Christmastime at School

It seems that I haven't posted in nearly half a year! Whoops.

This school year, I am teaching the 3-year-olds again. Unfortunately, we have what I so often refer to as "an enrollment problem"--which is to say that I have two students. One of them comes three times a week, the other one four. This means that my time is spread between my own class, the other preschool classes, and our after-school program to which I've been assigned. Two afternoons a week, I am supposed to entertain and educate a group of 2-4 second graders. There's a reason I teach preschool and not second grade. This is not my passion. However, I am looking to just get through the next year so that I can move back to America with three full years of preschool experience and a good reference under my belt. While I enjoy writing the curriculum for the seven-year-olds and seeing their results, the teaching can be a struggle.

My first project this year was to teach them why they are learning English. They are at the age when they realize it's harder to speak English than Czech, so why bother? They haven't yet been in a situation where English was helpful so they just rebel. I asked them to list countries where English is spoken. They couldn't come up with more than five. I asked them if they thought there were more than 10 countries where English is a major language. They were certain there couldn't be. So, I showed them a list of countries where English is a national language (de jure or de facto). We picked ten countries with the highest percentage of English speakers per capita and made a book about them. We used atlases and other books to research the people, climate, animals, and traditions. We compared Irish dance and Highland dance on Youtube. As I write all of this, I feel so proud of my students and of myself. However, while teaching it, I could not wait for it to be over.

Our next project was to write letters to an American second grade class. I wanted them to explain what Christmas was like in the Czech Republic. I had them do watercolor paintings to illustrate their letters. They all wanted to paint Christmas trees. It was kind of a bust. However, I got two of them to work together to make this timeline of Christmas. They dictated to me what they did on each day and made these little pictures. Again, I wonder if the ends justifies the means because this is pretty great.

Aside from teaching, my life has had a few changes. In September, I moved into a flop house where I had only half a window as I was in one side of a room divided by sheetrock. The kitchen had no hot water. There were people moving in and out every week, not to mention the number of couchsurfers my landlord invited over without telling us. The final straw was his refusal to put a lock on my door. He pocketed half of my security deposit and I went on my merry way. In October, I moved into my current flat with my girlfriend. We live in a fifth-floor walk-up which means a lot of stairs. Otherwise, I love the place. It's the top floor with vaulted ceilings--which are still absurdly high and have skylights! Nothing like the vaulted ceilings where I lived when I was twenty. It's got a loft-esque quality to it with exposed beams and a mostly open floor plan. The last tenants put up a wall (of high quality) to separate off part of the living room/dining room area into a second bedroom which we use mostly for clothes and guests.

And now, it's time for me to get back to Christmas preparations. I hope to take pictures of our fat little tree and all the crafty decorations we've put up!

Teach a Man to Fish

Though my spring break doesn't occur for nearly another month, my kids are already taking theirs. This is because different schools in different districts of Prague have different holidays to prevent the entire country fleeing to the mountains at once. None of my kids are vacationing in the Mediterranean for spring break. They all go to the mountains. One of those little things about living in a post communist country is seeing how the limits imposed by the government became somehow natural. But that's a post for another day.

My kids are off on holiday because their older siblings in other schools have holidays. This means that instead of my class of eight little princesses, we've been topping out at five. While it's frustrating because my kids will be at such different levels after this next month, it has given me a chance to get to know them better as individuals.

And there are those moments when I just happen to be listening to the right kid at the right moment that make my whole life make sense...

We've been putting up a bulletin board with fruit on it to show how some fruit grows on bushes and other fruit grows on trees. I was hanging a cloud up with rain coming down over one of the bushes and one of my girls asked why it was raining.

"Well, you need to drink water and tea, right?"

"Mhmm."

"The bush needs to drink, too. It drinks the rain water."

A few hours later, my girls were sitting below the bulletin board.

"You know why is cloudy here?" I heard. "The bush need drink rain water so it get big."

A few minutes later:

"I am rain and you are bush. I come and make you big, okay?"

Most teachers I know think of circle time as their most important lesson time. I'm learning that the time I give to individual children is just as important if not more important than our class lessons. If I teach the whole class something they don't particularly care about, it's lost about five minutes later. But if I spur the curiosity of a child and that child spurs the curiosity of another child, two sentences can lead to an elaborate role-play in which my children figure out how the world around them works.

My kids are always playing nurturing games. "I'm Mommy and you're Baby!" Or "I am the kitten and you're my daddy!" They've managed to discover a new nurturing game as rain nurtures plants. Spring is coming and I'm so excited to see it through their eyes.

This Moment

This Moment: One Photo without words that reminds me why I'm here.

(In the spirit of SouleMama)

Halloween Memories

I was going to write this post all about how frustrating it is to try to be expected to create Halloween in a country that doesn't have it (What do children do on Halloween? Beg strangers for candy. Halloween requires the involvement of children andcandy-giving strangers.) However, when the Smith Alumnae Association posted on Facebook, asking about our most vivid Halloween memories, I thought I would do something more positive and positively nostalgic.

