First Impressions & Managing Differences

Well, the sun has set on the first full week of school.  While I feel like I've learned a lot, I know I still have a long way to go.

Repulse Bay Beach on a Sunday Evening

Naturally, the kids are the most important part of any teacher's experience, and my new students are great. They're very polite, they seem to be very driven and they're forgiving when I make mistakes as a brand new teacher. While I miss the familiarity of my Chaminade boys, I think I will get along just fine with the HKIS 6th graders. It's definitely interesting to teach girls for the first time. After a week, they seem sweet, nice, inquisitive and friendly. The boys are exactly the same as the ones at Chaminade. They're into their sports, video games, and silly antics. As expected, the kids seem to be a "global" bunch. Almost all of them carry US passports, and regardless of their ethnicity or heritage they are as American as the kids in St. Louis. They all spend their summers in the U.S. and they're as in tune with American pop culture as any other group I've known. At the same time, however, they've lived all over the world. I think many of them follow a parent's job around the globe. They have lived all over: Germany, Venezuela, Beijing, New York, Los Angeles, Tokyo, Bangkok, and Korea. I'm interested to see learn how they balance their identities as Americans abroad.

My teaching schedule is radically different, and it's one I'm still struggling to adapt to. I teach 42 6th grade students. They are divided into two classes and I see each class every day for nearly 2 hours. Within that time frame, I supposed to cover topics in Language Arts and Social Studies. I'm "ON" from 7:45 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. with one 15-minute break. After 12:15 p.m. the kids head off to electives and lunch, and I'm left alone until the end of the day. I'm expected to stay on campus until 3:30 p.m. I'm still learning to leverage those three hours in the afternoon in my favor. It's great time to plan, grade, and meet. There are still so many new facets to the school however, I often feel like I'm not at my most productive during the afternoon. Perhaps with time things will get better.

As the week progressed, I felt like I was gaining a better grasp on the schedule and the curriculum I should be covering. I still can't plan more than one day in advance (which drives me crazy). I'm hoping that soon I can plan for at least a week. My teaching teammates are some really great people; they're super nice. It's still a challenge for me, however, to learn to teach as a "team" rather than an individual.

In short, there are a lot of differences to adapt to, but I'm here at HKIS to grow as a teacher and as an individual. I don't have to like things better or see them as worse; I just have to appreciate them as different. Ultimately, I hope I'll be a better teacher. We'll just have to wait and see.

In the meantime, I think I'll take a walk along the beach...