We've been in school for a month now, and things are falling into a rhythm, as they always do. The students have begun to learn the new routines and expectations, and the teachers have begun to learn the new schedule and a little about each student. :) This year we have 23 students, with 3 more joining by Christmas. This is a normal class size back in Cali, but it's 9 more students than I had last year, and we now have the largest class in the school. I was nervous at first when I was arranging all of the desks, but now that I have gotten to know my students and their personalities, I love it! This class is creative, intuitive, artistic, and eager to learn. I have 13 German speakers and 10 English speakers, but the wonderful thing is that the majority of my students can speak in their partner language incredibly well. This makes a huge difference, as our day is split into sections that are spoken in German, and sections that are spoken in English. The ability to transition from one language to the other is difficult, but one thing that I love about our school is that the students learn how to translate for each other, and can thus grasp the knowledge at a deeper level. You know what they say-when you have to explain something to someone else, you truly understand it! Imagine how true that is when you add different languages into the mix.
Changes
My teaching schedule has shifted a little bit this year. A big challenge for our school is scheduling. If you think about the fact that twice a day we need double the amount of classrooms because we split into separate English and German language learning times, you can imagine how difficult that is in an old, smallish building. We find that teaching space anywhere we can, and many classrooms are multipurpose. Another problem with this is that some of our German teachers teach several additional subjects, because they need a specific amount of teaching hours per week. This is where it gets complicated-we have to work around teacher's availabilities as well as classroom availabilities. Crazy. But we got it figured out, and I'm happy to say that I have taken on a few more teaching responsibilities this year so that my partner teacher, Hanna, doesn't have such an enormously heavy teaching load.
I'm currently teaching:
- English language arts for my English students
- English partner language for my German students (ELL)
- Bible
- Science/Social Studies (Hanna and I are combining to teach the same topics together in both languages this year. We'll be using the German curriculum topics.)
- 1 lesson a week of math
- 1 creative arts lesson a week for our new creative arts block time (I'm teaching a technology class with my friend/4th grade teacher, CB).
- 3rd and 4th grade library time
Now that it's been a month, I'm a little more used to my schedule, but still find busy teaching days a little hectic. I don't know what I'm going to do when I eventually come back to the states and no longer have a partner teacher/have to teach all day. While my job is definitely challenging for a myriad of reasons, I am spoiled in some respects. :)
Unique Mission of CSK
One thing I don't think I've accurately shared with you is the unique mission that our school has. Christian School Kandern/Christliche Schule Kandern (CSK) is the first Christian bilingual school in the country of Germany. We are partnered with Freie Evangelische Schule (FES), which is a private Christian German school in the area. We are also partnered with Black Forest Academy, and we do have many missionary children who attend our school. These children have parents who work in the area, either at BFA, or with another mission organization, or for a company in the area. I love teaching my missionary students. They are growing up in a different country because their parents are serving God here, and it is such a privilege to love and teach them. It's a high calling. But the other half of our students are German children from the surrounding area, whose parents pay for them to come to our school so that they can learn English and receive a good education in a multicultural setting. Many of these children come from non-Christian families, and we have the incredible opportunity to model and teach God's love to them. The third part of our unique mission is that we also have the opportunity to model God's love to the families of our students as we interact with them.
On BFA's website, it says, "By learning with both German and English speaking children and teachers, we introduce the children to the unique qualities of each culture and encourage a natural interaction with people of different nationalities. The students at CSK are exposed to a wide range of opportunities in order to develop a broadened world view and a better understanding of God and His world."
Here is a link to the FES website, which explains (in both languages, yay!) a little bit about our school.
https://www.fesloe.de/schule/schularten/christliche-schule-kandern.html
First Chapel
One of these interactions was our first chapel of the year! Our entire school squished into our music room, along with many of the parents, who are always invited. We sang songs in both German and English (led by my partner teacher, Hanna, who is an incredible musician), and discussed our school's theme for the year. After much discussion in our meetings before school started, we decided on the theme "respect". This is an unusual theme to choose in Germany, and I am so glad that our principal was able to explain it so well and clearly to the students and parents. Culturally, the word "respect" isn't thrown around too much, and it's not something that is automatically given to those in positions of authority. Considering the history of the country, this makes complete sense. In chapel, our German principal talked about what respect means in a biblical context, and connected it to the golden rule of treating others how you would like to be treated. We need to have mutual respect for each other-adults for children, and children for adults. We had positive reactions from the parents, and will spend time in our classes this year discussing different aspects of respect, and how we as Christians can have respect for others.
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| Strategically took this picture so I could post it-no pictures of faces! |
Godly Play
For bible class this year (which I teach) I have invited a woman from my church to teach lessons every month. She teaches a special curriculum called "Godly Play". It's a special way of teaching bible lessons and involves natural materials and storytelling to help children become more aware of God's leadings and presence in their lives. They spend time reflecting on the stories and "wondering" about different aspects-important parts, their favorite parts, etc.
For the first lesson, she told the story of Abraham and Sarah in the desert, including the birth of Isaac, and then through to his marriage to Rebekah. She brought a cloth bag of sand that represented the desert, and manipulated small figures to tell the story. What I loved the most was hearing their reflections at the end.
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- When Rebekah traveled to Isaac in trust
- When Abraham and Sarah made an altar to God
- When they left their home and trusted God
- When they prayed
- When God came close to Abraham
- When Isaac was born
I'm hoping to be able to learn some of the Godly Play curriculum so that I can use it as well. If you'd like to read more about it, here is their website: http://www.godlyplayfoundation.org/newsite/Main.php
Guided Reading Curriculum
As shared in a previous blog, we have adopted a new curriculum for our English language arts time! I won't bore you with the teacher lingo, but we're going to use leveled books to help our students grow as readers. My job over the summer was to organize and unpack all 1500 books that we ordered from Scholastic! Quite a job, but we're so excited to learn how to effectively use it in our short amount of English language arts time. We've been having training sessions at school, and have been spending time researching effective teaching methods. The books are downstairs where the students can't freely go, but I took my kids down there to show them all of our new books, and their eyes almost popped out of their heads! They were so excited to see all of our new books and know that we got them for them! Most of the books we have, especially in our classroom libraries, are pretty old, so these ones are very special. I'll be posting more later on how we're using them in our classrooms, and the changes we see in their reading.
Apartment
On a completely unrelated note, I have pictures of my apartment! I also have an address to give you so that you can send me mail. :) You'd be amazed at how often my mailbox is empty or contains only German mail spam (hint). My street name means something like fortress castle path, which I like. We're down towards the end of town, so it's nice and quiet. It's a great apartment!
Amy Collins
Vesteburgweg 4
79400 Kandern
Germany
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| We're on the second floor. |
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| The little pathway where a lot of people bring their dogs. |
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| The creek right by my apartment! |
Thank you for reading all the way to the end of this long post. It was overdue!
Also, thank you for sharing in these experiences with me.