So, Smith Alumnae Association, my most vivid memories of Halloween as a child were our homemade costumes. There were a lot of things in my childhood that my mom took very seriously. Science fair projects might take months of preparation. Easter egg hunts involved careful tallying to ensure that no egg was left behind. But the Halloween costumes were always my favorite. My mother seemed to have endless creativity when it came to Halloween costumes when I was a child. Her sisters took Halloween just as seriously and also created Halloween masterpieces that became a collection shared among all the kids. In our family, it was practically considered child abuse to take your child to a Halloween parade in something store-bought. Sure, we were butterflies, vampires, witches, and puppies like everyone else. But we were also lobsters and race cars (not race car drivers!). I'm still impressed with how the women in my family could make a costume out of nothing. My mom would take basic costumes and make them something new with a few simple changes. Or she could make something out of whatever she found around the house. Which leads me to a memory I have of the All-Time-Greatest-Halloween.

I will preface this story with the note that I may be combining different years into one Halloween, but that's what the memory does.

As a preschool teacher, I have come to understand that when you have multiple children under the age of six, their limited range of motion might be to your advantage. So, I have infinite respect for my mother and her ability to create three imaginative, immobilizing costumes for my sisters and me. Jess, the oldest, was, if I recall properly, a vacuum cleaner. She was all in grey with a big white bucket (with the bottom cut out) around her torso with hose coming from it. I, lest I be something so simple as a clown, was a jack-in-the-box. A clown costume, plus a box around my body held up with straps over my shoulders. While Cassady, the baby, was a flower because at her age she didn't need full-body immobilization, the head was enough. I remember seeing a picture of this Halloween later on and commenting about how ingenious it was to restrict us so we couldn't run away. My mother said this was not in any way her intention. Whether it was or it wasn't, I'm still impressed.

A Day That's Hard to Beat

It's summer time and that means summer vacation for most teachers. It's odd that I count myself lucky for not having 8 weeks off in the summer, but it means that I don't have to find a way to make up for two months without a salary. So, bring on summer school! Well, it's preschool, so it's not exactly summer school. Each week, we have a theme and fewer kids than usual since most are on holiday. We've got some kids who will be coming for a week or two who normally go to other schools that are closed for the summer. This week's theme was fairy tales. I took an idea my boss had about going to the forest to find a witch and ran with it. I came to school today dressed as a fairy (yeah, I've got angel wings--the kids are 3 and 4, they don't care). I told them I was not Colleen but in fact Serafina. They went with it. If only I could have a preschooler's abilities when it comes to suspension of disbelief! I told them that I needed their help to defeat a witch who was living in the forest. They gathered their magic wands and we walked to the island. We followed a trail of gingerbread to a very big, old tree where the witch was living. We circled around it and waved our wands, shouting, "Abra Kadabra!" and heard the witch cry as she flew away.

"Where did she go? I didn't see her!" asked a student.

"I saw her. She's gone. She's really gone!" replied another.

"Where did she go?"

"To Africa!" (This is their new favorite thing, going to Africa, sending someone to Africa... don't know what that's all about.)

They discussed it for a while until they were all certain that the witch had left. Our work having been completed, we headed to the playground.

Let me tell you, walking around town today dressed as an angel was quite an adventure. I got so many disapproving looks from old ladies. I wonder if they assumed the angel costume was something naughty. Did they think I was a stripper? But at the bus stop (yes, I rode public transportation dressed like that), a grandfather brought his grandkid over to me and told her I was an angel. He asked if she saw a devil around and she said no and that devils are scary. Then, when I got on the bus, he said, "We get to ride with the angel! We are so lucky!" The toddler seemed pleased.

A lot of old men wanted to talk to me, but couldn't figure out what to say. I walked past a lot of toothless stuttering. Someone joked that they were afraid I had come to take them to heaven. "It's not my time yet!" they were trying to say. I'm ashamed to say... I laughed a little.

The best response, however, came from a young gentleman at the park who turned to his friend and said what translates effectively to, "Dude, am I drunk, or is that an angel?"

When we got back to school, I said goodbye and closed the door. I promptly changed clothes and put up my hair. When I came back, I asked where they had been. They told me the story about a fairy taking them to the woods. Again, the ability to play into what is an obvious hoax... so jealous!

After work, I went to pick up the newspaper, knowing that two of my friends were going to be in the Dnes Magazine, but not aware of how prominent they would be. When I saw them as the teaser photo for the magazine on the cover of the newspaper itself, I wanted to say, "those are my friends!" to the shopkeeper. I was back in my angel costume at this point, so I thought it best to give her only one reason to stare.

When I opened the newspaper right outside of the shop, standing in town square, I pulled out this. Maybe I've been reading too many Victorian novels, but I found myself so shocked that I needed to sit down. This is unbelievable! I thought to myself, as I sat in the town square... in an angel costume... holding a magazine with my friends on the front cover. What a day!

