Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-CHAnges

Hello beloved friends and family! Hope you are all healthy and happy. A lot has changed and developed since we last cyber-spoke, so I thought it might be a good idea to fill you in :) but where to start!

Student teaching just keeps getting better and better! My mentor teacher is extremely encouraging and challenging; he and I are able to be so transparent about our life philosophies and how we feel the classroom environment is shifting with my "monopoly of power" (muahaha! Okay, I'm done) so our conversations are always fruitful! I've been able to play with different classroom management techniques and informal assessments which has been nice. Myself and other student teachers feel as though no amount of classes or theory could prepare you for having 30 students staring at you, waiting for guidance. Mr. Gamon calls them "piranha-raptors", but I've learned how to fight them off when they start nibbling at my wrists. Each week has been massively growing and Mr. Gamon is pleased with my growth (as am I). Only have had one death while I'm in charge too! Rest in Peace, Reginald the goldfish... he dedicated his life to science so that students could see the blood stream in his tail under the microscope. But alas, he only made it through 4th period. Brave fish-soul.

So yeah, its been great! The principal has apparently been talking about me to others after I spoke up at the last staff meeting about reflective student voice strategies in the classroom (not by choice... thanks for the shout-out, Mr. Gamon) and Mr. Gamon has asked that I do a formal write-up of one of my lesson plans to be submitted for publication in a educational journal. Don't know if it'll actually happen, but I do as my mentor teacher says! After all, he writes the final recommendation :)

As far as Whitworth goes, I dunno how it goes. I know that I'm writing to several teachers who have been in this exact same position, so I feel supported in saying that most college ties are cut during student teaching. No this doesn't always include friendships, but I have no clue what's going on on campus! However, I do know that the School of Education is frantically preparing for the National Accreditation Board to come and give its seal of approval to our department. Many dinners, Q&A sessions and posters have been made to shed a bright, shiny light on Whitworth's teachers-t0-be and professors. As part of that, students are asked to participate in honest discussions about the program and some students are asked to represent the department. I just so happened to be one of those people. Tonight I will be representing the undergraduate teaching cohort (eep!) at the big dinner hosted by my professors. Should be interesting! But hey, it's a free dinner so I really couldn't say no...

Also at Whitworth comes my life-giving, refreshing Women's Choir. Music truly is my outlet, especially with everything going on right now. Presidential duties have ramped up a bit (good timing on my part), but I'm loving every second and our concert should be incredible this year. One song we're singing, called Mary Speaks, truly touches my heart. It's a song describing a conversation between Mary and Jesus as she holds him after the Crucifixion. She describes the experiences and memories she holds with her son, the Son of God, and how although He died for her she now holds Him in her arms. It turns into a beautiful description of our real relationship with Christ as well as how His death completed His work. If you can find it on YouTube (not pushing it, its just beautiful is all!) the DHS performance is quite good :) anyway, our concert is in May and I'm working to get the end-of-the-year dinner planned and concert underway (both of which are different for the first time in years, so welcome the starting-from-scratch mentality!) as well as getting sweatshirts out to women. Yup. That's about it.

I know many of you must be curious about what happened to my friend Sarah and her family. I was there every day after student teaching for about two weeks and even slept over one night so Salwa, the mom, could go home but those visits have stopped. I can't say too much other than I witnessed something concerning while at the hospital and had no choice but to tell the nurses. They made a CPS referral because of it and the proper authorities are investigating, but needless to say I am no longer welcome within that family. It has been truly painful; I've built strong relationships with them for three years and to completely end that relationship hurts. Especially with Sarah; she doesn't understand what is going on and blames me, regardless of how many times I tell her it is because I love and care for her. So I've been fielding calls from CPS and the hospital, not to mention hearing the anger of the family and avoiding their contact when I was still making visits. The stress truly got to me, but I've learned to leave it at the door when I come to school and make each day "the most important day of my life". Steph has been talking to CPS about related instances but her anonymity wasn't betrayed so she is still able to visit them. She assures me that Sarah is recovering well and last I heard she went home yesterday. Her skin graft was successful and her healing (although not easy) can be done from home. It's strange to think the last three years could have been preparation for me to advocate for these kids' safety. I guess His plan is bigger than I can imagine; I was obviously a witness for a reason, I just have to keep reminding myself sometimes. If you could continue sending prayers her way towards healing, it would mean the world to me. I hope there's a day when we can contact each other and I can hold her and explain to her my heart behind it all. If not, it will suffice to know that I tried to fight for them because I love them. It's not in my hands and it is so much bigger than me. I lay it at His feet; unless called again, my work is done.

