Wow, I can't believe how fast the time has gone this week! But, school has been pretty good so far, so I have been very happy about that. :-) I was worried about whether the students would have reverted back to their chatting mode after my working so hard with them for the two weeks before holidays. But, they have pleasantly surprised me - although, I still have to occasionally remind them to listen. It's been great having Chantelle, our student teacher, in the classroom. She and I are sharing the teaching of the class which also means sharing the planning and preparation of materials for the lessons. That part has been great cuz it's meant that I have been able to spend less time at school and less time prepping stuff at home. I actually got to read the newspaper Monday and today after school - what a treat! :-)
It's been great working with Chantelle - it reminds me of working with my friend, Priya, who was once my student teacher and then became a colleague (I went to my principal and told her that Priya was amazing and that she just HAD to hire her - fortunately, the principal listened to me). Chantelle and I work really well together - after school, we reflect on the day and talk about behaviour issues and how best to sort through them. We talk about a variety of solutions to things which come up during the day - Chantelle has the planning bit, preparation bit and teaching bit down pretty well - the part she struggles with (and we all do at some point) is the classroom management bit. It's the hardest part about teaching for me. I am still learning and I bet that most teachers do as the students change each year. I had to take Ryley out today as he was not making good choices and I didn't want Chantelle to have to deal with him as well as the other 19 students which were here today. Ryley is OCD, ADHD and has anger issues. He and I have slowly formed a rapport with each other and I am learning to 'pick my battles' with him. He will talk with me now about things which have set him off and I am learning how best to help him to do what he needs to do. Although it's been a bit challenging dealing with him, it's also been rewarding in that I feel that I am reaching him.
Today, I spoke with Leanne, the vice principal, about getting some professional development at the school. The grade two teachers are doing some curriculum development tomorrow afternoon. I was originally set to cover Tracey's class (another grade two teacher) tomorrow, but she has the week off (her father passed away) and there's a supply teacher in the class for the week. So, I asked Leanne if I could come to the curriculum development tomorrow (unless she wanted me in the classroom with Chantelle). She said I was welcome to come to the curriculum develpment meeting and I was so pleased when she said that. I really want to learn as much as I can about how education works here in Queensland. When I told Chantelle and asked her if it was okay with her, she said that it was fine as she wanted to find out if the kids would be the same when I wasn't in the room. So, I think it will be a good experience for both of us.
Dad has spent most of the past three days working on downloading the General Conference broadcast (which happened in Salt Lake City last weekend), converting the files to a DVD format and then burning them onto DVDs. It's taking ages for this to get done - he's working on it to be ready for this Saturday as we are viewing the conference at that time. We will be going on Saturday from 11am to 1pm and then 1:30pm to 3:30pm to watch last Saturday's sessions of conference and then on Sunday we will watch last Sunday's sessions of conference from 9am - 11am and 11:30am to 1:30pm.
I went visiting teaching yesterday with my companion, Robyn. I love visiting teaching - I always have. I love getting to know the sisters better and in an informal setting. I love talking with them, too, which is something we don't really get to do too much of on Sundays. We like to go on Tuesday nights cuz that is when Rob, Rosalea's husband, is out at the chapel for Young Men's/Young Women's and we can sit and have a good chat with Rosalea without Rob around. :-) We always have a long visit with Rosalea - and last night was no exception -we were there from 6:30pm to 8:30pm - Rosalea, Robyn and I are all good at talking :-) but Rosalea also seems to need to talk a lot about her life with us - like she doesn't have anyone she feels comfortable doing that with and she also knows that anything she tells us won't go any further.
Tonight, Geoff (Robyn's husband) had arranged for he and his home teaching companion, Luke, to come to visit with Dad and me - when 6pm came, in walked Geoff and ..............Robyn. Imagine my surprise when I saw her come through the door - Luke had a family situation he had to attend to and so Geoff had asked Robyn to come with him to visit with us. We were really pleased to have a chance to visit with the two of them - they are becoming good friends of ours. They are leaving on Saturday to go to Ireland until the middle of November - we will be crossing paths on the way to Sydney as they are arriving back in Hervey Bay, so we won't be seeing them until we get back in mid-January.
I bought a book when we were back in Canada called 'Isaiah for Airheads' by John Bytheway. It's based on the chapters of Isaiah Nephi quoted in the Book of Mormon. We are reading Isaiah in the Bible and it's hard to understand it sometimes. This book is FABULOUS in helping us to understand what has been written in the book of Isaiah. John breaks it down so that we are learning about what each verse (or couple of verses) mean. We have read two chapters so far and it's been so much more enlightening having this resource. He makes it so much easier to understand, so we are really glad that we have bought this book. I will talk more about what he tells us in a future blog.
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