A Magical Little Surprise in the Garden

A few weeks ago, after a week of rain, we went out into the garden on an overcast day to play and do some weeding. I looked at our little flower garden and saw amongst all of the weeds, these little plants. Something inside of me said, "Those are not weeds!" But we didn't know what they were, so I began to pluck them out. I was surprised to find that their roots were fairly short. We had laid down compost and soil, so if they had short roots, they were growing in what we had put down. We reasoned that the seeds must have blown in and quickly taken root.

But then, I noticed this! On top of some of the little plants were squash seeds! At some point in the fall, we had tossed all old squash into the compost without thinking. And now, our compost is basically planting its own garden! I shared this little bit of magic with my students who loved the idea that we will have squash in the fall. We separated the plants a bit so that they will have more space to grow. Who needs a flower garden when you have an accidental squash garden?

Měla babka čtyri jabka

Every day before lunch, we say this poem in English, which I learned from my Waldorf mentor, and an equivalent in Czech. I love the way the Czech poem sounds, even if I can barely pronounce it an only have a rough idea what I am saying. I recently re-discovered a book of Czech nursery rhymes at school and I have a few that I love hearing the kids say. They just sound so magical. I tried to read them and found that I could actually understand them. Then, obviously, I needed to translate them for real. I am always in search of new hobbies--and what better than translating verses from a language I've never studied?

This is my first attempt, and my favorite Czech rhyme:

Měla babka čtyri jabka

a dědeček jen dvě.

Dej mi, babko, jedno jabko,

budeme mít stejně.

Literally:

Grandma had four apples

and grandpa only two.

Give me, grandma, one apple,

and we will have the same.

But this doesn't have the same sort of ring to it. Here's what I came up with, though it clearly needs improvement:

Four apples had Grandma

Grandpa had just two.

Give an apple to poor Grandpa

Dear Grandma, won't you?

So yes, it loses lesson that 4-1 and 2+1 are the same, but it keeps the general feeling of the poem.

My second poem in Czech is:

Foukej, foukej, větřičku,

Shod' mi jednu hruštičku,

Shod' mi jednu nebo dvě,

budou sladké obě dvě.

Literally:

Blow, blow, wind,

knock down one pear for me

knock down one or two for me

they will both be sweet.

This one, I'm more proud of:

Blow, wind, blow through the air

Knock me down a juicy pear

Let one or two fall from the tree

Oh how sweet they both will be!

I'd like to say that there's a practical reason for me to be translating these rhymes. I'd like to say that it's part of a plan to teach my children English using the rhymes they are familiar with. But it's not. It's simply another way to pass my time. And I'm okay with that.

We Find Magic Everywhere

When your job involves reading fairy tales at least three times a day, you start to view the world like one. I used to look for magic in the world, but lately, it just appears everywhere. We had a bunch of short willow branches in water from making pomlazka (willow whips, oh Central Europe) for Easter. I noticed that they were starting to bud and thought they would make a beautiful little fairy house. I stuck them into the ground to make a little hut. I explained to the children that this will attract the fairies to our garden as long as we took good care of it. As soon as I explained this to one student, he went and found flowers to put on top. Another found an empty snail shell while a third (for reasons I don't quite understand) sifted some small stones out of the sand table to put in the house. I then went around and collected the snails from all over the garden. I placed them in the house, explaining that the fairies ride on snails like we ride on horses. This also kept the snails safe from little feet that are wont to trod on them. Accidentally squishing a garden snail is much more heartbreaking than accidentally squishing a spider. The look of horror on one boy's face when he stepped on a chestnut that he thought was a snail was reason enough to corral the little guys.

But the fairy house quickly became known the the children as the snail house. "Šnek šnek šnek!" seems to be all I hear in the garden these days. They love to look in on the snails, give them little things to eat, and place flowers on the top of their house. The snails, to me, are magical little creatures in their own right, even if we've forgotten about the fairies who ride on them. My only previous knowledge of garden snails from Strawberry Shortcake. Snails, to me, were always aquatic and less than adorable. So, to see real life eye stalks is like stepping into a fairy tale!

I watch them and can't help but imagine being a fairy or Strawberry Shortcake riding on them myself. I recognize that in reality, it might be less than thrilling to ride on a snail, no matter how small I might be, but but... the eye stalks! They wiggle around and when they poke something, they go back in or wrap around it. They're incredible! And I've got about thirty more snail pictures, but I'll leave the šneky for another time.

