Teaching Brings Joy To My Heat

I never know how much teaching could bring me joy,But it sure does. I wish I had a picture of my class to show you but… instead maybe I can give you a visual.

 I have a class of 20 students on a good day and about 13 on a slow day. My class is a garage that was once turned into a classroom. I have 2 long rows of desks.

My first row is always filled with all of my Somalian girls. They are all beautiful young teenaged ladies and they are always so colorful with their scarves and long dresses.

My second row always has my 2 Somalian teenaged boys in the back right corner who always get their work done fast in hopes that I will give them a break so that they can go play football (soccer) for five minutes. Which, I have found out that if I talk about football at any point of my class, they pay attention 100%.  

Then the rest of the back row is filled with the one Somalian girls who just sits in class with a smile because her English is very bad. I just mastered the Alphabet with her. Yet, on the good days, the back row is also filled with my Eritrean, Congolese, Rwandan, and Sudanese students.

Recently I have had two older Eritrean male students sit in the back of my class. They are my best students. When I ask the class to write a few sentences on a topic, most students will give me 2 or 3 sentences, but those two always give me at least a page.

My favorite part of my class is when I correct their work. Every single student is excited to hand me his or her work to check. As I check their work, they all sit there eagerly. Often times I have to ask them what they meant to write since it is so off base. But recently, they have had very little mistakes. Sure, there is a misspelled word here and there, but for the most part it all makes sense.

But my favorite parts are the smiles that I get when I tell them good job, or the hands that go up when I ask if someone wants to read something aloud, or simply the fact that I have to dismiss them two or three times before them leave because they want to stay and learn more.

Teaching has definitely been a blessing. I love It !