I received a new student on Tuesday. He took the assessment for students applying to Gr 2 and did a fair job. While I was a little reluctant, reflecting that it is hard for teacher, new student, and students alike to have such a big change in the middle of the year, Pastor Johnston and Mrs. James encouraged me to take him on. I began frustrated because I had no desk for him, having lent my extra out to another teacher, I had not had opportunity to meet the child myself, nor his parents, and if I’m going to begin something, I like to begin it on Monday, not the middle of the week. The boy comes just moments before school starts on Tuesday, all smiles and blushes, a little bit of a lisp, and uncertainty in his eyes. Come to realize (what I should have considered right from the start) that the assessment he took is for children just entering Gr 2 at the beginning of the year, not jumping into a brand new curriculum in the middle of the 2nd term. This poor boy is far behind on things, and a large factor is that the curriculum is foreign, quite different from what his previous school was using.
I will admit: I despaired. How on earth am I to help a child to catch up on nearly a year’s worth of content, still have him active and participating in class (which he has little to no background for), and keep the rest of the class plugging away?! Enter grace and mercy of God. Other teachers will help me with my recess duties while I stay in for morning breaks to tutor him on math. Our IT teacher will take him some mornings to work with him. I will spend an hour on Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons after school, practicing reading and language skills, and Gr 1 teacher, Ms. Abraham, will work with him Monday, Thursday, and Friday afternoons on phonics and the like. My selfish nature (shamefully) resents all the extra time this will take, and yet, with God’s help, I will reach this little boy as best I can.
Now, you may remember that we have not had the privilege of hot water while we have been here on the island. When we have visited the Johnston family, they kindly let us partake of theirs. Julie and I were determined to find a way to make the water for showers bearable without going broke on water heaters, gas, or electricity. There is a device that plugs into an outlet, pushes water through the pipe and over hot coils, heating the water as it makes its way through the shower head. We found such a device at a hardware store near our house and ask a member-friend to install it for us. Julie took the first shower and proclaimed the water “bearable” – nice because previously you would have been gasping for breath while you bathe. Pretty excited, I took my shower the following afternoon. Didn’t realize the switch needed to be flipped for the outlet to work. Ok, next morning Julie takes her shower. The circuit shuts off mid-rinse; the power goes out in both bathrooms, my bedroom and the dining room. After some advice from Cindy, we find the circuit panel and flip the breaker. Next morning, I take my shower and the electricity cuts again. This time I know where to go, and after the chilly finale to my shower, I flip the breaker again. Seems that the device needs more power than the spliced wire running to the bathroom outlet can provide. We are waiting for our friend Patrick to come back and run a new wire from the circuit panel to the outlet directly so we can have a more powerful and reliable current for the outlet. Until then, we have the choice between our old nemesis (cold showers) or taking turns flipping the power back on. We’ll let you know what we decide.
Teacher call to humility and motivation for the week: “Instead of trying to get that child out of your hair as fast as you can, help them!
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