In other news, life is a beautiful and growing mystery. Relationships have continued to surprise me. You can imagine that some friendships, as they would have anyway at the end of senior year, have shifted quite a bit. I've learned what selfless friendship looks like and have built some incredible relationships with fellow teachers-in-the-making that I know will be lifelong. My housemates are confused as to their futures which has caused them to take a different path than I have chosen. This is fine, but has shown me what I really had invested in these friendships and whether they were worth maintaining. And of course, Richard has been the most incredible support and friend. He is always looking for ways to help me unwind from a long week and relax, to laugh and play again. I am so grateful for the people in my life :D

Well, next weekend he and I are travelling back to good 'ole Gig Harbor to spend the weekend with my parents. It's my Spring Break (kinda... Whitworth's break and the Mead school district's break are off by two weeks so I still have choir but no student teaching.... awesome) so I'll be hanging out with the parents for a few days until I need to go back to my singing life. Also, it'll be full of certification assignments (good thing my professors don't read this... my TPA hasn't been touched since the first meeting. Good thing it's due the week after break! :/ ) and job searching along with lesson planning and other preparations. Still, sleeping in and wearing my footie pajamas for the majority of the day will do wonders for my soul!

I think I got it all out... I love you all so much and am thinking of you constantly, let me know how best to support you from here and I hope to see you guys soon.

Peace and love,

Chels

P.S. I graduate in less than two months... trippy.

Nada Te Turbe

Hola! Hope all is well, another quick check-in to fill you in on the last week. I survived my first week of student teaching as the lead teacher! YAY! That basically means that, starting this past Monday, I was the primary in charge of planning, teaching, disciplining, and other the other goodies involved with teaching (minus taking attendance... Mr. Gamon helps me out with that one :) ). We still team teach, meaning that he takes parts of the lesson throughout the day, but I'm the primary decision-maker as to where the lessons/unit heads and how instruction is given. My biggest challenge with that this week, as you can imagine, was classroom management. I stumbled a few times and, as much as I would love the escape from it and Mr. Gamon offered it to me, I stayed on the horse and kept trying. By the end of the week, I had a much better grasp of it and my students are beginning to recognize me as an authority in the classroom. It's one of the scariest parts of teaching for me, so to be growing so much and shaping my discipline philosophy helps make me feel like these next seven weeks will fly by and I will be proud of the progression of my students. All is good on that front :)

He wasn't kidding though, he said that I would be exhausted by the end of my first week. And he was absolutely right. Only part of that was due to my classroom. Outside of the classroom, however, has been both heartbreaking and stressful. You all have heard me mention my Sudanese friends the Zakis, yes? Well the 11-year-old Sarah, whom I've grown very close to especially over the summer, has been hospitalized for the past week and will continue to be so possibly for another three weeks. She has severe third-degree burns on her left underarm and back. Not only has it been extremely painful for her (she waited three days before telling even her parents that it had happened) but there is also a lot of confusion and mistrust behind it. CPS and the police have been involved; there aren't many self-inflicted, accidental oil burns that harm a person's armpit and upper back, especially by the way she explains it. We've always had trust issues with her father, but through our investigations we've discovered that he beats the kids. Steph and I feel betrayed and compelled to advocate for these kids, but we also don't want them in the system and it's a hard line to draw as to what is cultural and what is universal. Anyway, the way in which it occurred is an understood lie and we think we have an idea of what happened thanks to the 6-year-old, but CPS has considered it a closed case due to budget cuts and I'm trying to find my role as a support. Needless to say, our relationship with the family will never be the same, especially the father. Her parents see this as more of an inconvenience than anything so I've been going every day to the hospital after school to sit and talk with her. Thankfully, she's had an immense number of visitors so she's been preoccupied. I usually come in the evening after I'm done with school and other meetings and visitors have slowed; makes it easy for me to talk to her, braid lanyards and sing her to sleep when she's ready.

