Locks of Love

When I was in high school one of my classmates donated her hair to Locks of Love. I'd always hoped I could do the same someday but my hair had stayed-put at my shoulders. I didn't muster the patience to let my hair grow long until I got engaged in 2008. After all, I had the perfect incentive - beautiful wedding hair! I wanted grow my hair out for our wedding and donate it afterward. Unfortunately it took another full year to grow my hair long enough, mostly because I had to get semi-regular trims to keep it healthy and free from split ends. I held out though, actually started enjoying my long hair, and a few weeks ago even had a nightmare that someone cut my hair in my sleep just to be mean. Weird. I never thought I'd become so attached to my hair. Today I gathered to courage to make the cut. So, without further adieu, here are the before and after pictures!

Before between 11 and 12 inches were cut off...

...and after!!
Today was the first time Michael has seen me with short hair!

Winding down (frantically)

With 1.5 days left I feel like the world is spinning much faster than usual. I'm under mounds of exams to grade, have so many papers and supplies to sort/organize/recycle and I'm trying to duplicate some materials I've made this last year for the school to use after I've left.
So I had to stop and take a breather before this year slips away...

I think this will forever be one of my favorite pictures!

My students make me proud!

Wow, my Beginning and Prelit classes have made me so proud lately!

In Beginning ESL we've been reading an ESL version of Romeo and Juliet. They've been SO into it - I love seeing them excited about reading. Last week when they were reading the final story my classroom was SILENT for 35 minutes. ...This just doesn't happen. I was amazed. Now we're working on characterization. Today I gave them a whole page of quotes from the story to sort by character, and they also had to write next to it why the person was prompted to say it. They amazed me with their ability to make connections. Since they've worked so hard lately, I'm letting them watch Romeo and Juliet the 60's version on Wednesday. I was really surprised when they voted for the older version and not the 90's one with Leonardo Dicaprio. They said, 'Romeo and Juliet is a classic and you can't change a classic.' WOW. If this wouldn't make an English teacher happy, I don't know what would.

My prelit students have also amused and amazed me so much lately. A few weeks ago we read a book about dinosaurs, and 2 weeks ago we read about weather and I taught them how to use weather.com to find the weather in their native countries. So I was a little confused last Thursday when a few kids came in and said, "Dinosaur weather!" They asked if they could use the classroom computer, and then guided themselves to weather.com, typed in weather, and proceeded to show me "Dinosaur Weather" for Dinosaur, Colorado. What smart kids! They wanted to see what weather dinosaurs had. They did understand that it wasn't actually weather for dinosaurs in the past...but they thought it was pretty hilarious as did I. You can see if for yourself here: Dinosaur Weather. :)

What do you learn in an American school?

One thing I've been amazed by the past two years is the number of things I've had to 'teach' that I never expected. It has made me realize that there's a lot of things you just learn without realizing it and since it's the first time in school for most of my kids...they've had no need for this stuff before. Here are the most amusing / strange things I remember.

• When the bell rings at the end of a class it means you leave
• It also means that you should walk to your next class and that you're expected to be there in a certain amount of time
  
• You don't go home for lunch in the middle of the day
  
• How to use a pencil sharpener (both manual and mechanic)
• How to click mechanical pencils to get more lead
• Mechanical pencils are actually refillable too!
• The end of the pencil has an eraser
  
• But no matter how hard you try, you can't erase regular pen ink
• And also, not all markers are dry-erase either...
• Oh, and dry erase markers only erase on dry-erase boards
  
• How to use three-ring binders and three prong folders
• How to use a stapler and hole-punch
  
• How to open and use a lock (wow new immigrant students really struggle with this at first!)
• How to hold and use scissors
  
• How to open the glue bottle
• Oops, I should have also taught how to use only a little glue
• How to CLOSE the glue bottle
• Appropriate classroom behaviors-asking permission, raising your hand, not talking over the teacher...
  
• And finally, thank you for your enthusiasm but there is no need to stand on your desk to introduce yourself. I understand that you just want everyone to be able to see you, but we can see you just fine from the ground
  

It's official

And no, it's not official that we're having a baby. Since once you're married close to a year everybody and their brother starts asking about kids.

It is official that Michael and I will be leaving our jobs at Lee High School for a new adventure this August. I've known since around January but delayed posting about it because our families, school Principal, staff, and students needed to be informed first.

Lee HS has been an amazing experience for each of us. Plenty of tears, laughter, frustrations and celebrations of success and growth; I have learned so much in two short years. I've had the opportunity to work with an amazing population of students and develop a curriculum that I haven't found existed anywhere else for preliterate students. If I knew how to market it, I probably would. Lee has stretched me in ways I didn't know I could be stretched, and it has really been an honor to teach there for 2 years.


But, Michael and I have decided that it's time to move on to our next adventure, because sometimes no matter how hard it is, you know you have to move on...
It really couldn't be at a better time either. Our school is continually in limbo and it's been so nice to know 100% what we're doing this next year. Leaving our students is going to be SO hard, but we're both so excited for what's about to come next!

