Well, week 1 in the Mississippi delta has come to an end....only 4 more to go! Yesterday was super exciting because we finally got to meet some of the students we will be teaching for the next four weeks in summer school. Our students came in the morning to take a test that determines their reading level. Each of us teachers would take one student at a time and administer various steps of the test. The dire academic issues facing many of these kids became much more real to me. Entering fourth graders who struggled with kindergarten and first grade reading lists. Students who have no passion for reading. It will certainly be a challenge teaching a class this summer that has a range of scores from 10-60! I am excited and ready to execute my first lesson plan on Tuesday afternoon right after lunch (so I will have to be energetic!) My first lesson plan is about the inverse property of addition and subtraction. So once I taught myself what that means, I was able to think about how to teach it. My lack of math expertise is actually coming in handy as I try to put myself in the mindset of fifteen eight year-olds.
While I have spent a decent amount of time visiting southern states, I am noticing some new things here in the rural deep south. A guy who helped me move in was telling me how excited the town was to have its very first 24-hour Walmart, I went for a walk in "downtown" Cleveland at 5:30pm on Friday, and everything had already closed, and finally I'm realizing that some people do not grow weary of grits at nearly every meal. Observing the many, many, many small churches on our drive here, I also came to the conclusion that if you live here, you go to church, and if you go to church, you are a Baptist.
Today I am taking a big trip to Walmart and grabbing some dinner at a place that claims "the best fried shrimp" in the Delta (not that I will have much to compare it to!) Pretty pumped about that! Thanks for the support from each of you and I miss everyone dearly :o)
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