I stayed at the hospital with her last night so her mom could go home and care for her house (also have a good night's sleep in her bed), but it was a rough night; she's been having anxiety attacks and the itching/pain is driving her crazy. So I think I'm going to go take a nap. I would deeply appreciate your prayers and good juju vibes for her; it would mean the world to me. Anyway, didn't mean to be a Debby Downer. Hope you're all well, I love each and every one of you, and (side note) two months from now will be my last day of school. Oh holy crud!

Peace and love,
Chels

Plugging Along

Hello! This is a really quick note to validate my existence and say hi. It's been a crazy last few weeks, I've completely lost all balance in my life... it's ridiculous what the university is having us do, and only to be made better by our accredidation institution coming in in a few weeks. "Pile it on, they'll look more intelligent and prepared that way!" Oh well, one bite at a time. I just finished Block classes with my crazy professor Margo and am excited to get back into the schools full time. I was going slightly insane there; well, not slightly, completely. Anyway, gotta get back to work and try and hammer some stuff out before I leave tomorrow for Payton's first birthday! YAY! So stoked :) will sadly be bringing work with me but the change of scenary will be much appreciated, especially with the foot or more of snow that was dumped on us out of nowhere the other night. Okay, off I go. Love you all, you're in my thoughts.

Peace and love,
Chels

*Bang* Starts the Race

Why howdy there! How y'all doin'? Okay, I'm done being a yokel... hope you're all wonderful and happy! Life in Spokane is pretty phenomenal as well; overwhelming, but great :)

I had no idea student teaching would be like this. NO idea. The past two days they've basically just been sitting us down telling us preCISEly how we are going to die in the next few weeks. They keep prefacing it with, "this is why Whitworth grads are so sought after!", to which I respond, "yeah, if you can find them in the dark room they're still hiding in". But that's okay! I just keep telling myself, "the past 17 years of my education have worked up to this moment right here, there's nothing more idiotic than giving up now." I guess I'll fight for it.

You're probably asking yourself what they're making us all do. To be completely honest, I don't know. I can't list it out, it's too overwhelming and my mind won't let me wrap around it. Oh well, we'll let Future Chelsea worry about it. One step at a time...

This past week, I spent Monday and Tuesday in my classroom and started my Whitworth Block schedule on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Basically we're in the schools for a little while and then they pull us out for the last few days of the next three weeks and sit us down in seminars for 7 hours. I've been learning quite a bit about classroom management, assessment and etc. through it, but I'd rather be in my class with my kiddos :) Mr. Gamon's not very happy about it either. We mesh so well, we've already kind of become a team. But it's what has to happen! I've been trying to plug away at assignments and big certification junk, but have found that I can't stay up past 10pm. And I still haven't learned that homework can't always be done at night (thanks to my unstoppable coma) and that I should probably take care of the important stuff before catching up with friends. It's been so wonderful seeing everyone after my trip though; have really been trying to invest in the quality relationships I've built over the last few months and years.

We started the pilot for the TPA (I call it the Toilet Paper Association... really means Teacher Pedagogy Assessment)... can't remember if I told you, but I'm helping Whitworth pilot a new certification assessment that'll be used by everyone in the state next year. Myself and two other education nerds decided to head it up (I was actually volunteered by a professor... can't figure out if that professor did it because she likes me or because she hates me. I'm thinking the latter). Sadly, we've already lost one to stress, so it's just me and the other secondary science person in the program! It'll be a lot of work and a lot of collaboration with the School of Education's professors, but it's said to be a good preparation for becoming Nationally Board Certified. So good juju vibes about that would be much appreciated :)

Everything is awesome though! Sorry, don't mean this to be a doomsday blog... I've truly never been happier :) been working hard, sleeping hard, waking up to work harder, and so on. Oh, and don't forget the amazing food here in the states. I've been spending my free time (aka time I force myself to stop and breathe) looking at pictures and videos from Kazakhstan. I miss it so much, it's nuts. I think it's finally hit me that I'm not there and, even if I go back, it'll never be the same experience or situation again. But I've loved reliving it through the memories and pictures... that and all the friends I'm reconnecting with want to hear the stories so I'm in heaven!

