The Power of YouTube

The purpose of this little post is to show you all just how different teaching can be over here. When I was packing to move, I had to make some serious decisions. Not just about clothes and shoes and medicines, but I had to significantly reduce my classroom library and choose the books that I thought would be the most beneficial in Cambodia. Since I was a relatively new teacher, I didn't have quite the library that other more seasoned teachers had, but I did have quite a few books to call my own. So I had to make some choices an narrow about 200 books down to more like 50.

Like many of the things that travelled overseas in my two enormous suitcases, I chose the wrong things. In one of my favorite books, The Poisonwood Bible, the wife and daughters of the missionary in Africa talk about how everything they brought with them was the wrong thing. The things they thought they would need and not be able to live without had no use for them in Africa, and they find themselves wishing they had brought many more practical things. Sometimes, I feel like that here in Cambodia.

When I look at the books I choose to bring (actually, they didn't come with me but got shipped later), I seriously wonder what I was thinking. Some of them, I can see why I thought I might need it. But every time I sit down to plan my lessons, I think of a story book that I KNOW I have sitting in the attic at my house in Birmingham, and for some reason I didn't pack it because I didn't think I would need it. So naturally, I have to get creative. There are no public libraries in Cambodia, so I can't even make one of my famous library runs and get as many books as possible on the topic I am teaching.

Enter: YouTube. About a month ago I discovered that you can find a lot videos of very popular children's books being read aloud. Now, as with anything on YouTube, you have to weed through a bunch of crap before you find what you are looking for or something you can use, but I have come to really rely on strangers reading to my children through the wonders of the Internet. Sometimes I feel quite lazy and like a bad teacher, but I would rather them hear the story this way than not at all. If you are ever in a bind for some storybook action (particularly Eric Carle, he has some great YouTube material), check it out

Classroom Facelifts

This past weekend, my classroom got another face-lift.

Being the principal of the school means that I have very little time to be the Kindergarten teacher, which always breaks my heart a little bit each day. Most days I like being the Principal, but my heart is truly in Kindergarten and its hard to not be able to focus 100% of my time and energy on my class.

But administratively speaking, things have slowed down a little bit, and I took some time to rearrange and clean some things in the room, and it FINALLY feels like a real live classroom.

I happy to report that the large white offices (click for a reminder of what they look like) have been removed from every classroom! This may be my crowning glory moment as the leader of the school. And the really great news is that they have not gone to waste... they will be used in the University library as study cubicles, which is a much more practical and useful place for them.

So now, without further adieu, I present to you the final edition of our classroom. I will also include some pics of other grades soon just to boast a little more about the fact that the offices are gone! Horray!

Enjoy!

View from the back of the room....group meeting area and tables

Other side of the room-cubbies, T. Lykheng's desk

My desk, back wall

Kindergarten Class Photo

Here is the adorable Kindergarten Class of the 2010-2011 school year. I am the principal of the school, and love all 120 of the students in each grade level dearly, but these little ones of course have a special place in my heart. Kindergarten is, and will always be, the best!

Extreme Makeover Classroom Edition: Cambodian Style

In this post you will find some visual aids as I regale the transformation of my classroom. This first picture is the view from where I live, the dorms of Life University. The small building with the red roof is Life International School. The larger building is Life School (a public primary and secondary school) and also house Life University Language Institute:

This is a close up of Life International School. My door is just left of center on the bottom level. Nursery, preschool, and Kindergarten are housed on the lower level, and Grades 1 through 4 are on the upper level.

Here are the "before" pictures of my Kindergarten classroom. I have to be honest, a few tears were shed at the prospect of having to completely redo and set up a classroom, especially since I spent the last 3 years at Center Point perfecting my classroom. Also, I made the mistake of looking in a lot of the other rooms of the school before looking in mine, and mine definitely needed the biggest face lift. The biggest obstacle was the large white circular desks, which we call offices. They were designed for the students to take tests in, but my room seemed to have become the dumping ground for all of the left over ones. It seemed like there were hundreds of them in there. I didn't foresee using them, but there was no way to get them out. I had to get super creative, as you will see in the after photos.

The above shots were taken this past Monday. After five days of moving furniture, and with the help of a pack of construction paper, a laminating machine, and $10 spent at the local book/office supply store, here are the results. I am pretty pleased with how things turned out. More importantly, I realized that there was no need to get worked up about being planted in a classroom with little to no materials and that isn't organized the way I want it to be. I've made it work twice now, and I can do it again if I have to. God is good, all the time, and I just need to remember that he will never ever give me anything I can't handle, as long as I am relying on Him.

Enjoy the after shots!

This is the view from the door. The "offices" pushed together on the right have hooks stuck to them and will be where the kids hang their backpacks. Notice the lovely birthday balloons on the back wall.

The front of the room and my desk. The desk in the other picture belongs to my partner teacher, who will be teaching the kids the Khmer language and will help me with translating, etc.

Renovated teaching area. More mats to come soon to create a large area where the kids can sit.

More renovated teaching area. Days of the week, months, and numbers were all made by hand. Other stuff is just bits and pieces I found in the room.

This piece of furniture, which was trapped behind a bunch of the offices, will be cubbies for the students to keep their books, home of the future classroom library (once it gets shipped from the states), and storage for materials.

Word wall (above) and behavior management system (below). Both mounted on the wall space that I created by pushing the white offices together. One bonus to this set up is that everything will be at the kids' eye level, which is ideal.

It's a definite improvement in my mind, but there are still several things I want to do. This will take patience though... but as I'm here for the next 2 years, I will have plenty of time to exercise that gift! I truly am excited about what the Lord will do in this room over the next two years.

Miss Kindergarten Goes To...

CAMBODIA.

That's right. Who knew that my love for kindergarten and my love for travel and other cultures would some day be combined into the ultimate adventure, taking me all the way to the other side of the world.

Ok, honestly, teaching overseas has always been something that I felt called to do, but I never ever imagined that my destination would be Cambodia. Mainly because most people don't even know where it is. I'm not going to lie, I had to look it up. Cambodia is located in Southeast Asia on a small peninsula with Vietnam and Thailand. See Map below:

So, that's where it is. Not to be confused with Canada, which I am about 90% certain is the country my hairdresser was envisioning when we were discussing this at my last appointment a few days ago. Bless her...you can't drive there.

I am so thrilled for this adventure that God has set before me, and I can't wait to share things on here. My hope is that the hilarity that so often infused my every day life at Center Point Elementary will carry over, and hopefully translate well, from Cambodia. I can't wait to meet my Cambodian Kindergarteners and share my life over there with all of you who either stumbled across this by accident or voluntarily chose to read it. I'll take either one.