My students this year on our final fir

The last day of school was today. It was an adventure from start to finish, from the forced labor workers / fifth graders that I press ganged into wall washing and desk cleaning service to the birthday party, to the paperwork and the graduation ... it's been on exhausting day. But now I'm sitting home alone feeling nostalgic but content and I felt I needed did to share with all of you what has encouraged me most about this week.

Last day of school

See, I was all set to be really sad this week. I was saying goodbye to my kids for Pete's sake! What if they fell in middle school? What if I did not prepare them well enough? And what if (heaven forbid) They moved ON from me and did not need to come give me hugs every day next year? How on Earth Could I keep on living?

And while we're on that topic...my roommate is LEAVING me in just a few short weeks!  I should be wallowing in self pity at the horrible atrocity of having to relinquish my dear friend to a country far away so that she can (oh the humanity) be with her husband after being apart for so long!

I should pout! 

I should despair!

The world as I know it has ceased!

HYPERBOLE IS CALLED FOR!!

But then a student of mine's mother came up to me yesterday with a gift and a card.  And in the card was a written quote. And I was so blessed by that little quote Because it came to me just when I needed it most. It Said this:  

"True teachers are Those Who Use Themselves as bridges over Which They invite Their students to cross; then, having Facilitated Their crossing, joyfully collapse, Encouraging them to create Their 

own. "

And that's when I breathed a deep sigh of relief.  All my fears and anxieties melted away.  Because I knew that it was right.  We are all teachers, and we are all students.  We are teachers in the classroom, to our own children, to our friends, and to our peers.  And we are students who are learning from teachers, parents, friends, and loved ones.  And we can all be blessed by this thought and the knowledge that the final, hardest step of teaching and learning is letting go and taking the next step.

So to both the bridge builders today, and the students, be blessed and confident.

To the bridge builders - those who have poured parts of themselves into the life of someone else in this season.  The time has come for us to collapse our support to allow our charges to learn to build on their own.  It doesn't mean that we have stopped caring, it means that we care with maturity and true compassion.  It means that we are standing just out of sight breathing out encouragement with each heartbeat, but it also means that it is time for us to step back and allow our children and friends and loved ones to stand with Christ and know that they can succeed.

And to those of us whose time with a great teacher or mentor has come to an end, take heart.  We have been blessed and taught well, we have been scaffolded and supported (and sometimes dragged) each step of the way, and now we are ready to take the next step on our own, to learn new lessons and forge new paths and to build our own strong bridges to show others the way.  Our loved ones are always standing by, watching for us at a distance, and even if our first stumbling attempts fail we will continue and grow through it.

So goodbye to my students of this year.  I have loved you through every triumph and adventure and lesson that we have learned together (yes even those hard times in the hallway when I had to speak the truth to you or the day that the entire chorus decided to go ice skating instead of coming to practice) and I am so proud of all that God has taught you this year.  But I'm ready to step back now and let you go forward.  I know that you will do great things through CHRIST who strengthens you. And thank you to my bridges in all the seasons of my life - including this year.  To those who have poured into my life and who have taught me the lessons that I'm ready to keep practicing myself.  You have shaped me and molded me and poured into me and taught me the love of Christ, and now I'm building new bridges of my own to show others the way.  You followed your call and I will never be the same because of you. 




Thank you.

Hello May, my old friend...

May My old friend. We meet again. We have a tumultuous relationship you and I. .. we have for the last six years, and I can see that our mutually awkward mix of loathing and adoration will continue in its confusing trend for the Foreseeable Future.  

May.  Otherwise known as the month that turns my normally sweet (ish) and well-behaved (ish) children into wild monkey children. You cruelly tease us with your endless sunshine while we wither away in our classrooms and you force us to take an almost shameful amount of breaks to go run around in circles and "read" outside.  

You're the last long haul before summer vacation Just when everyone is starting to despair that the school year will never end, you pop up to present just enough time of academic value to necessitate lugging our children (who no longer fit in Their desks properly because they've grown approximately 2 feet taller since you blinked) through at least one more grand project, and through that  inevitable final unit.  

It's May that has every teacher panicking about how on earth they will finish the math book, and it's May that has us all coming home and collapsing on the floor in a pathetic pile of papers that we SWEAR we will grade before tomorrow.  

Our bulletin board displays are sagging, our emergency craft supplies are all but depleted, and the little piles of "things we will get to organizing just as soon as we have a spare minute" have overrun the classroom...

And, as a teacher, just When you are about to bang your head against your keyboard a few dozen times...

