BNC Grade One

It's amazing to see that regardless of which grade or subject each of us is teaching at the BNC, one thing is clear: we've all fallen in love with each of our students. Each day that I have spent at the center, I've grown as a learner, teacher, friend, and compassionate human being. When I decided to partake in this service trip, I only hoped that I had the teaching abilities and experiences to make a profound difference, if not to all, to at least just one of my students. But to be completely honest, I knew little about the LaSallian virtues and wouldn't have been able to name half of them. But in my short time here in Namibia, with 7 amazing friends and 4 fantastic professors, I have seen all 12 virtues at work both inside and outside of the classroom. As a team, Sinead, Kate, Danny, Mike, Becca, Mary, Christina, Dean Merriman, Dr. McCarthy, Dr. Nicholson, and Brother Nicoletti have shown me what each of the 12 virtues truly means. The result: a compassionate teacher who touches the minds and hearts of her students.

When Sinead and I stepped foot into our first grade classroom on our first day at the BNC, we immediately took notice to things we wanted to establish: namely, a behavior system, a set of classroom rules, and a text rich environment. Our second day, we were hard at work completing these tasks. Together we figured out a way to rearrange the classroom as a means to provide the sudents with an effective learning environment in such a confined space. We moved around students' desks and chairs based on our judgement of cooperative learning groups, we created a list of positive classroom rules with the students to balance out the feeling of community and give students the sense of responsibility for their actions, and we labeled the entire classroom and created a Word Wall to provide our students a print-rich environment, which is pivotal during this developmental time.

More and more, as Sinead and I grew to know our students and their ability levels, we realized that even the alphabet and letter sounds gave them such a hard time. While the alphabet was painted to the wall in the classroom, there were no pictures of objects that would help students make the connection to letter sounds. I spent hours drawing pictures for each letter of the alphabet, but the result was well worth it. Who would have known that I was quite the Picasso? Just kidding! When we went over each letter, sound, and corresponding picture with the students, we asked each of them to hang the picture next to the corresponding letter, to provide them with a sense of pride in transforming their humdrum classroom into a beautiful and effective environment designed to maximize their learning.

Following this activity, we took our students outside and split the class in half to write the alphabet and words in chalk on the concrete, while the other half of the class jumproped to "Strawberry shortcake cream on top! Tell me the name of your sweetheart, is it A,B,C,D..." We engaged our tactile, bodily kinesthetic, and musical learners, where sometimes, these intelligences are neglected in the classroom. The students' reactions were amazing to see, and the end result was so rewarding.

It's beginning to sink in that after our weekend in Swaka-waka (Swakopmund?), we'll only have a few days left at the center. In such a short period of time, I have learned so much about myself and my students (dang, I'm already calling them "mine!"), and it's going to be so hard to say goodbye!