"A Noble Profession"

One thing that you hear a lot as a teacher is how "noble" your profession is. The phrase, "teaching is the noblest profession" was said a lot throughout my university classes (I guess they were trying to ingrain in our minds that hardly getting paid really was worth it). A lot of people who go into El Ed really believe this and will often proclaim that teaching is not about the money, its about making a difference in a child's life and creating the great minds of the future....I'm not one of those proclaimers. Don't get me wrong, I do want to help the kids and I do want to make a difference in their lives and really teach them and make them better people... but seriously, is there a better profession than getting to work and play with kids all the time? What's more fun than going to work and reading Dr. Seuss and Shel Silverstein, coloring the solar system, or going on a walk to look at different types of clouds? To be completely honest, my main reason for going into El Ed was completely selfish--I wanted to have a fun job that I enjoyed going to everyday.

At Rising Star, I am currently teaching English to 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th standard. I try to do creative, fun things in english because creativity is not a priority in schools here, so I really try to spice things up. For 5th standard, they are split into two classes for english because there are so many different levels. I teach the upper level class and because there are only ten kids I have been able to do some really fun things with them. The class just finished reading an abridged version of Alice in Wonderland. To make the book more exciting, I told the kids that at the end of the book, we would write poems (there are lots of rhyming poems in Alice in Wonderland) and then have a Mad Hatter Tea Party and share our written poems. The kids really got into the book and did a great job on their poems and the party was a HUGE success! 

Setting the table getting ready to go! 

We made Mad Hatter hats to wear at the party to get more into the book/movie. 

 The kids drank mango juice from tea cups, little goblets, or small colored glasses. 

Ismail was rockin his hat.

 While they ate, I played a few parts from the Alice in Wonderland cartoon so they could see the characters from the book in the movie.

 They wrote the final drafts of their poems on "playing cards"

Nagu sharing her poems with the class--they did an amazing job!

Each kid also picked a poem out of a Shel Silverstein book to read to the class. This is Jennifer with her little glass after she read her poem.

Anne (who was awesome and came and helped and took all these wonderful pictures) and I also shared our favorite Shel Silverstein poems.

With the class after the party--it was way too much fun.

I love that I have been able to teach so much here at Rising Star. I truly love teaching so much and wouldn't have any other job. These kids (especially here at Rising Star) make every lesson, activity, and project fun. Granted, there are some days when I wanna wring their necks...but the fun days, like today, far out weigh those. :)

Vanakkam