Author: rebecca van zanten

My CFE is over and now I am getting back into the routine of school. It has been a really busy few months. I really enjoyed my CFE. It gave me a whole new perspective on teaching and

If you had the opportunity, would you teach in an international context again?

I would like to teach in an international context again because I think that it is valuable experience to see how other school systems work and what they do well and what could be improved so that I could possible implement that here in Canada. However, if I were to ever teach in a international context again I would want to teach somewhere where English is a common language. It was hard being in a place where no one spoke english. I felt lonely in a room full of people because I wasn’t able to understand the conversation that was taking place.

What was the importance of your experience to your reflective process?

While I was in El Salvador I had a lot more time to think and reflect on everything that was occurring. I was able to really take the time to reflect on what types of resources and communication work and which one I could eliminate.

How has your experience impacted your ability to transform learning?

I think that the main impact I had was getting a glimpse into what the international students are feeling when they are sitting in class trying to understand what I am teaching them. It has made me want to further understand how I can reach each of my international students.

How has your experience impacted your personal and professional (teaching) philosophy?

I think that this experience reinforced the value of student teacher relationships and how we as teachers have such an big impact on how students view learning. I am my students to be excited to learn, and I want to encourage them to love learning and not look at it as just a means to an end.

What did you learn or discover about your strengths/weaknesses as a teacher from the programs and teaching you did at your CFE site?

I think that some of my strengths would be patience in developing and making resources and activities for the students, as well as being ablle to develop relationships with students. Even with the very few words I could speak with the students I was able to communicate with them through other means and develop relationships with them. The weaknesses I experienced on my practicum were as evident here in my CFE. The tone of my voice is one of my biggest weaknesses however, I couldn’t teach the students using my voice.

From your experiences, what did you learn about teaching and/or how children/students learn?

Because I was teaching mainly a kindergarten class, I learned that you need to have a lot of different activities plans, because students that young can only focus for a short amount of time. I also learned that when student this young really like an activity they want to do it again and again. So finding ways to include new content in the same activity can be very beneficial. Students learn when they are enjoying learning and may not even know they are being taught something, and so if as a teacher you are able to do this by incorporating activates they enjoy the overall  then they may view learning as fun.

What did you see as the connections between your time at the CFE and your time in your UBC methods courses?

I think the biggest connection was with my English Language Learners class, but also the class room management. I found connection with some of the discussions we had in each of the classes. Being in El Salvador reaffirmed the importance of relationships with your students and also helped me to understand how my international students must be feeling when they come to Canada to learn.

Would you recommend this experience be continued or expanded for future teacher candidates? Please explain.

I would definitely recommend doing an international CFE anywhere, It gives you such a different perspective and understanding learning about how another country has its school system but also how other people live and what is valued.

With reference to the following quotation, how do the impacts of the strategies you learned and used during your extended practicum and methods courses compare in your international context.

Quotation: “Education is a human right with immense power to transform. On its foundation rest the cornerstones of freedom, democracy and sustainable human development.” -Kofi Annan, former Secretary General of the United Nations, Nobel Peace Prize 2001

I think that the basics of teaching remain the same wherever you are. Though you may have different pressures from outside sources teachers still want to make their class a place where students want to learn, where they feel that they can enjoy learning and comfortable to share their ideas. I found that in that way what I learned on my practicum helpful. Also the ability to be adaptive. Because in other countries they do not have as many resources as we do you are required to think on your feet and be  creative even more, to make the environment you are teaching in a place the students want to be. Through my personal experience I can say that I agree with this quote. Everyone deserves an education and education helps peopler to better understand  the world around you.

 

 Daniela Rubi Papi – “Teachers Teach Kids, Not Schools”

I thought that what Daniela had to say was very thought provoking. I think it is very true that we can’t just give people more and more things without educating them on how to use it, but I think that she disregards how important the things actually are. I think there needs to be a place for both. I think that her example with the water filter was very good. I think today a lot of us want to help and are willing to give our money away to help others in need but we don’t want to give anyone our time, because that is more valuable to us. I think that at some point we all face this kind of dilemma, money vs. time, and I think more of us need to be willing to give our time towards helping people. I definitely think she raises a lot of really good points about giving and how detrimental it can be if we don’t take the time to educate the people we are giving to.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: The danger of a single story

