Teaching English

Hello blog readers! My name is Erin Carroll and I am a rising senior Early Childhood Education Major at the University of South Carolina. I have been putting off a request to blog for quite awhile now, but I’m running out of excuses…so here I go!

My time in Haiti thus far has been unexplainably amazing, challenging, and eye-opening. There are few words I find fitting to describe the depth of hurt and need in this country, yet there are also few words I find fitting to explain the overwhelming joy and sense of hope in the Lord that the Haitians have. God has provided and continues to provide as we wrap up our final week of service in this precious land. One of the many opportunities that He has provided for us on this trip was the chance to teach English to a first grade class on the compound here. When we first received word of this opportunity, one of our staff members, Stacy Westover, asked me to sit down with her and compile a list of ideas and strategies for teaching in the school. We were only given one day at that time, and the director of the school said she would “see how it went” to talk about further lessons. Talk about nerve racking!

When we came to check in with the head-mistress the next morning she gave us permission to come EVERYDAY from 11:15 – 12:00. Praise the Lord! I must say, that the reason this blog has been so difficult to write is because I have been very unsure of how to put into words what I am experiencing everyday as I teach these students. As I go into my senior year at USC, and my final student teaching semester, I have had countless hours of experience teaching in the public school systems back in America. But none of that experience could prepare me for what I would see and be faced with in this compound.

Here the children attend school under a large tent. There are many grade levels under the same tent, divided only by free standing chalk boards and a mere two feet of space. There is no air conditioning, no desks, little to no materials to work with, and certainly no fancy technological manipulative to enhance learning like we are use to in America. At first I thought, “How on earth are we going to have any effective learning experiences with these children?!” but He, as He always does, provided. As we went in on the first day, preparing lessons with measly large pieces of paper and children’s markers, it only took a few short minutes to realize that although this school was so very different from anything I had ever seen, it was still so dynamic.

With 45+ smiling first graders starring back at you, teaching anything in any setting would be challenging, but as soon as I put material on the blackboard the children were busy – taking notes on their writing tablets, with unsharpened pencils. When I looked up I first didn’t know what they were even doing, they were acting like college kids in a lecture hall! (Not sure if this would ever happen in my first grade class back home!) These children are hungry for knowledge, they WANT to learn, they love to learn, they are happy to be at school. Their faces glow when you tell them “bravo! bravo!”. They are given something to be proud of, and that is one of the most rewarding part of this teaching experience. Whether it’s in chanting of the English alphabet, or the study of “feelings”, our hope is that we share the love of Christ with these children for the forty-five short minutes that we have with them. Through a smile, through an arm rub, through a high five, or through a sticker – English teaching is the secondary reason we are there, communicating Christ’s love is the first.

Fortunately, we have set up a system in which Team 3 will be able to pick up on lessons right where Team 2 is leaving off. The children will continue to be showered in Christ’s love through our students and staff. We are so blessed to have English teaching as the catalyst in which we can reach these student’s with the message of Christ. I beg that you continue to pray fervently for the time we have with these sweet kiddos. May the Lord be made famous through every word and action that takes place in that tented school room, and through all of our survival in Haiti. I think I can safely speak for all of our team when I say, we came to humbly serve our Maker in this country, to rock Haiti with the truth and message of Christ, yet WE are the ones being rocked by Haiti.

Cheers to one final week in this precious island nation.

In Him,
Erin Carroll