Sometimes, magic comes in the form of an ambrosian Sunday morning cocktail. The Magical Mermaid Mimosa was born out of the desire to have root beer floats at brunch. Unfortunately, root beer does not exist here and vanilla ice cream is scarce (or topped with things). So, I picked up orange soda and strawberry ice cream one morning and figured it would do. It certainly did. We discussed how to make this delightful drink a bit more... alcoholic. Vodka? No. Rum? Perhaps. Tequila? Yes, but it is Sunday morning. So, champagne! Thus was born the Magical Mermaid Mimosa. Champagne, orange soda, and strawberry ice cream. "This is what girls in frilly pink dresses grow up to drink!" said Lauren.

It was hard to get a picture that properly showed the beautiful foam on the Magical Mermaid Mimosa or how it made one feel like one had just stepped into a victorian fairy tale, but this does show it a bit. Lauren coined the term Magical Mermaid Mimosa and later on I thought more about the use of "mermaid" here. In Hans Christen Andersen's original Little Mermaid, sea people live three hundred years but have no immortal soul, as humans do. So when they die, their spirit doesn't rise into the ether. They simply turn into foam and float on the sea. The foam on top of the Magical Mermaid Mimosa is like the sea foam that holds the essence of such magical creatures.

(Thanks to Jess for her M.M.M. photos)

Playing Favorites

Today, I got hit in the face again. Most of the time, it's an accident. Other times, kids get really upset and, being pretty new to this earth they haven't yet found a better way to express their emotions than punching me in the face.

Today was a different story. I was kneeling before a three-year-old boy to put on his unnecessarily large hiking boots. While I was bent over one, double-knotting it to his specifications, he held the laces of the other boot and whipped me purposefully in the face with his boot. The blow was accompanied by the typical blinding white pain that you get when you are struck in the eyes and nose. I didn't even make a noise. I was shocked by the pain and by the action. When I finally opened my eyes again, the boy sat in front of me looking pleased.

It's hard to balance being a preschool teacher with being... human. He's three, I keep reminding myself. But how can I not be upset with someone who just whacked me in the face and enjoyed it so? Another student of mine loves to speak with me in English, he loves to tell jokes, he loves to make me laugh (see photos above). When one two-year-old boy was crying for mommy, another one put on a silly hat and danced in front of him. How can one not favor these kids over those who seem to enjoy causing hurt? I know, I know, children who are acting out are doing it for a reason but when push literally comes to shove, how can a teacher not have feelings?

I guess, what makes a good teacher is her ability to accept those feelings without letting them interfere with her work. This is what I strive for daily.

Snowdrops

The first Snowdrops of the year appeared this week! There's still a bit of icy snow left about but the Snowdrops, like the crocuses at home, are persistent. When Jana brought in one from the garden on Monday, I told her my Snowdrop story which I've heard from many Waldorf sources. I could write it out, but it's better told in person. I then told it to Ruza and the kids, who adored it.

I spend a lot of time thinking about storytelling. How is it different to tell stories to adults versus children? How can we learn to tell stories better to both audiences? How can we become better listeners so that we can enjoy a "nice" story? I talked with a friend about it this weekend who said that we, as the audience, want to feel included in the story, feel like we are part of the drama. That's why, she said, "I went to the grocery store and got some yogurt, and it was good," isn't a good story. But I sit in circle every day with children who say things like, "Yesterday, I went swimming and today I am going to grandma's house." The other children are enthralled, they appreciate these stories. They don't need to be part of the drama. How can we recapture that?

I tell stories all the time. I tell nice stories. And another important thing is learning to accept the audience's silence. You need to give them a moment to absorb and not expect something that sounds cliché like, "That's nice." Just let the story fall. And be okay with it.

As the Snowdrops poke their drooping heads through the frozen ground, we are looking everywhere for signs of Spring. Yesterday, we found worms in a pile of old leaves. "It is alive! It is life!" shouted Ruza. How accurate? When everything around us feels dead, it is so good to see life. We moved them carefully to the compost pile and explained how they would be our little helpers, making us magical compost which will bring new life.

Another thing about spring with young children is this:

We as adults have come to understand from many years of experience that though winter can be dreary, spring will follow. We know what to expect. My kids are 2-5. They have had so few winters and springs, and even fewer that they actually remember. So, every winter to them, it must feel like the earth is simply dying--that this is the end of the world! Imagine the wonder of finding a worm living in the dead leaf, his wriggling pink body so vibrant against the darkness of decaying plant matter. It must really feel like Ruza said, but it's the Earth that's alive! The little Snowdrop reminds us of this.

Snow

Haven't I already waxed rhapsodic about snow? It muffles the noise and chaos of the world. It smooths over the faults and blemishes of the world. You can't help but love the peaceful picture of a city or a farm blanketed in snow. I grant you that snow has some destruction to its nature--but everything needs to be in balance.

