November 29, 2016
“Don’t ride the taxis that are beetles. Muggings happen in the beetles.” That is one of the many advices that Victoria shared with me over an almost two hour Skype call.
Victoria is one of the recent high school graduates from IME. She has been a missionary kid all eighteen years of her life and has grown up to be a city girl. She is trilingual! She knows Spanish, English, and Korean! This coming January, she will be leaving the place she calls home, Mexico City, and she will be starting her first semester of college in the quiet suburbs of Illinois!
Victoria is the teacher I will be replacing this coming January at IME! Currently, Victoria teaches three 5th graders, two girls and a boy. She informed me that she is their homeroom teacher, which has a whole different meaning compared to the schools that I have been in. From my limited experience in the classrooms, a homeroom teacher usually plays the announcements for the students and that’s the class where you donate all the canned foods to win the friendly holiday competitions. No, no. Victoria educated me on their definition of a homeroom teacher. A homeroom teacher at IME is the teacher who teaches ALL, yes all, the subjects. WHAT. This is going to be an interesting year.
One of the things that Victoria also shared with me is that there has been a lack of teachers at IME, but the teachers who have been there have only poured into these students, but that’s what teachers are meant to do right? She informed me that if there was a position that needed to be filled, parents would fill in. She has even filled in over the years. I applaud her for teaching these students because I know too well that sometimes, it’s not easy preparing all the lessons, grading their work, and motivating them intrinsically and extrinsically.
I have always wanted to teach at a school where the students needed me the most. For the longest time, I was set on a school district in California with a low socioeconomic status. There are several school districts where I could have taught this school year, but although there is a teacher shortage, there are still qualified teachers who have applied to all these school districts. I doubt any of these teachers looked into IME. I sure didn’t!
Uncle Wes shared with me that he hosted a missionary family right after I had stayed back in October. He simply asked the parents, “What can we do for you?” As he was sharing this short story, I assumed their answer would have been money. So. Wrong. The missionaries stated that they needed teachers to educate their children. I never knew that was a high need because education here in the states was always a given. Parents in the states can “shop” for their children’s education by living in the necessary school districts.
With that said, I am incredibly excited and privileged to be teaching at IME. I cannot wait to meet the three students I will be mainly teaching! They just don’t know it, but I’m bringing my multiplication facts cards with me! :)