Being Taught About Teaching

What a full and exhausting week this has proven to be. Right now it is Friday afternoon, and we are pretty much finished with our training experience. This is what we have left: ELCA personnel information briefing, Talent/No Talent Show, and then our commissioning service tomorrow morning. While the week has gone by very quickly, it really has been a helpful process. I have been trained in basic teaching techniques and the importance of planning and classroom managment. I have a lot of ideas to try out. We talked about grading, expectations, and how to handle cheating in the classroom. We've learned about the history of the area and some basic language skills. Our minds are just flooded with information. I am looking forward to tomorrow's train ride to hopefully be able to process everything that I have been taught a little bit more.

One of the best bits we have received is a quote from Michal Valvco, who is the director of the Bible School at Martin. (This is a place I visited on my May Term with Dr. Hinlicky. This is the place that first sparked my interest in teaching English in Central Europe.) In a lecture he presented yesterday he said, "The first act of love is careful listening." I think this is so true for all types of situations, especially when you are falling in love with a culture. We need to work to really hear their stories as THEY tell them, not as how we are taught in American schools. And hopefully as we listen to them they will be willing to listen to us. Mutual respect, care and love can then flow from a relationship grounded in listening.

Now that my training is essentially complete I have become somewhat more nervous again. No longer am I student. Tomorrow I become the teacher. I think the next few weeks will be very challenging, but I trust that it will all work out and that I will not be a horrible teacher. Hearing everyone else's stories that are also going out as teachers, I feel more confident in how I fit into the puzzle of ELCA missionaries. We are all headed to the right spots with the right companions. Though this is a little scary, this is right.

So this is the plan for the next few days. Tomorrow Sarah and I head off to Cieszyn on trains. We will get to the city and be picked up by our principal. Hopefully dinner can happen next. Then we will move into our apartments. I am unsure of when we will have internet in our apartment, so it may be a while before I am able to write again. So until Poland. . . .
Blessings,
Colleen