Simply Seeds

This past summer, I spent a few weeks at my father's house for the first time since I was fourteen. It was late August and we were struggling to keep up with the harvest of tomatoes and peppers. My whole childhood, I enjoyed the bounty of our backyard. Being the sixth generation of my family to live on the street meant that our backyard was a paradise of fruits and vegetables. We had rhubarb for pies. Gooseberries and currants were for making jelly. Our pears were really canning pears, but as children, we ate them off the tree and enjoyed their crisp texture and tartness. Red and black raspberries never made it to the kitchen before our pudgy hands would stuff them into our stained mouths. There were plum trees in our yard while next door there was an apple tree that we were welcome to pick from. We also enjoyed our neighbor's blueberry bushes and occasionally picked the June berries from near the road. While all of these plants gave us their delicious fruit year after year, we had little understanding, nor interest, in our father's gardening. Who cares about tomatoes when you have raspberries?

But in 2009, as something of an adult, I had much more respect for the two gardens my father had been keeping. It was difficult not to feel a sense of awe when looking at them. The tomato garden was overflowing--and certainly not just with beefsteaks! "Did you see the yellow plum tomatoes?" my father would greet me as he came in from the backyard. The day that we found what appeared to be a purple heirloom was a day of wonder and delight. I had chopped so many tomatoes and peppers (and not just bell peppers either--"I think this is an orange Scotch Bonnet!") for salsa, roasted tomatoes, and my own bean chili. I felt like we would never keep up. The fruit drawer in the fridge became the tomato drawer, while our windowsill was covered with vegetables awaiting the chopping block. As we looked at the purple heirloom, we debated what to do with it. "I think I'll save it for seeds," my father said. I began to notice the little yellow seed envelopes on the counter--most unlabeled. Of course! This garden, while magical, didn't just appear one day! My father was saving seeds and planting them year after year. The tomatoes and peppers that we eat provide more than just delicious sustenance--they also provide for the future. They are full of possibility! Inside of each one is dozens of possible plants for the future. Our garden was full of surprises not because these things just appeared but because my father has no interest in labeling envelopes. But this is part of the magic of our garden!

My father's crown jewel this summer was the watermelon plant that managed to make its way into the pepper garden. Had a watermelon seed somehow gotten mixed in with the pepper seeds? Had someone at a barbecue spit a seed in the direction of the garden and it managed to germinate there? The watermelon was gorgeous and huge, though I didn't eat it so I'm not sure how it tasted.

I've been thinking a lot lately about how I can bring the magic of our backyard to my school. I'm planning out a garden in my head, which is a completely foreign concept for me. I decided to buy a book from my favorite press (Hawthorn) called Gardening with Small Children. I hope it comes soon! I desperately need some guidance on this subject. But at snack today, I was cutting up apples and noticed the seeds. I put them aside and after snack showed them to the children. We put them in one section of an egg carton and labeled it "green apple." I doubt that we'll have any sort of orchard in our small backyard, but if just one of these seeds becomes a tree sometime in the future, imagine having snack time from our own tree in our own backyard! I marveled at the simply beauty of seeds in an egg carton, hoping my students felt my sense of wonder at the magic of the world. These little brown things, that we spit out with a "p-tooey" of annoyance, have the possibility to become trees which will produce more apples for us to eat and more seeds for more trees with branches to climb and leaves to collect! And what more beautiful sorting and storage container than a recycled egg carton? Look how much the earth has provided us with and how it continues to provide!

So, this afternoon, I went to the fruit shop and, using my little and bad Czech, got a few peppers. I cut them open and again felt joy in seeing the magic of nature. All of those seeds, which usually stick to my knife and drive me crazy while I cook, were the start of this summer's vegetable garden. Unlike my father, I carefully kept and sorted them.



I cannot wait to plant them this spring and to enjoy my own pepper harvest this August. Working with children is like observing the evolution of humanity. They make new discoveries every day which our species took thousands of years to come to. So far, my children have been living in the hunter-gatherer stage of human evolution. Agricultural revolution, here we come!

Teaching: "Real Work" with My Little Eskimos

When I started to read, in earnest, Kindergarten Education, I felt suddenly back in touch with my Waldorf roots. Between this book and Hartsbrook's video, I feel like I'm back on track. I am remembering all the little things that are important to the way that I teach. One of them is creating a world of fantasy. This is not just done through free-play, but also by creating an atmosphere. I want there to be so many things in our school to facilitate this like play silks and play stands, but I need to figure out a way to do this with what we have.

And this winter, what we have is snow.

I put aside my desire for fairies and gnomes and settled upon Eskimos. Ruzenka had been singing a Czech song with them about Eskimos. While I understand that it's not politically correct to be using Eskimos in this way, it's a starting point for further fantasies. I can't help but think of Eskimos, either, as we try to perform triage while getting them ready to go outside and come inside. We put on stockings, fleeces, snowsuits, boots, scarves, hats, mittens, and whatever else their parents might send them with. The end result is some combination of "I can't put my arms down," Eskimos, and astronauts. Christmas is long behind us now and spring still feels quite far off, so we are celebrating winter as Eskimos. We just got an igloo-shaped tent for the classroom and I have taken to calling the children "my little Eskimos." Children love to be called something other than children. It encourages their fantasy, helps them feel like they are part of a group, and is simply fun.

