Back in the classroom

Yes I know I have had a lot of questions about my sanity to return to the classroom after some time being an administrator and finishing my master's degree in early childhood education. 

I do realize that I could have taken another admin job getting paid the big bucks and being "in charge".  However I didn't get into education to sit at a desk all day with paperwork... nor did I get into educatoon for the money.  I got into education to make a difference in the lives of children.

After finishing training last Tuesday... I changed centers and became a floater.  Which means until I leave for Chengdu the middle of December I get to fill in for people that are out for various reasons... ie sickness...vacation... or let go.  Due to the later circumstance... I am in my own classroom for the next couple of weeks teaching 7 classes of children that range in age from 3 to about 10.  And may I add... absolutely loving it!

I really think it is the best teaching situation I have been in... the teacher's guides and curriculum are very detailed... I have a room of realia (hands on learning props) at my disposal... I have roughly 20 teaching hours per week leaving the other 20 for observations, lesson plan prep, and meetings!  Yes I actually get paid to lesson plan!  Plus I am currently working with a great staff that share some of my same interests in music and mexican food!  We don't have to stay at the center to lesson plan so starbucks and dunkin donuts are popular places to sit and write up lessons!

Now onto the children...  granted I am in a very different situation than my last couple of positions but still working with little brown eyed cuties and teaching them the basic skills of the English language.  For the most part these children want to be here and their affluent families want them to learn English so they work with them outside of class. 

I was teaching a class of 7 and 8 year olds on Friday night.  Our vocab list was daily, weekly, monthly, often, sometimes, rarely, always, never.  We were coming up with sentences to answer the question....What do you do _blahblahblah_? The kiddos were struggling with the concept of rarely so my learning partner explained it in Chinese.  Thinking they had the concept... I asked one of the boys... What do you do rarely?

Just as my senior foreign trainer Bryan walks in... the boy answers... I rarely brush my teeth. 

I could see Bryan grin at this comment and I decided to play off of the comment and I think by the end of the class they had the concepts.  Oh the joys of teaching!  So love watching the faces of these children as they finally get a concept that they have been struggling with.