Here she blows

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People say teaching is an easy job; 9 til like 230 , amazing holidays, good health care, great pension. Yeah it is a GREAT job, but it is not easy.
Teachers hold the futures of 100's of kids in their hands.
They are suppose to encourage students, be positive, patient and understanding, among many other things.
Sure anyone can be a teacher, but not everyone can be a good teacher, who deserves the title.
And often enough, people take advantage of all the benefits this job comes with, without realizing how much responsibility it holds.

Today I was in the classroom for the first time. Each of the volunteers that have been chosen has two schools to teach at, one full time and one part time.
My priority school is Say Ta Nar, I am teaching a split class of students from grades 4, 5, 6, and 7. The oldest student is 15, the youngest is 10. Some students have been at the school for a long time, some just arrived this year. Some students can respond when i aask them their name, some have no idea what I am asking.

Some people might be laughing, or have their mouths open in disbeleif, but the reality is that the same thing goes on in Canada too.
Students are rarely failed if they can't count 5 and 5 , or write a full sentence, or read a paragraph. So often enough in a classroom a teacher winds up with a wide variety of levels to approach.

Where do I start?
Who the heck knows.
BUt I will say that it is worth my time to figure out.

Say Ta Nar is a school that is being run out of an individual families house. There are roughly 150 kids. the parents are burmese and have many teaching certificats and human rights certificats on the walls. They have experienced and qualified and are wonderful to the children. But they are very underfunded. This is a school that provided lunch for their students every day, 150 hungry bellies.
They have a great selection of books and provide stationnary suppplies for the students, uniforms, two computers with internet and transportation. This year, they cut off funding from their main sponsor because they felt the foundation was degrading to their dignity and their school.
Say Ta Nar, now has no funding except a temporary 3 month emergency funding from an agency in the UK.

I went to a ceremony at the school on Sunday with the children that celebrated Aun San Su Chi and International womans day. After, I had the opporunity to speak with the head master ( Pho Cho/ teacher) and his wife ( Nee shar/ teacher) . It was sad for me to learn that now the teachers have no salaries, and the children no food at lunch time, because the school just cannot afford it.

I will start teaching officially tomorrow, hopefully it goes well..

On a different note, it is extremely difficult to learn childrens names here. Imagine trying to learn the scientific names for each insect you see on a day to day basis.
eg. Centipede -Scolopendridae
- How the heck is ANYONE except Jarad Plato suppose to do that?
Even me, i love insects but really?..... never going to happen...

Luckily they sit in the same place everyday. SO i wrote down their names in reference to where they sit, with numbers and tomorrow on the first day we will make name tags.
Everyone reading this knows I suck at names- I haven't even decided what to tell the students my name is because the 'th' sound is too diffcult for them. I have introduced myself as Kathleen, Kathy, Kat, and Kay. KRAP

Found a blue shiney bug today! Super cool, i stole him off a leaf and then realized that I couldn't keep him so through him in some other leaves ahhaha

ummm we are trying to set up the internet at the house, so hopefully i will actually be able to skype some peeps in the next couple days.

I miss my boyfriend, and peanut butter. I also miss pastries from the bakery at Bishop's. On the bright side they have great doughnuts here. But on the bad side again, everyone told me I would lose weight here but it probably wont happen if I keep eating the doughnuts
SO if you don't mind im going to feel better about myself by doing 5 push -ups and maybe one sit up, if I make it..
that is WAZ UP

Kathy MULA

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