First post in a while

Ok, time has flown by and so much has happened. The Navy came to provide aid all around Majuro (which delayed the start of school another week), Dan had his 25th birthday weekend, and I have been spear fishing (and actually catching fish).

However, the thing that sticks out in my mind the most is that I began teaching this week. Our first day was Monday, September 10, 2007 and in Marshallese school system fashion, we had a half day which started with an assembly at 9AM and dismissing the students at 10AM. To top is all off, at about 8:30AM the power went out in the school.  

(A side note, NVTI is located on the same campus as Majuro Middle School and Marshall Islands High School, and our school was the only one to lose power, oh well.)

So I have approximately 100 students in two 11th and two 12th grade classes. The two full days of class I have had so far have been exhausting. But that might also be due to the lack of sleep I have been getting—going to bed around midnight/1AM and getting up at 6AM. (I know mom and dad, if I went to sleep earlier I would not be so tired…oh well I guess I will have to figure that out at some point.) Anyway, my school schedule began with 3 classes from 8AM-10:45AM, lunch from 10:45AM-11:35AM, free period from 11:25AM-12:35PM, another class from 12:35PM-1:25PM, study hall from 1:30PM-2:20PM, and a prep period from 2:25PM- 3:15PM. I thought this was a pretty good schedule especially since I was able to get about an hour and half for lunch which gave me time to do more class room prep and relax. Today I was asked to take on another class during my free period; I was asked to teach the 11th grade Special Ed class. Of the students in that class I am told that one is deaf, two of them do not speak English and the rest of them are 'really slow learners.' I have not been able to determine if 'really slow learner' means that the students are actually mentally handicapped or if they are just not very bright. It is good to see that they have decided to group all of these kids together. I am not a trained teacher and am definitely not trained to teach special education. This is going to be an interesting year.

Anyway, I will put up pictures soon and continue to let you know about my teaching endeavors.

Also, since I am teaching computers I am always in the need to for computer related materials (especially mice, keyboards and mouse pads-a class set of 30 each would be awesome) or posters, or any other regular school supplies. Today I spent the whole class period reviewing the parts of the computer with the students (Hardware, internal device, external device, monitor, keyboard, mouse, CPU, hard drive, input and output). Most of the 11th and 12th graders have had 3 or 4 years of computer class. This may be turning into a long year. :)

Until next time.....