I really enjoyed this TED talk by Chimamanda, as this was something I faced directly with my trip to El Salvador. Currently El Salvador is consider the murder capital of the world, so a very dangerous place, and my family was not very happy that I was choosing to go to this place. They couldn’t understand why I would go to a place where so many murders took place. So I said to them El Salvador has a population of over 6 million people do you think that everyone single one of them is going to try and kill me. They agreed that that was a silly thought. I also told them that the news stories they found on the internet couldn’t be all they looked at for El Salvador. And I didn’t know how to put it in simple words, but Chimamanda summed it up beautifully. They had a single story. They would read one news article talking about how El Salvador was a very dangerous place and they began to think thats all there was to El Salvador. Now I am not saying I didn’t think this way at first. I am very scared when I first read about El Salvador being such a dangerous place but I knew there were loving and caring people there who were victims of violence and had this horrible picture painted of them. I think we all do this, look to a single story to assumed it explains a entire situation. I know that I have done it multiple times, but I do continue to try and not pre-judge a situation before I know all the facts,

This was the verse of the day on Thursday, and these come up on my phone everyday at seven am, and this was just struck me.

It is 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

“Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”

Well week two has come to an end, and I feel that it went by way faster than the first week. I think it is because I knew my routine for the week. This week I focused on learning all the children’s names in all my programs and building relationships with them.

Teaching

For the kindergarten class I still have trouble communicating. It seems that they don’t understand that I can’t understand them. By the end of the week they started to realize that I spoke a different language then them, but it seemed like a completely foreign concept to them, which was quite funny. I feel I had still made progress in my relationships with them. I know all of their names so I am able to greet each of them in the morning. I also learned a lot of the actions to the song they sing to begin the class, so I have been able to help them learn some of the actions and they seem pretty impressed that I know what to do.

This week we have been practicing a specific song for the Mother’s Day celebration we had today. I have no idea what the song actually says but I can gather what it is saying by the actions we do. The performance today went really well, you could tell the kids were excited and proud of themselves it was great to see.

Being here has given me a whole new perspective as to how my international students were feeling while I was teaching them on my practicum.  Those students come to Canada not knowing the language all that well. They are separated from their friends and families and living with people they have never met before. This is exactly what I am doing here in El Salvador, and let me tell you it is not easy. But not only do I have an understanding for how they feel but I have also gathered an understanding of how important visuals and hand gestures can be when I am teaching.

I have been able to get around the last two weeks using visuals and hand gestures only pretty well, and if the people here didn’t do that for me I would be way more lost than I already am.

I have also realized how easy it is to completely zone out of a teaching when you only understand a few words, and there are no visuals to help you understand what they are talking about. I have found myself zoning out a lot here.

It was been a huge learning curve for me s a student and as a teacher. I have a whole new outlook to teaching international students and now I have to try and determine what some of the best strategies I can implement in my classroom to help me ensure I am reaching every student.

My Journey

I came here unsure of what the Lord wanted from me here, and I feel I am learning a lot. I have had a lot of time to spend time in the word, and reflect on it which I never make time for at home.  I have had to rely on the Lord a lot here, and it has been comforting know everyone has been praying for me. Today I got to share the Gospel for the first time ever in front of almost 80 mothers, for our Mother’s Days celebration. I was so scared, but I felt a peace. I wasn’t nervous but I was scared I would miss something. But the Lord provided me with the words to say. I feel this was such a great experience for me as it makes me realize how much joy there is in sharing the Gospel with people. I used to be afraid to share because I was scared people would judge me but now I see that I shouldn’t be worried about that. People will judge but the only judgement that truly matters is Jesus Christ’s, and I want to be able to share the Good News with everyone. If a person never hears the Gospel then they will never know God’s love, which is greater than any love there every could be. I feel my faith has been strengthen here and I look forward to what the next week has in store for me.

 

The verse that has kept me going through the last week was

Joshua 1:9 “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.”

First Impressions

I arrived in San Salvador at 11:30am on April 24th, and made it through the airport in one piece even though the light went red which meant I had to get a secondary check. I met up with Cecilia and off we went. We headed to Tutultepeque which is a very small suburb or community in San Salvador about 1 hour and 45 minutes away from the airport. El Salvador is different than I expected. It is very crowded and busy. The streets are dirties than I thought they would be and driving is scary as there are not as many rules of the road. As we drove through the main city of San Salvador I was shocked by the poverty. I thought that being in the heart of the city there would be more nice areas, but even the nice areas are run down. Cecilia told me that the city is made up of mostly middle class families and middle class is very different here than in Canada. I soon realized that the middle class families were way better off than the families I would be working with in Tutultepeque. As we came up to Tutultepeque, the paved roads turned to dirt. It looks like a road that you would need a 4X4 vehicle but I was soon proven wrong when I saw three wheeled cars driving down the road. It looks like driving through a jungle. The greenery is beautiful, and it can truly tell you are no longer in the city.

