn better.

I know that God is doing BIG things in Haiti. One of my projects while on staff at Quisqueya is to start a mentoring program for the girls of the school. Mentoring is so close to my heart. Many of you know that I mentor girls back home in Nashville, so the opportunity to continue that here is such a blessing. I really want the students to feel God’s love and really understand what it means to live a Christ-centered life. I know that the Lord is in this school and He will guide me through this awesome time!

Well, that is all for now. I have another full day of learning and growing tomorrow! Thank you for all your thoughts and prayers! God is working!