Lessons

School has been closed here at Tania, and throughout much of Kenya, for the month of August.  Many children go home with parents, guardians, or foster parents for the break, but others who have nowhere to go stay here.  Because of these children, we're never truly on a break here at Tania.  Someone has to make sure these children are clothed, fed, and safe.  And, even though I'm not teaching in a classroom for this month, there's always something to be taught.

By setting and enforcing "office hours" when students can visit me in my house, I teach boundaries and time management.

By having kids help me to catalog and organize the library, I teach a love of reading.

By involving students in the care of my pets, I teach compassion.

By exploring the property with students, I teach an appreciation for God's creation.

By setting aside my plans to spend time with a child having a hard day, I teach that people are more important than projects.

While I enjoy spending time carefully crafting lesson plans and making sure we cover all of the material for class each term, I think these impromptu life lessons during school breaks may be my favorite lessons.  These children may not remember how to correctly conjugate irregular verbs, they may not always keep their fingers on the home keys when they're typing, but I suspect they'll remember the time they spent helping in the library when Teacher Beth got so excited over finding some of her favorite books, and the time we hunted for four-leaf clovers together.  They'll remember how I let them come visit every day, and they always knew what time to come.  They'll remember the one afternoon when silly Teacher Beth had four dogs, two cats, and a hedgehog in her room at once.

We're gearing up for the third and final term of the school year to begin tomorrow.  As a teacher, I know the value of a classroom education, but I have really treasured the lessons that happened outside the classroom over the break.