Last Day of School!

The day had come.  I almost couldn't believe that it had arrived.  I had completed a second year of almost nonstop teaching in a matter of 20 months.  This year had been far unlike the previous one though.  There are vast differences between a third grade classroom in suburbian Coon Rapids and a second grade classroom in a developing country.  At the same time, there are so many similarities.  Both are filled with children who need to learn.  Both have curriculum, books, pencils, paper, markers, etc.  Both are filled with goals, dreams, struggles, and joys.  Both have wonderful moments for the teacher when you feel like the rockstar who can teach anyone, and both have moments you want to pull your hair out when you feel like nothing you've taught has penetrated their brains.

Children of Hope School is different in one very distinct way though.  It offers a quality education to children who have never or rarely been able to have schooling in their lives.  A chance to learn their colors, letters, how to write their names, reading, writing, math, science, the use of a computer, and even how to play an instrument.  For children that are so poor they can't even afford the meager sum of money to pay for a uniform and supplies at a local public school, Children of Hope School is beyond a dream come true.  They didn't choose to come here.  God hand-picked them to be part of the Children's Shelter of Cebu, to have a second chance at life.  That included having a quality education, which would prepare them for their future and even for adoption someday.

There were lots of thoughts and emotions going through my head on that last day of school.  I had spent literally hundreds of hours with my homeroom students throughout the mornings of that year.  With such a small class, I got to know these children extremely well and became very close to them.  We shared so many moments together that year, learning, praying, laughing, and crying.  So many memories....the daily morning prayer that nearly always included Silas from MN and the victims of the natural disasters in Haiti, Chile, and China, diving to the depths of my knowledge to explain concepts and ideas in ways I'd never had to explain before, memorizing verses, reading reading reading, math, writing, spelling, flashcards, stories, tests, puzzles, conversations about adoption and families and God, Melrod diving under and over everything in the classroom to kill mosquitos :); wow, the memories never end.  I had one last day to build classroom memories with the children in my class.

The day began like any other.  It was a Wednesday, gray uniform day.  That was one thing I was NOT going to miss - uniforms!!!  At first I thought it would be kind of fun.  After a few weeks though of wearing the same blue shirt every Monday, green shirt on Tues., gray shirt on Wed., bright blue on Thurs., and the CSC T-shirt on Fridays, I felt like a very boring person. :)  I realized how much I love to make my outfit each day!

The children came in and lined up for the national anthem, and I of course received a flower from one of the children - a very common occurrence (see one of my previous blogs!)!  This one was especially pretty.  I always loved when they folded back the petals of the white flowers into their fun little design.  Then this one also had a smaller flower that had been placed in the middle.  Beautiful!  The creativity of these children never ceases to amaze me!

  

 

Finally had a fellow teacher capture me in the lineup too!

Ready to enter class for the last day of school!  Gibbie was out sick until partway through the day.

We spent the morning cleaning the room and cubbies, another similarity of my MN classroom and my Cebu classroom.  It's amazing how much these orphan children accumulate in their little cubbies!  :) :)  I figured that they must hang on to almost anything they receive because they have hardly owned anything their whole lives.  Another thing that made me smile during the year was how often the children were swapping their possessions.  A child would receive a pencil pouch for their birthday and within a couple months, maybe another child had it, and who knows, maybe a third child a few months later.  Maybe this is another by-product of how these children were raised.  It's not about ME, ME, ME, and MY stuff.  They have shared their few possessions their whole lives.  Of course these children still battle with the selfishness of human nature, but it's such a different feeling because these kids so easily swap and share anything.

While the kids were cleaning, I took note of the number line hanging around the upper wall of the whole classroom.  Every day had been posted, to help with math concepts.  What a great way to show odd/even numbers, 5s and 10s, and general sequencing of numbers.  For me however, this number line had taken on a whole other meaning during the year.  It had been a day-by-day track of my time in Cebu, and of God's faithfulness in bringing me through each and every day.

It's pretty safe to say that most of the days I was teaching there, I wasn't feeling 100%.  I had been sick a lot, and the extremely hot classroom I was teaching in made even my feeling-good days turn into feeling-not-so-great days.  The one fan (bless its heart) had worked so hard, but the regular temps in the 90s and high humidity was very challenging for several hours on end while I was teaching.  The children regularly prayed for my health every morning in addition to the other prayer requests.  They cared so much and  believed I would get better! :)  They never ceased to put a smile on my face, even on the hard days!  So the number line seemed to be a regular little piece of encouragement to me - to show how far I'd come and how much strength God had given me.  The last day of school marked day #190!!

 

Next was class pictures #1 (we did another batch the next day at graduation).

 Me with my morning homeroom class (for reading and writing). 
A few kids had come and gone throughout the year, but this was the current group!

 My homeroom class for math.

 My afternoon science class.

Including my Level B partner teacher, Eunice - we worked together on Morning Meetings.

Gotta have some fun while you're waiting for all the pics to finish!

After watching a video in the library, we returned to our classroom for some final fun.  My friend Deb had sent me a birthday package which included some fabulous blow-pens for my kids to use!  We busted them out and they had a blast with them.  I was surprised how intense the kids became.  These kids are amazing artists though, and they take drawing and coloring very seriously!  We wrapped tissues around the markers so each child could have a turn.  Those that didn't want to wait or that got dizzy opted to just use the stencils and the markers on their own.  They LOVED it!  As if it couldn't get better than that, we jammed to "High School Musical" songs at the same time. :) :)

 

 

 

 

 

 A video of the fun!

 

As the minutes of our morning ticked closer to the end, it was time for my traditional closing routine.  I was concluding my sixth year of teaching, and it was tradition for me to read the book You Are Special by Max Lucado on the first and last day of school every year.  Being in Cebu was no exception!  When I packed for Cebu, I made sure to pack the book.  It is the most important message I want all of my students to have when they enter and leave my classroom.  I remind them that it's more important to me than any regular curriculum we learned.  The children listened closely to the book we had read only 10 months earlier on the first day of school.

"You are special" is a message that we regularly work at drilling into these precious children at CSC.  Many of them came from circumstance that told them quite the opposite.  When you live with poverty, neglect, neglect, and many forms of abuse, how would your fragile mind know or believe anything different?  Thankfully, God can heal broken hearts and lives, and our children begin to learn and deeply believe and understand this concept when they are in our care.  I never realized how special some children could become in my own heart too!!!

 

 

 

Class ended and then they were gone....... (of course I would see them soon after, but the official final class had ended).

The students headed home for lunch with their bags of personal supplies.  Regular school classes officially done! 

 Bye Melrod! 

 

 

 

When the children returned from lunch, we had graduation practice for the next day.  We fine-tuned all the procedures and protocol for the big ceremony, and I fine-tuned my emceeing!  After practice, a group of visitors from Korea came to see the school and spend a few moments with the children.  The visitors were all-smiles, and the children were gracious, as they are so used to visitors coming and going, even for very brief moments at CSC!  The sweet visitors had even brought Korean treats for all the children!

 

 

 Our precious Rufa Mae receives her treat.  Rufa became very sick just six months later and passed away.  I miss her so very much.

The children returned home, and the school day was done.  The last day of school.  190 days.  Wow.  What a challenge, and what a blessing!!  We had made it!!!!!