One of the aspects of Waldorf education that has returned to my mind is "real work." As a teacher, my job is to model for children. I shouldn't be telling them all day what to do, but I should do it myself and if they want to join in, so much the better. It's difficult, at first, because traditional education has made it feel unnatural to let children behave naturally. But, I'm getting the hang of it again. While we are outside, I don't believe in constantly telling them what games to play or giving them tasks. Instead, I start doing something, and they can join in or not. I keep following the idea that children do not need constant vigilance. Watching them will only make them anxious and prevents them from coming up with their own ideas for play. So, I work myself and keep watch out of the corner of my eye.

Our igloo has been my "real work" success story. Yesterday morning, the snow was too hard to pack. We couldn't make snowmen or forts. Instead, I started digging a kind of reverse moat to make a wall. When they asked me what I was doing, I said I was making an igloo. They observed. In the afternoon, the snow was so hard that it was breaking into chunks. Perfect! We now had bricks of snow to build our igloo! I started breaking up the pieces and stacking them on the wall. Quickly, the children joined in. When it came time to leave, I completely forgot myself. I was so into my work and so were the children. We are making a structure that they can play in. They have a stake in their work. It's clear and simple.

This morning, they didn't want to come inside at first--they just wanted to work on the igloo. They chipped away at the hard snow, made bricks, and packed them together. During regular outside play time, they weren't so interested in helping, but that was fine, I continued to work myself. Occasionally, they helped. Most importantly, we had a new girl today who reveled in this work. She had not done anything else at school--she wanted nothing more than to go home to Grandma. But when she had work to do, she was completely content. So, above is a photo of the igloo so far. I'm hoping to find a hose or a spray bottle so that we can give it a nice coat of ice.



I thought back to other projects we've done in school. These suet bird feeders certainly count as real work. They served a practical purpose and the children can enjoy them. We spent 20 minutes one day watching a black bird try to eat off of one without landing on it.

During nap time, I read more of Kindergarten Education and remembered the things I did at Cricket that were real work. We all milled apple sauce together, we set the table, we washed the dishes. This afternoon, I decided to test the waters of real work indoors. While the children were having free play, I set out some aprons, a few towels, a bowl of soapy water, and a bowl of clean water. I collected the play dishes which did actually need some cleaning after many months of sticky fingers and runny noses. I dipped the cups in the soapy water and scrubbed with my hands, rinsed them in the clean water, and laid them on the towel. One new boy who has been difficult to entertain and distract watched me, enthralled. I offered him an apron and showed him what I was doing. He washed all of the dishes himself and then looked for more things to wash. This work had purpose. This work was sensory. The water was just the right temperature. You could smell the soap. I made sure to use a fuzzy towel.

I am working to remember the importance of all these things. Work and magic, work and magic, work and magic. Slowly, I'm becoming the teacher I want to be.

Teaching: Searching for the Old Magic

When everything is starting to fall into place in my life (visa, insurance, flat, etc.) and my weekends aren't a blur (Happy Sober January!), I find that I have so much time and energy to focus on becoming a better teacher. I spent a lot of my Christmas vacation and the time afterward working on a curriculum for the year. I outlined monthly themes, holidays, activities related to themes and holiday, songs, and stories. The appendix for songs alone is 26 pages long. But when I got back to school at the beginning of January, I saw Ruzenka's new curriculum book. It explained every Czech holiday of the year including the origins, traditions, songs, stories, and games. I would be hard pressed to remember a time that I felt so jealous. Why couldn't I have this for Anglo-American holidays? It put my macaroni-necklace encouraging Scholastic brand "Preschool Almanac" to shame. I looked at the two books I had been using to write my curriculum and thought, Foj! I deserve better, my children deserve better, there must be better!
So, I turned to the internet. I searched World Cat; I searched Amazon. Then, I thought, this is a job for a Steinerian press! I pulled out a book about kindergarten education that I had purchased at the Sunbridge book shop but never used. Hawthorn Press. As it turns out, it's an English company which made ordering books online much easier. I decided upon a book called Fesitvals Together because it includes Buddhist, Christian, Jewish, and Hindu festivals. It seemed appropriate, as I am expected to teach from an American perspective and use our holidays--and is the beauty of America not its being a tossed salad of cultures?

I received it only a few days later and fell in love. I haven't read it cover to cover--but it has recipes, stories, crafts, and songs. I feel so much better about my curriculum having used this as a guide. I started to remember the magic that I used to see in early childhood education. I have been trying to organize the school and toys in a way that reminds me of Hartsbrook, so I looked at my own pictures of when I used to work at Cricket and then I searched the website for more. I found this video:

Hartsbrook Early Childhood Enrollment Video from Klituscope Pictures on Vimeo.

