Visit and Evaluations

I just talked with Compassion last night, and they said that I could visit Jesus (my family's sponsor child) at the hotel on Sunday night, Dec 16, as well. This gives me more time with him, which is fantastic. I have to buy his gift next weekend!

I'm going to Valle de Angeles this weekend. There are a lot of artesanias there, so hopefully I'll find some good Christmas gifts, as well as souveniers for my future house :-). I think I'm also going to La Tigra again, but this time I'm going to spend the night in a cabin owned by a German couple. Everyone here LOVES it, so I figure for about $30, I should experience the wonder. Somewhere in there, I have to figure out time to plan some lessons!

I got my final evaluations from my supervisor yesterday. They're pretty good. They definitely point out the things that I did wrong/need to improve on more than I would like, but they also add that I will be a good teacher. So, I guess they're pretty accurate.

Overall, this placement has been difficult for me - for different reasons than my placement in Indy. I wasn't ready mentally for being here, and this impacted my adjustment a lot. I thought this placement was going to be easier, but it wasn't, so I had to adjust to that. The kids in my class talk A TON, and I had to figure out what management techniques worked with them. This took (and is still taking) me a long time. My relationship with my cooperating teacher is very different, because she's only a few years older than me and has only been teaching for 4 years.

Anyway, things are coming to a close at IST, and I can say that I've gotten good practice in the classroom. I've learned a lot, I think, and I believe that I would be able to do a good job of managing this class (eventually), or had I begun the year with this set of students.