That split second before you tear your hair out after realizing that Suzy still doesn't know the answer to the question that you have been patiently reviewing since September...

That moment right before you decide that you want summer vacation more than anything you've ever wanted before in your life...

You remember

You remember how much these children have changed your life for the better in a million small ways each and every day for the last nine months...and that they're leaving soon.  

You remember that they will not recall all of the lessons you've taught, the geography of Asia will go out the door, and their math teacher next year may be completely confused regarding what concept they actually REMEMBER from 5th grade...but they'll carry memories about their friendships, the life lessons they learned, and hopefully...how much you loved them, forever.

You'll remember that you've been given this one chance, this calling, this opportunity to impact these lives.  That their parents entrusted to you their greatest treasures for 7 hours a day.  That you have been called to plant seeds, and agonize, and instruct, guide, correct, and pray over each one of these little lives.

You'll remember how much you love each and every one of them (yes even THAT one - and inevitably "that one" will be the one that you remember the longest and the fondest).  That you want the best for them, and that your clock is winding down.

You'll remember that, like every year before....they'll walk away in a few weeks and move on from you and your lessons, just as you'll move on and start preparing your heart for a new batch of lives...but you'll pray for them still and hope that a little piece of them was changed by you.  And that your stewardship was wise, and gracious, and guided by the Holy Spirit.

And you'll smile, and laugh, and still bang your head on your desk ... because that's what May is for a teacher. And it's one of the Reasons did we do what we do.

And we love it :-)

So thank you May for the endless repetitive cycle of panic and nostalgia

Love,

Amy

We performed for the US Ambassador!

Hooray for Spirit Week!

For class choice day during Spirit Week we dressed as "The Community" from the book
"The Giver"...because of course we did...

The models of perfect children

Don't let these faces fool you...it's all an act ;-)

I have spirit too!

The Girls!

The, "very refined" boys! (minus 2)

International Family Fun Night means lots of great food and
cultural dress!

The Commonwealth Room

Norwegian food! (I had no idea how to spell Norwegian)

New Zealand

Learning to weave with a special Iranian teacher
(the girl in the special clothes)

More cultural dress

Elementary Art Show

Vienna Easter Markets (we have east trees here)

Book Month in Vienna

In a fun new break with tradition I thought that I'd try to update you a little bit more consistently than every four months.  Just to try something different out ;-).  So to that end I'd like to submit for your consideration a little reflection on probably my favorite time of year here at ICSV...Book Month!

Barbara, the ICSV librarian/part time wizard, works every year to completely transform the library to reflect the theme of the year's book month.  We all participate in lots of crazy activities and he classroom routines for all of March become somewhat ridiculously messed up, but we love every minute of it because of the love (sometimes even frenzy) for reading that develops out of it.

This year's theme was "Calvin and Hobbes".  The Primary (Kindergarten for you American folks) - 3rd grade students participated in an epic reading race.  Every minute that they spent reading throughout the month propelled Spaceman Spiff father along in his journey through space to locate and save his good friend Hobbes located across the library...er...galaxy.  

My Book costume!  (I'm the Cupboard from "The
Indian in the Cupboard")

Meanwhile the 4th and 5th grade students had been preparing since December for the annual "Battle of the Books".  Split into teams of 4 and 5 students they read through a list of 20 books then compete in a series of epic contests against one another through a championship bracket to be determined the ultimate readers!

Sprinkled throughout the rest of the month are fun activities like "Book Character Costume Contest", "Book Title Charades", and an "All Day Read-In" (which involved me building a blanket tent that took up literally half of my classroom).

All in all it's a great and very fun month that gets all of the kids very excited about reading.  At the end of the month when awards are presented for achievements in the month, it was also really exciting to see kids that are just learning English receiving special prizes for reading hundreds, or even thousands, of minutes throughout the month!

So please enjoy a few pictures from the month and I promise to write again soon with more!

I'm very excited to be meeting King Kong!

Excited chaos on Book Character Day

Minions!

Where is Waldo?

Tikki Tikki Tembo the Primary-3rd grade musical!

Tikki Tikki Tembo performance!

Preparing for the musical :-)

The Library Transformed!

Book Month Cake!

5th Grade celebrating book month with an epic game of Capture the Flag

Ralphie from "The Magic School Bus"

The Paper Bag Princess teaches 4th grade part time!

Me and The Cat in the Hat

What a fun month!

Our Reading Tent!

The winning Battle of the Books team for 2014!

Four Months Later...