My heart swells to remember working there. I could wish for nothing else in life. When I worked there, I felt the endless possibilities of childhood. I felt the magic all around me. We lived in a world of fairies and gnomes and beauty. I try to keep this in the back of my mind all day at work. Remember the magic.

Christmas At School: Beginning to End

The first holiday in the Christmas season is Saint Borbora's Day, 4 December. As I explained before, on this day, unmarried women cut a branch from a tree and place it in water to see if it will bloom by Christmas. If it does, the woman will be married in the following year. You can see above that my branch bloomed! This means that in 2010, I will marry a Czech. I am not, however, holding my breath.

Next up, the following day, is Sv. Mikuláš Day. This is the day when Sv. Mikuláš (Czech for St. Nicholas) brings an angel and devil into the homes of small children. Those well-behaved children may sing a song and earn a treat from the angel. The little ones deemed too troublesome to continue existence will be taken in a sack down to hell by the devil. Kind of puts our coal tradition to shame. What a way to begin the Christmas season--fear for one's immortal soul!

Then, of course, we have Christmas! This was our Christmas tree at school. It took a long time to string all of those dried fruit rings but it was certainly more enjoyable than stringing popcorn and cranberries (yeah, Mom, you'll never live that down). Our ornaments are made out of gingerbread. It was a very traditional European Christmas tree, though I am told that the Czechs also usually have ornaments made out of straw.


And finally, we come to Three Kings Day, 6 January. This brings our Christmas season to a close. If you think about it, we've been celebrating for over a month straight now it seems, so maybe it's time. A lot of the traditions that were reserved for Three Kings Day have been moved to Christmas Day--like in America. However, Three Kings Day in the Czech Republic is a day when people from various charitable organizations come knock at your door to ask for money. Some of my students brought in change purses and couldn't wait to give a few crowns to the Three Kings when they came knocking! It's good to end the Christmas season with a non-materialistic giving holiday!

Expiration Dates and Extended Mixed Metaphors

I drink a lot of milk. This may come as a surprise to people who knew me as the I'm-allergic-to-soy-so-I-drink-rice-milk girl. But the story behind how I became an omnomnivore is for another time. I have learned that in the Czech Republic, expiration dates are pretty accurate. These are not the whimpy American "sell-by" or, worse yet, "enjoy-by" dates. They are expiration dates. They are, "Don't even bother opening the cap!" dates. When I get milk, I always drink a lot of it the first two days and then realize that I am running out and I don't want to go buy more, so I drink it sparingly, then all of a sudden the expiration date is looming and I know that at midnight my milk will turn into a pumpkin.

Last week, nothing seemed to go right. It was probably some time around 00:01 on 1 November that things started to go south, so I was resigned to considering November a bust. But this morning, I woke up and decided, "Dnes je nový týden. Bude to dobré." Today is a new week. It will be good. And it's all about attitude. I went to school, determined to have a good day, and I did! My boss casually brought up what a good job I am doing, which was good because it had been a nagging anxiety in the back of my mind for a week or two now--since I realized that I am here on a three-month trial period and I didn't actually know if my boss even liked me. But now I know that she thinks I am doing a great job and that the kids really love me. She told me that last week when I wasn't around, Ema was shouting from the bottom of the stairs, "Colleen! Colleen!" and would not accept her as a substitute. I had another parent-child class today and though they make me anxious, this one went really well.

As I was walking home, I was thinking about how this is the first time in my life that what I am doing doesn't have an expiration date. I do not have a planned end to living in the Czech Republic or working at my school. I love them both so much that I am content to think of it as an indefinite situation. But it's the first time when indefinite feels... good. I feel settled. I feel like if this were to be the job I take for the rest of my life, I would be happy. I would probably move to Prague and commute out to Kolín for school, but other than that, I wouldn't change a thing. My life has always gone from one definite ending date to another: elementary school, junior high, high school, college, NYSP, Korea, (okay there was that period of unemployment that seemed interminable but that's another story), camp... all of these things, I knew, would end in the near future. It's nice to not be searching for jobs while working one.

But while I bounced along the path home, on autopilot with dance music playing in my ears, I tried to silence the little voice in my back of my mind that keeps saying, "Visa visa visa!" When I got home, though, I had a message from a Czech friend saying that she spoke to a lawyer for me and they will help me. Everything will be okay! How could I ever leave a country where I've met such amazing people? All of the friends I've made, all of the people I work with, everyone tries so hard to make me feel welcome and happy in this country. And boy howdy do I ever!

All the Lies They Told Along the Way

Sometime in my childhood, it was decided that I cannot draw or paint. It was also decided that my handwriting was atrocious. Thus, I hated drawing, painting, or turning in written work. I would never do it unless absolutely necessary. But in the past few years, I've discovered that, as it turns out, I actually like to do these things, as long as no one is judging me. In my non-language classes in college, I was wont to fill entire pages with doodles of little things that make me happy like starfish and hot air balloons. Yet, when my boss' husband asked me in my first few days at school if I drew, my answer was a definitive, "No." The next day, he found me in one of our miniature chairs at our short table drawing elaborately bizarre sketches for stationary. My boss, later on, requested that I paint a dinosaur on the wall of our science corner. While I recognize that it is a caricature of a dinosaur, it's still distinctly dinosaur-y. His name is Steve.

