Lessons at Gloria Dei

Our first two workdays at the orphanage were a lot of fun... and looking back, so easy compared to the two days that followed teaching at Gloria Dei Christian School. Our service assignment here was to teach for two full days with a focus on ESL but an overall goal of making learning fun and building relationships. Two days of that would be quite easy... if we were teachers. But since most of us aren't, we had to get creative... and at times, really creative to focus our time with these anxious, energetic students.

With just one class per grade and about 80 students, this cute little Lutheran school reminded me a lot of the school I went to for elementary and middle school growing up in Florida. We started off the first morning leading chapel for the students. As usual, Doug and Kevin were the big hits leading us all in joyful songs and goofy dances that the kids all went crazy over.

We were incredibly lucky to have among our group from Guam a retired teacher named Mike, who also happened to be our resident astronomer. Mike followed after our Creation skit and did a really interesting talk about the solar systems and the planets and just how big outer space is. He came ready with some amazing photographs, which we showed on the new LCD projector our group donated to the school via the Lutheran Church's Asia headquarters in Hong Kong. After chapel, it was time to teach. Ready, go!

In terms of preparation, this to me was the hardest part of getting ready for the trip. We broke up our team of 16 adults and youth into teaching groups of two and three so we could cover the six grades taught there. The idea was that if we each put together one lesson plan per day, we could just repeat that lesson with each class, thereby getting to meet all of the students and not having to learn that many lesson plans. Each group picked a theme, whether music, science, games, word games, storytelling, or crafts. My group, which consisted of me and Coleman, picked word games. We prepared lessons for each grade, fully armed with Scrabble letters, Apples to Apples word cards, pipe cleaners, and a few books as backup time fillers.

Here you see Coleman reading our backup books to the Kindergarten class. WOW that is one tough audience! They were actually pretty darn good spellers. The problem was that explaining directions to the games we had planned was so difficult because they just did not understand our English. Apparently by Grade 2, all subjects are taught in English at the school. But before Grade 2, Tagalog is spoken regularly in the classroom, and our American accents certainly didn't help get our point across. Luckily the angel teacher Miss Bella was in the classroom with us keeping chaos from ensuing. The kids were just so excited for everything we'd do, so staying seated and quiet was just tough for them!

In fact, everywhere we went, we got smiles, hugs, songs, cheers. I don't think I've ever had such an instant fan club anywhere. It was a long five hours of teaching each day, with some funny stories that came up. Like in the 4th grade class, we were using Apples to Apples cards to teach adjectives and nouns. I asked the class who had a noun card that was "dangerous" and a little boy with the card "Japan" stood up! Having just been to Fort Santiago the night before and seen the holes by the river where Filipino prisoners were tortured during WWII, I had to say, man, these kids knew their stuff. In addition to being really cute.

For the last class of the day, we led a PE class for the third through fifth graders. One of the moms of our group, Sandra, had the genius idea to bring a parachute as a source of instant fun for all. Even more awesome is that they brought an actual parachute, as in, a static-line chute that was once used by people in the U.S. Navy. (We had to laugh at the fact that she brought it on the plane as her carry-on...).

The kids loved racing under the parachute. They are lucky that Sandra decided it was time to get a new one, so she left this one behind for them to play with whenever they want. In addition to the parachute and the projector, our group also purchased some brand new dictionaries, reading books, basketballs, soccer balls, and volleyballs with money donated by yet another generous church family from Guam. Our youth got to go shopping for the donations one evening at a nearby mall and were able to individually pick out books they thought the kids would like. We presented the gift to the students at chapel our last morning there, and they were all thrilled.

In terms of our assignment, there's no question the kids had fun. They didn't want us to leave (in fact, one kid held onto the back of our bus as we drove down the hill... in the pouring rain... into traffic... scary!!!). And as far as our other goal, to build relationships, I am reminded of our success when I sign on Facebook and have another friend request from a kid in the Philippines (apparently they do Facebook in elementary school over there?!). All in all our time there was a lot of fun, very rewarding, and I think, like most teachers, we also learned a lot. I have a new appreciation for how physically exhausting teaching is, standing while exuding energy for hours at a time, and tediously preparing lesson plans to get the point across. And I have an even bigger appreciation for teachers of Kindergarten and First grades. WOW. Goodness those little ones keep you moving. In addition, we all agreed how amazing it was to see how much the school was able to do with so little. Looking around the classrooms, they were colorful and fun, but relatively bare. As in, the walls were covered in posters and letters, but weren't lined with bookshelves and games and models like I remember my classrooms to be. I was glad to know we left the bookshelves just a little bit fuller.

Last group shot, with Deling our angel!

The rest of the trip was spent dodging torrential rain that came our way due to a developing typhoon in the Philippine Sea. I was so glad that we had already planned to spend our last day sleeping in, then heading to the Mall of Asia, the fourth largest mall in the world (oh yes, there was Zara... and Mango). We picked up our last souvenirs, some saw a movie or went ice skating, and then after one last pizza dinner, we loaded up and headed to the airport as the skies continued to dump buckets of water on everything without a roof over it. Just like that our time in Manila had come to an end. And yet with the possibility of doing another trip next year, I wonder if perhaps it's only just the beginning. That's what happens, after all, when you spend a week showing love and building relationships. You never know quite where that will lead. I'm excited to find out myself and, of course, will keep you all posted!