So yes, everything's plugging along. Next weekend Richard and I will be heading over to Gig Harbor to celebrate PAYTON'S FIRST BIRTHDAY WOOT! with the family :) and the weekend after that, I guess I'll be flying down to Oregon to party on the REAL birthday. I'm excited :) and then, when I get back, my unit will be due and I'll be expected to teach it full time at Northwood. Eek. So incredibly happy though :)

Anyway, I love you all and can't wait to see you soon. Prayers going out to you all for health and happiness.

Peace and love,
Chels

Back to Reality

So I'm sure you all figured, but I made it home safe and sound from Kazakhstan after a quick 20 hours of travel :) I'm still slightly jetlagged but have been attempting to kick it prematurely... the reason I'm doing so is also the reason why it's not happening. I started student teaching this past Monday; it's already quite the trip! I'm so thankful for all my experiences in Kazakhstan, I feel as though it was the perfect preparation for this journey. I'm already in love with and building rapport with my students which is a huge blessing, and my relationship with my mentor teacher Dave is growing every day. I honestly couldn't be happier :) between school, three hour seminars most days afterward, choir taking up some time, jetlag and a massive portfolio (don't even get me started about how ridiculous it is... basically had less than a week to do it and it turned out being over 50 pages) I've had quite the week. I've never been so happy though. I know every step towards my goal of having my own classroom will be completely worth it! In the future lies more seminars and junk, job-searching and applications (CRAZY) and making plans for when I graduate college and have to grow up. Should be fun. I'll keep you posted :)

Hope you're all well! I missed being close to y'all, hope I can see you guys soon.

Peace and love,

Chels

P.S. I can't post this to Facebook because I want to be a good guardian of my students, but I trust you all and want to share this with you... the picture below is of me with my classroom of 7 year olds :) can't begin to tell you how much I miss them.

Day 23: Goodbye, No Problem, It's a Wonderful Life, Barack Obama

Well, this is it. My journal "swan song". I can't believe its over... we fly out tomorrow morning and it could not have come any faster. I really feel ready to go and as though I have no regrets; it feels like I've accomplished what I'd hoped to and kind of as though I've taken from this particular experience about as much as I could have given the time frame. But, at the same time, I don't want to leave my kids or the relationships I've built or the exhiliration of exploring another culture. We all have to say dasvidanye at some point though.

Today was a fairly usual morning; as always, I circulated the room constantly to work one-on-one with students. When the kids found out it was my last day, many of them were curious as to where I was going and were asking why I wouldn't stay. The beautiful thing about my age group is I still got to have a little attachment to them; I feel like the older age groups are mature enough and saavy enough about the nature of international education (changing schools each year and meeting all sorts of people temporarily kind of allows kids and people in general to disconnect or easily move on from relationships) and aren't as outwardly impacted by the loss of contact with someone. The youngin's, however, still want you there forever. I'd only been there a little over two weeks, and they were all begging me to come back and not to go! My mentor teacher took a picture of me with all my kids and printed it out immediately, gluing it to purple backing and allowing the students to sign the back of it. It is probably my most prized possession I will be bringing back from here, without a doubt.

Saying goodbye to all the staff was hard too. They have been so wonderful in accepting us and "showing us the ropes" around Astana. Its incredible how adaptive and cest le vie the teachers are; its probably their semi-nomadic lifestyle :) but saying adios to them hurt about as much as saying goodbye to the kids. Their kindness and welcome will not be forgotten and I intend to pay it forward with newcomers and the like.