Starting this August we will be attending a Missionary Training School through Global Frontier Missions. We met with the leaders on Saturday and we could hardly contain our excitement afterward. This is the same organization I went to Mexico with June-August 2007 (see blog archives) and it was such a life changing experience spiritually and personally. We can't wait to see what God has in store.

So for the remainder of this school year I'm going to try to dedicate this blog to sharing stories about my students. After that, it will mostly be used to share our experiences with Global Frontier Missions. So with that, I'll leave you with a picture of my kids, minus two absent. I teach these kiddos English for 3.5 hours every day and Michael teaches them math for 1.5 hours. I feel like they really are our kids.

Music

Haven't had much time for a blog post lately (yet somehow I found time to make my blog pretty, hmm). So for a quick post I'm going to let you in on a little secret. Music does so much for my soul. It calms, inspires, encourages and energizes me. I sometimes feel like I'm most alive and taken to an entirely different place when I'm listening to my favorite songs. Just like with reading. This is why I wish I could have music set to a book as I'm reading to crescendo at the exact right moments. Ahh! That would be bliss.
Anyways, below is the music that currently calms and inspires me. Michael will probably be really tired of these songs soon, especially "Oceans will Part" since it's waking us up from the Ipod alarm clock everyday now, but I can listen to them over and over. I get that from my dad!

Your Hands - by JJ Heller
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlL8LayF0uw

Oceans will Part - Hillsong United
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5HmIVDrOao

City on our Knees - by Toby Mac
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFL2NDxF-CA&feature=fvw

Reflections on this week

You may have heard about this on the news:
http://www.chron.com/disp/video.mpl/media/19875552?autoplay
Please watch the video above before reading for this post to make sense. It is from a Houston Police Department press conference on January 6, 2010. There have been other news releases since but this is the video that most sticks to the facts.

I knew Danish since I first started working at Lee High School. He often helped with the criminal justice class I co-taught last year. He knew the law that he'd learned through his LJ classes well and was passionate about helping our freshmen classes learn how to run a mock trial. He told me several times that he aspired to be a lawyer someday. Students and teachers alike saw Danish as a trustworthy student with a friendly, though sometimes boastful, personality that was eager to help people - with work, with copies, or anything else. He was a leader in our Law & Justice learning community Student Council and a lot of students looked up to him. Teachers enjoyed his conversation in and out of class, and though sometimes he showed the signs of senioritis, he was rarely a discipline problem. I now understand at a new level that you may never know of the pain or deceit that someone is hiding. And we all hide things and are capable of hiding things.

As you can imagine, this news was shocking to our school community. Our minds have been reeling this week. It may be impossible to comprehend when the image you have of a young man does not match the actions he has been charged of committing.

I was hesitant to write about all of this really...but I have to get my thoughts out so I can leave them be. So below are a collection of thoughts that have been on the forefront of my mind this week.

1. Deep grief. For Ms. Khan's life that is lost. For the actions Danish and Nur have been charged with and the life they have thrown away because of their actions.
2.Compassion. For many people, including myself, when we hear of situations as gruesome as this, our first thoughts may turn to justice being served. We may judge the people as horrible human beings, now not worthy of life. I've felt very convicted this week that it is not my job to judge Danish, but God's. I am not in any way condemning what Danish was charged with. But I do believe I am to pray for Danish to humble himself in true repentance. God has not left him, and does not want him to be alone. And if one day, Danish would cry out to God for forgiveness, my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ would accept him. This has convicted me to find a way, through God's strength, to forgive Danish and pray for him. He is so lost right now...
3.Conviction. At some point in my Christian walk, it became commonplace to hear that Jesus died for my sins. I have never known someone that killed another during this lifetime. Now, knowing someone that has been charged with murder puts it in a new perspective. I have also been a killer. Not in this lifetime, but less than 200o years ago, the evil thoughts and actions in me condemned Jesus of Nazareth to death. My sin might not seem as great to you or me sometimes as murder in this life, but sin is sin and "the wages of sin is death" (Romans 6:23). Also, "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." (Romans 3:23). Had it not been for God's great compassion on you and I, it might be me condemned to eternal death...Oh, how I praise and glorify HIS name because He has restored me to life. This shakes me to the core.
4. Desire for prayer. It is really the only way I know how to get through this situation. I'm praying for Danish to be moved by God's Holy Spirit to seek the Truth of a Savior. I'm praying sometime through his imprisonment, that God will send someone to read him the story in Luke 21:26-43. The criminal saw his punishment as due, feared God and believed, and Jesus forgave him on the cross. I'm praying for Danish to seek true repentance and leave this crumbling world of deceit. I'm praying for the other teachers and students, that somehow through all of this, our hearts will all be moved to seek God for comfort, truth and wisdom. And I'm praying that God will continue to strengthen me in my faith. Glory to Him for providing for me this week, it has not been an easy one.
The thoughts I've shared are amidst so many others of confusion and sadness. Please, if you pray, remember Danish, Lee HS's students and teachers and me as well in your prayers this week. Pray for the teachers that are desperately wondering if there's anything they could have done that would have prevented this, as it's an intense struggle for teachers that were closest to Danish right now. Pray for strength and that I will be able to put thoughts of all this aside and be diligent to my job of teaching this week, as it was very difficult to do this last week.
In greatest appreciation,
Danielle