Steve looked lonely, so I painted little Tommy here.


And then I went for the tree. Granted, my branching patterns leave a lot to be desired and my owl might also be a penguin, you can at least tell what I'm going for. And does it matter that my silly paintings aren't perfect? Does it matter that I cannot for the life of me make a face, human or otherwise? If I love painting and drawing, why do I let memories from early childhood still haunt me, still tell me that I shouldn't?

I know it couldn't have been my mother who discouraged my (in)artistic abilities. So, I have to assume it was a teacher in school. It could have been either my second or third grade teacher, both of whom treated my poor handwriting as a sign of my willful disregard for their eyes rather than a sign of delayed development of fine motor skills. Why was I made to feel so guilty for my poor handwriting and my unclear illustrations?

I try to keep these questions and memories in mind as I shape the futures of my own students. It's easy for a teacher to say they encourage every child, but somewhere along the way, children become seriously discouraged. Whatever is going on in my life outside of school, once I enter that door, those kids are the only thing that matter.

When You...

A short post to remind myself that when you have friends like this...

And adventures like this...

And this...

And live in a town like this...

And this...

And when you spend your days as a human jungle gym, when your boss' husband calls to make sure that the DVD he sent you works so that he can give you more, when your co-worker invites you to climb hills on the weekends, when you get regular e-mails from your best friends, when you can get fried dough from a stand right outside your apartment, when your commute involves crossing a river and walking through a park, when you are praised for every word you learn, when you spend your Tuesday carving sugar beets like pumpkins, when you are surrounded by so much joy...

Even if you can't see Where the Wild Things Are for a few more weeks...

All is love.

By Day/By Night

My life by day: mild mannered preschool teacher, prone to saying "goodness gracious!"

By night: after the mosh pit at a concert not fit to be written about here in any way.

This weekend, I went to Prague to visit my friend Nicole. It's amazing to have someone I have known for seven years so close by. She's one $4/45 minute train ride away, which is significantly closer than she was when we were both on Long Island many years ago. We went dancing on Friday night, got one expensive sushi lunch on Saturday afternoon, then spent Saturday night at a show. It's good to know that I don't have to do all the touristy Prague things in one go. Nevertheless, I wish I had taken a few more pictures. I kept thinking all weekend about normalization. How quickly does anything in your life become normal? In Korea, the garlic truck that woke me up every morning with it's dulcet cry through a loud speaker of what I can only assume was "garlic, garlic, get'cher garlic here!" became a party of my daily ritual in a matter of days. Here, it's things like crossing a river and following a winding path through a park as being part of my morning commute. In Prague, it was running to catch street cars. If you do things regularly, you stop thinking about them. I am determined to keep at least a slightly objective eye for these kinds of things, though I know I won't be able to keep the same level of novelty and amusement.

School started on Monday with three children--two girls (the Czech teacher's daughters) and one boy. This is important to note because the boy is not only really the only male in the school, he's also such an outsider because we're all so involved in the creation of the school. I feel bad for the little one but we are doing a good job of including him. Hopefully, we will get more and more children soon. As far as teaching goes, I'm still hesitant because they know so little English and are prone to running away when I speak. I think that as I get more confident and they become adjusted to me, it might be like an average preschool teaching job. I got sent home by my boss yesterday for having a cold and woke up today still running a fever, so I've missed two days in the first week! But again, the school is still a work in progress so it's better to be sick now than later.



I'm learning to balance the two major extremes of my personality and this version of "Daisy Bell" pretty accurately represents it. I want to sing nursery rhymes but also continue to feel comfortable in a mosh pit. But I did learn one thing this weekend, when someone you're dancing with asks you what you do and you reply, "I teach preschool" the reaction of shock and amusement is pretty much universal.

Chapter Thirty-Nine: Last Day of Elementary

Tuesday was also my last day teaching the elementary after-school program. Here, they are working on the review sheets for their December exam. There's a lot of table-cam coming, beware!
Above, either Jeff or Chris, I'm not really sure which after my boss switched them between classes, works hard while behind him Rain takes a break.

Jenny and Ben

Rain is kind of hilarious. He's not a particularly good or committed student, but we all love him for some reason.

Sean and Alissa. We think that they will one day get married. They're pretty amazing students and kind of hilarious. Usually, Alissa's creative writing assignments involve her kicking the ass of a vampire.

Roy, Jeff-or-Chris, and Ivy

This is Earth class. They tested my patience like no other class ever but I will still miss them. It was not as hard to say goodbye to elementary as to leave kindergarten but I do adore the kids!