A typically terrible but utterly expected picture of my fantastic class :-)

How is it possible did four months can sneak past me without me even noticing? It Seems completely unfathomable! I seem to have blinked and we are about to begin the 4th quarter of the year! A year of ups and downs and projects, new adventures and new challenges, and friends now preparing to leave that I seem to have just said hello to a few weeks ago and in all of the business, excitement, tears and laughter the time has completely gotten away from me.

So apologies to you, my friends, family, supporters, and stalkers (I KNOW you're out there random person who reads my blog in Serbia!) I apologize for not being as communicative as you merit and deserve and I offer this humble post in the vain attempt to catch you up on a few of the happenings here at ICSV and in my life. Clearly there is far to much to publish in great detail within a format any shorter than a novel, so I thought I'd focus on two big highlights of the year for this post and then work on slowly bringing you up to date in the next few blog updates.  Starting with...Guys and Dolls!

 

Highlight of the Fall / Winter? I directed my very first High School Musical! Now those of you who know me well know that I have been involved in musicals for a long time - 15 years this year actually - and the ins and outs of sets, costumes, acting, etc. are not exactly new. But directing a musical at ICSV? What a completely new and interesting challenge!  

We had a cast of about 25 kids involved in Guys and Dolls, and most of the leads were not American, in fact most of them did not speak English as their first language. If you know Guys and Dolls, you know that part of the humor is in the fact that the characters speak in a lot of old 1940's slang, and with nice New York accents. Thus, directing this play involved a LOT of ELL lessons afterwards (English Language) and practicing how to pronounce a good 75% of the words in the play. (Fun fact, it was a couple of months before the cast Understood did craps what Actually a dice game).  

But I have never had more fun on a show and while we did not have an actual stage ... and our backstage is  made ​​by hanging curtains ... and we were not sure we'd be able actually to turn lights on and off until the DAY OF the show ... and there are gigantic pillars in the middle of the room  that obscure half of the stage from view ... the whole process was a blast. I spent many nights exhausted, shed several tears, almost melted down once or twice, and was completely and thoroughly blessed by each and every one of these kids. Being a part of a ministry that can bring kids together from so many different backgrounds, being able to pour into amazing lives, and seeing God at work in all of them in different ways was completely humbling and I can not wait for next year's adventure!  

Another huge part of my year?  My fantastic students.  This year I have 17 students (one left in December though) representing 11 countries between them.  Several are MK's (missionary kids), some are UN kids, some are native Austrians (but culturally Ethiopian or Filipino).  Some are Protestant, some are Catholic, three are Muslim.  Some have lived here their whole life and some are just passing through.  But they're all my kids and I love them dearly.

5th grade field trip

If you receive prayer updates from me you'll already know that one of my students this year is unique due to his health situation.  This Venezuelan student has a rare degenerative genetic condition that creates a lot of challenges for him to overcome.  He's in 5th grade and is much smaller physically than his peers, uses a wheelchair, has limited use of his hands, can barely see due to severe cataracts, and suffers from chronic kidney stones.  My athletic students had to learn to adjust.  And so did I.  I've had to learn as a teacher how to make my strategies and lesson plans adaptable, and how to be inclusive and engaging to someone who doesn't fit into the "box" that is typical.

culture museum

But through all of these challenges I have grown so much and seen so much growth in my entire class (the student included!).  Just last month the student had a serious health scare and needed emergency surgery.  The whole class covered him in prayer, made cards and videos, and some visited him in the hospital.  I saw people in the school stepping up to help his family throughout the situation in ways that humbled me and showed me how just by loving someone and pouring time and support into them we can be a huge blessing.  His family has expressed so much joy and thanks for the community here at ICSV it's humbling.  I don't say that to brag on us, I say simply to broadcast the grace of God and the huge impact that allowing him to work through us can be to others.  I have doubted and worried about whether I could handle the new challenge as a teacher in huge ways.  And it is only through God's grace that I have been able to learn and be flexible.  And because of that I have grown and a family has been blessed.

That is the joy of ministry, being used by God to declare his words and spread his love to others.  Not through our own power, but through his grace and his hand on our lives.  May this work continue to grow in me and in this ministry and may others be blessed through it.  For this any frustration, sadness, challenge, or hardship is worth it.  The glory of God's kingdom :-)

More updates on the year to come!  Thank you so much for your continued support and prayer.  I am so thankful to you all!!
In Christ,

Amy

Camera friends ;-)

2nd Grader looking so cute she had  to be photographed!