After classes, we moved all of our things to Tim's apartment and traveled one last time to Baiterek Tower and then continued to walk for 3 miles (it was cold, but we didn't realize it was -30F cold...) to Akorda (the White House, so to speak... President Nazarbayev's house) and then through the "oil arch" as I call it towards Chan Shatyr. Needless to say, we felt as though we got a good last impression of Kazakhstan and look forward to seeing how it will grow. Then it was time for dinner, ice slides and ice skating (for Keri) at the Ice City and then finishing up the "pack up your life" process. Now it's a little after midnight my time and I'm exhausted, but can't decide if I should try and tough it out by staying up the three hours until we leave for the airport... hmm, decisions, decisions...

I will let you know when we land safe and sound in Seattle. Thanks for coming along for the journey, see you back in Spokane soon :) hopefully with a complete portfolio!

Chels

Day 22: Lady Models

Why hello Suzie! I can't believe it's already here... we're supposed to leave now?! Just when we're feeling comfortable and accepted? So is life, I guess. I'm so unbelievably thankful for this whole experience, I've never felt so culturally aware or explorative. I'm in love with this place and its people, even with all its quirks :) Anyway, off to the races!

Today was a great 'ole QSI day. All was normal except we went to School 17 to see a Kazakh public school. It was very different than expected in more ways than one. We thought we were coming in to see a few lessons, tour the school and ask questions of the staff. Nope! We sat in and participated in an English lesson and then were led to a conference room where the high school students asked questions of us. It was kind of funny though, most of the questions were aimed towards, "I want to go to an American university, how do I get in?" or the one question we received, "What do you think of Barack Obama?" This question made the staff very uncomfortable and they reassured us that we did not need to answer the question. We were in no way offended and would have responded if asked again, but the culture here in regards to leaders is very different. Nasarbayev, Kazakhstan's president, is much beloved and considered to be the end-all-be-all for many. He is a poet, song writer, peace keeper, everything! And it is illegal in Kazakhstan to besmirch the name of the president or his family, punishable by jail, regardless of diplomat status or the like. I think the thought of insulting a president in public was too uncomfortable for them... very interesting.

A cool parallel I saw today though was found in a student's question: "I will probably be going to America in the summer, where should I go to see American culture?" I began to think about it and thought, "hmmm... what kind of America do you want to see?!" I started thinking about how many different cultures America sports; there's Texas with its stereotypical cowboy culture (not always correct), Boston culture, NYC Big Apple Culture, Maine lobster fisherman culture, deep South culture, California culture, Pacific Northwest culture... I began to think, "pigeon-holing a country to fit a single culture simply doesn't work! Just like America is diverse, every country is diverse. To assume each country follows a culture we see glorified in cinema or embodied in one acquaintance is unfair to their culture." I answered her question by saying that the cultures in America are as different as the cultures in Astana and Almaty. The students all nodded their head in agreement, so there's always a cultural universal understanding that one's home country is diverse in its own right; it takes traveling to other cultures to see that others follow the same rules.

In the English class, the students read poetry (memorized by some... in English!) and discussed how poetry affects their lives. They then asked our opinion and such, it was good :) after that we left and Keri and I wandered around Astana (a favorite pastime) taking pictures and playing in an Ice City close to our house. IT WAS AWESOME. I was particularly fond of the dragon-themed ice slide... anyway, went home and actually had a good, stress-free dinner with our host family ('bout time! And good thing, too, it's our last one...) and got all packed to leave. Tomorrow we'll be moving back with Tim so we don't have to wake everyone when he picks us up to go to the airport. One less stop, and Keri and I can't say we weren't glad to escape our host family early!

I still am in shock, we leave day after tomorrow. My kids were asking me to stay when they thought I was just going to the public school for the afternoon, I don't think they know tomorrow's my last day.... I don't wanna say goodbye to them, they make me want to stay forever. If you met them, you'd see why. But the thought of my future students in Dave's class make the switch worthwhile :)

Okay, final day! I apologize in advance if there are tear drops on my email (not possible, but you get the idea). Dasvidanye!

Chels