The party was a little bit emotionally overwhelming, not only because of the friends I made, but also seeing the other Williams students playing with and saying goodbye to the kids they had bonded with. We were all generally exhausted from the week of being with little kids and they were so happy to be spending time with us even if we might not even see them again after we go home. I hope they decide to write to us. They made us this really nice banner using lots of glitter.
This morning, Ellen, Kyle, Lyndsay and I led in the Socratic seminar on "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings" with the high school seniors. Most of the seniors were reluctant to contribute to the discussion at first, but by the tail end, we had a lively discussion going. It would have been nice to have another hour because they really did have a lot to say. In fact, it would have been nice to have an entire week or year so that we could really know the students.The one unfortunate thing was that we didn't realize that a good half of the students weren't Catholic or otherwise Christian. If we had known that ahead of time, we wouldn't have pushed some of the Christ imagery in the story so aggressively. Though the reference was fairly explicit, so it would have been silly, I think, to avoid it altogether.
I had a chance to talk with their English teacher right after lunch. She's Jewish! Apparently, there is a congregation in Gallup. We had a really nice conversation about working at the school as a Jew. As we were talking, the computer teacher bumped into us. He's Jewish too! I was very surprised to learn this. During our conversation, the rest of the group wandered off, so I went back to the guidance counselor's office, the place where we camp out when we're not working. She and I had a nice conversation about how about half of the teachers and half of the students are not Catholic. She acknowledged that you can't force someone to believe in something and that's OK.
Gonpo and I went crazy today with lessons. Usually we give one grade a lesson for an hour and a few minutes, but today we gave 30-45 minute lessons to 2nd, 3rd, and 5th grades. We were very tired! Three renditions of Yellow Submarine, Blackbird, musical chairs to Bach, rhythms. Actually, we modified things for the 5th grade because some of them are really cool and wouldn't want to play musical chairs, we think. So for the 5th grade, we basically just gave a concert. A bunch of Beatles songs and then I played some Bach at the end. At first I was hesitant to play Bach because I thought they might be let down after all of the rock, but Gonpo made me and they seemed to like it a lot. They thought Rocky Raccoon was really cool and they waved their crayons (pretend lighters) when we played Blackbird. I think it helped that the 5th grade boys all love Gonpo.
The 2nd and 3rd grades seemed to be the best fit for all of our activities. For all of the other grades, there were one or two things that didn't work as well, but the 2nd and 3rd grades seemed to like everything. Ellen helped us out with those guys and Jess helped with 5th grade. I accidentally put my computer on someone's artwork so now there is some glitter on the bottom. They say I can get it off, but I might leave it as a souvenir. The artist didn't seem too concerned, mostly just amused that my computer became glittery.
Tomorrow, Jess, Ellen and I will practice yoga with the guidance counselor and a few students and then we will leave on our hiking trip. Then we will go home! I have a lot of work to do before the semester restarts...not so much that I feel the need to think about it in concrete terms until I am back east.
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