All the people here are so nice and welcoming, they laugh at me all the time because I am unable to speak the language, but that’s ok. It is kind of silly of me to come down here and not know the language all that well, but I am slowly picking up words to help me get by. There is a big sense of community here which I think is amazing and is something we in Canada could take away from here. I played baseball  on Tuesday and Wednesday with a bunch of ladies from the community and a lot of their families and others from the community came out to watch and hang it. It was so nice to see.

Teaching

So far I have been doing a lot of observing but have had a few opportunities to teach. I have been working with a kindergarten class everyday that is full of energy, and because I don’t speak the language very well it has been hard for me to communicate and get their attention. I have been assisting a lot with the arts and crafts, as well as games. I also have been working with the nutrition program that runs every Monday, Tuesday and Thursday after school. I feel I have built a good relationship with these kids even in just the first week. Even though I cannot speak very well, I have played lots of games with them. We played baseball and jump, which are two very popular activities for kids down here. It has also been very hot and these programs run outside or in an un-air conditioned room, so it has been hard for me to keep up with the kids during the games. I also had the opportunity to work with an adult literacy progam where they are working on basic subtraction and addition. This was the first time I felt useful. I was able to assist the lasdies in their questions even with just very basic Spanish. I taught myself all the numbers in Spanish and so I used that to communicate. I really enjoyed this teaching because I could help. Math is the same wherever you are and I love that. Finally on Saturday I got to assist with all the youth groups they run. Since mothers day is next week I prepared a craft to teach each of the youth groups to make for their moms. It was a small pot with a paper flower bouquet. I had to cut 700 flowers and glue the yellow middles on each of them and then cut and outline 70 pieces of paper for the stems. I prepared this over two days, and it is not an activity I would do again for a large group, but while in El Salvador I had the time and the patience to work on a fun activity like this. I think that the teaching went well, even though I couldn’t tell them what to do. I had to teach them with only hand gestures and modeling the steps which worked great. This activity made me think about teaching in a different way, and that you can teach in ways that do use words. So far teaching has been a challenge but one that I have been able to learn from.

Inquiry Reflection

My inquiry question is on financial literacy, and how we as teachers can help our students to be financially responsible in the future. Where I am teaching right now, there isn’t much financial literacy teaching because most of the people here struggle with making enough money to live. Here they are focusing on how they can assist the community in ways that can help the people get jobs. In addition to the adult literacy program they also provide a textiles class where men and women from the community come and learn all about textiles and how to sew. Here in El Salvador there are a lot of textile factories, so the people will be able to apply for jobs at the manufacturers. Once some of the people can get jobs, teaching financial literacy would be more relevant.

Overall the first week has been a little tough, because of the language barrier. I try to communicate in Spanish but since my Spanish is so weak I am not able to talk to a lot of people. This is also the first time I have been away from home completely by myself, so I also find that difficult being away from my family. But I think that it is good for me, and I have been able to learn more about myself. I love the community that is here and the way everyone comes together and helps each other out, and that has been one thing I look forward to every day. In the next two weeks I still have a lot to learn and I look forward to what it is I will learn.

 

As I sit and wait in excitement and nervousness for the next week to go by, I ponder what I will experience when I arrive in El Salvador in just under two weeks. The practicum has gone by so fast, and I feel as though I am not ready to embark on my CFE just yet. This will be the first time I will travel by myself to a country I am unfamiliar with. That is where my nervousness comes in. I must rely on the Lord to guide me through this amazing experience I get to embark on.I never thought in a million years I would do something like this, but I feel the Lord has called me and I want to follow the Lord’s calling. He calls us to step out of our comfort zones and declare his glory among all nations.

Throughout the three weeks I expect to have days of sadness and days of extreme joy, this trip will be a great journey for me. I hope to understand other cultures, and to get a glimpse of how our international students feel coming to Canada by themselves and learning to speak a new language. We take for granted the country we live in and do not understand how lucky we are to have the school system we do. I will be teaching a kindergarten class which is drastically different from my practicum experience of teaching grades 9-12. I look forward to the new challenge and seeing what God has in store for me.

 

As teachers how can we effectively teach students about financial literacy, in a way that will lead them to make more financially responsible decisions in the future?

My inquiry questions revolves around financial literacy, and how we can teach students to be financially responsible in the future. I think that I can incorporate this question into my CFE. I want to examine whether El Salvador has any financial literacy program in place, and if so what does their program focus on and are their students learning to be financially responsible in the future.