Today has been a struggle for me. We went to teach at St. Brigid's this morning. I had the younger class of 1st-4th graders. This is the out of control place where i can't ever get their attention. I was trying to teach about Shadrach, Meschach, and Abednego. And then in the middle of this, the head teacher comes in and pulls me outside. He looked really upset and said, "there are kids in here who aren't supposed to be here." to which, i basically said, um this is where i was told to go and i have no control over who's in here and who's not. then he comes in and starts pulling kids to the front. he made all the muslim kids come forward first and then all the catholics. this was the most singled out stupid system ever. b/c the thing is everyone who was in the class was in there by choice. i certainly didn't make anyone come in. and then he made all those kids leave. the only thing good about this is that i had a much smaller group to work with. but then apparently he yelled at dominic saying everything we teach needs to be following the nationwide pastoral curriculum and that we are not there to preach. this is stupid b/c our team has been going to this school for the past 5 years and no one said anything. and i'm so sick of how every curriculum is standardized here. folks i'm appreciating u.s. education so much.
so this happened and then i went to buy a novel that i could read to the juvenile boys. i was having a hard time figuring out what would be at an appropriate level b/c all the books are wrapped in plastic. how can you tell if the vocab is okay or not without looking at the inside. so naturally i decided to unwrap the plastic. well then this store clerk starts giving me this death look and watching me like a hawk. so i basically kept 2 books and walked away to look for other things in the store. then i came back to put one of the books back b/c it was going to be way to hard. only this lady is still staring at me. and i was going up the stairs and she starts yelling at me to give her the books until i come back down. this was ridiculous b/c no one else had to give her anything. so i just said, no that i was going to buy them. i felt like she thought i was shop lifting or something. so i took the books to the counter, but i decided to only buy one, and i left the other one by the counter, half way unwrapped in the plastic. so i probably should never go in that store again b/c they'll recognize me as the book unwrapper girl. so stupid. and for some reason i got so upset about all this. dumb i know.
most of the rest of the day was spent planning activities for next week. ruth and i are teaching a class to the ICY students on the book of Jonah. i really enjoyed sitting with her analyzing and studying the book. and peter was giving me some helpful background information. i learned that sackcloth was used in Biblical times for cleaning feet so therefore, putting on sackcloth during fasting and prayer was a sign of humility. i like learning all this stuff b/c it really puts the Bible in a better perspective for me.
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