Around the World with the Woltjers

First off, being a teacher and having a summer break is AWESOME! 🙂 I have loved the change of pace being home full-time. However, I am very much looking forward to and anticipating a great year of teaching. It will help to be the sole person in authority and to start the year knowing where everything is and the experience of one semester under my belt. 🙂

In order to get ready for this coming year I actually started last semester (Spring of 2017). As I mentioned in our newsletters I undertook the cleaning and organizing of the storage room. With limited resources and tight luggage space EVERYTHING is saved with the hope it can be used for multiple students. While this is a good practice to have, it can be quite overwhelming. So, I worked on getting rid of older editions (some were old enough to have cassette tapes for the lessons) and downsizing the text books to what we will use (now and in the future). I organized all the lab equipment and made an inventory of what we have. This will help parents know what is available and what they need to bring from the U.S. Everything is now labeled and put in its own place. 🙂 I am really hopeful that the organization and current books will better equip parents and future teachers to educate the students.

Another item I worked on last semester was the paperwork. This included a “welcome letter” with the rules and expectations I have for the school year, semester schedules to make sure the students get all the days they require to finish their respective grades, and bi-weekly schedule templates.

While I did a lot of the work during last semester in order to free up my summer to be with Benjamin and Josiah, there were still items on my list to get done. The last three weeks of August I worked on organizing and cleaning the classroom, decorating and finishing paperwork.

As you can see in the pictures (the one on the left is before, the one on the right is after) I worked on the large bookshelves in the classroom. This included having Lukas build me book dividers to go on top of the shelves. I then organized and alphabetized the library books. Hopefully this will make it easier for students (and parents) to find the books they need for their classes. This was a goal of mine from last semester when I watched my students looking through the shelves twice (and then having to go look in the mail room library and the elementary library) to see if the book was available for them to read. Having everything organized on one side of the classroom with a list for them to look through (by author) will make the process at least easier for them in the high school library.

Now for decorations. 🙂 I wanted to make the school room a fun place to learn, so I asked my students last semester what they wanted the theme to be. They picked “deserted island.” This caused me to picture us being shipwrecked in this tiny space…Trying to re-cycle and use resources that are easy to come by (like bamboo) this is what I was able to come up with: a ship wheel, bamboo signs, inspirational quotes, decorated chore list, and organized white board.

It is such a blessing to be able to be here in PNG to teach. It has been amazing to see how God has used the gifts He has given me (i.e. organizational skills, love for learning, joy in creating, desire to empower, etc) to make a difference in my students lives as well as making it easier for parents and future teachers. Praying for a fun and educational 2017-2018 school year. 🙂