Reflections #3

3. Did you gain more or less sympathy/understanding for the problem you addressed or people you served? Give a meaningful example(s).

I have absolutely gained both sympathy and understanding for my aunt and the other teachers both here and elsewhere who teach multi-grade classes in little, understaffed Christian schools. Not that there are that many of them, but still, I believe I do understand now a bit better the energy, creativity, awareness, and patience that goes into this form of teaching.

Picture a room, colorfully and cleanly decorated with an alphabet border and all sorts of fun odds and ends, heavily filled book shelves marking the room into sections (reading corner, word games center, craft station) that border ten desks in two rows. A white board fills the wall facing a long window that lets in the uninterrupted Southern Utah sun. In front of the white board is a yellow felt-covered bench for the two little first grade girls and a music stand overflowing with notes and assignments and teachers' manuals. In the far corner of the room looms the teacher's desk that folds around her and serves as a secondary desk to the second and third grade kids while the fifth and sixth grade kids do English or the eighth graders do pre-algebra. Now imagine the teacher - tall with curling brown hair and gentle or piercing blue eyes - chiding one boy for tipping his chair as she points out a mathematical mishap to a thin girl with purple glasses, just before handing two squirming second grade boys their handwriting assignment.

If you can picture that, add to your vision a young college student crouching over the only empty corner of the big desk, grading away at five different grades' home- and desk work, balancing a first grade history book on her lap (she forgot once again to prepare for the little girls' lesson in advance) and giggling at one of the older boy's antics in the back row of desks.

The teacher is my phenomenal aunt. The partially distracted girl is yours truly. This is her everyday scenario. This is my short-term visit.