Have you enjoyed following my student teaching blog?

If you have enjoyed reading about my adventures in student teaching, and thought some of my lessons looked good, please consider supporting my efforts!

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Hillary-Hanel

I am (slowly) putting many of my lesson plans and resources online for other educators to use. I am using the website TeachersPayTeachers.com to showcase and sell my work. My items are mostly priced at $1, but my maximum price is $3. I also have some free lessons in my store!

Why would you buy lesson plans from a brand new teacher? Most of the lessons I have up for sale were taught while being observed by one of my university professors and they all received very good feedback. I taught most of the lessons multiple times each day, and worked out any kinks throughout the day. The 15 day unit plan I prepared was for a History Teaching Methods class, so I worked closely with my professor to develop the unit.

Please let me know if you have any questions or comments on my store or work, I would love to hear from you!

Thank you for your continued support! All proceeds from my lesson plan sales will go toward the Hillary-Needs-to-Pay-her-Student-Loans Fund. 🙂

Graduation!

I made it! I have officially graduated from Central Michigan University with my Bachelor of Science in Secondary Education degree!

I began my new job as an educator at a children’s museum. I am very excited for this opportunity!

Here are the 6 of us Dominican Republic student teachers! We made it home to Michigan just in time for a snowstorm!

Thanks to everyone who has supported me as I worked to complete my degree. I have wonderful family and friends who have enriched my life so much.

I am hoping to start working on my master’s degree next fall!

It’s already been 5 weeks in the DR??

Somehow time has just flown by and we are heading back to Michigan tomorrow!

Last night we went out to dinner with our professor, Karen, our coordinator Bernadette, and our host moms Adela and Estela. It was so much fun! The restaurant was called El Conuco and besides yummy food there was music and dancing for entertainment. The dancers were so talented, I cannot believe the moves they were doing. The girls were spinning so fast I don’t know how they could stand up after. They taught some of us to dance too. I am an awful dancer and I didn’t want to be the entertainment for the whole restaurant so I joined the band instead. I do really want to take salsa dancing lessons when I get home because it looks like so much fun!

Today was our last day at school, and it was another half day of exams. My students took their Spanish and Sociales exams. I felt bad because I wasn’t much help to them because they obviously study Spanish at a much higher level than I am capable of and I do not know much about Dominican social studies. But, it’s not something I should worry about because I wasn’t expecting to become fluent in Spanish in the short time I’ve spent here. I took 3 years of Spanish in high school and an intermediate course during college, but it has been 4 years since I’ve used it at all, so it took me a few weeks just to get used to the language again. I was looking through some old papers that I wrote for my Spanish 201 class and I was pretty good at Spanish back then, I wish I had kept practicing! I was proud of myself for writing a thank you note to my host family in Spanish though! So when I get home, the plan is to take Spanish and salsa lessons!

Thank you to my host teacher, Ms. Pacheco, my students, everyone at St. Thomas School, my professors, my host family, and of course the other 5 student teachers for making this an unforgettable experience. I will forever treasure the memories made here!

Top 10 Reasons I’m Excited to go Home and Not Ready to Leave

I’m ready to head back to Michigan because…

10. There is hot water at home. I can’t wait to take a warm shower.

9. I can brush my teeth with water from the faucet without potentially poisoning myself.

8. Going to a restaurant and ordering a water doesn’t mean paying for a bottle of water.

7. Feeling like I will probably survive car trips. I feel like kissing the ground every time I step out of a car alive here.

6. I can drink milk! It’s weird how much I love milk (I sometimes drink a half gallon a day). Milk is so strange here, it is super pasteurized and is kept warm on the store shelves for months. I can’t.

5. Knowing how much things cost. 500 pesos? Is that a lot? I don’t know. Take 5000 pesos out at the ATM, sure!

4. Not getting hissed at every time I walk down the street. Yes, we are a group of light skinned and blonde young women, but staring and hissing is unnecessary, and is not going to make us like you, sir.

3. Normal doors. The door to my apartment has a normal lock, a deadbolt, a chain lock, a latch lock, and bars with a padlock. The hallway to my bedroom also has padlocked bars. It literally takes 5 minutes to get out with all of the keys involved. What if there was a fire?

2. Having independence. I love just getting in the car by myself and going to do whatever it is I need to do. I can’t even go to the grocery store alone here!

1. To see my friends and family, of course! So much fun is planned for this weekend in celebration of graduation. I can’t wait to see everyone!

I’m really going to miss…

10. Being able to count on beans and rice at dinner every night. Lula makes the yummiest rice!

9. Being greeted by Adela when she gets home from work. She is the sweetest lady ever! I’m going to miss hearing “Hola chicos! ¿Como estan?”

8. Practicing my Spanish skills with native speakers. I really loved talking with Adela in Spanish. I want to take Spanish lessons when I get home because it would be so great to be fluent.

7. Everyday adventures. If you’ve kept up on my blog, you know what I mean.

6. Warm weather. When I looked at the weather this morning it was 4 degrees at home. I was chilly when it was 72 the other day. I will be the one at graduation with a snowsuit, blanket, boots, and mittens under my gown.

5. Panadero! The bread seller rides his bike cart in front of our house every evening yelling panadero. Estela always goes out to buy delicious bread for us. How convenient!

4. Colmado. Basically a 7-11, but you can hang out with your friends and watch the baseball game over a cold presidente.

3. Knowing that the ocean is so close.

2. Relaxing on the patio with good friends. The 6 of us student teachers have gotten pretty close in the past few weeks. Spending our evenings on the patio with a game of euchre and conversation has been great.

1. Time passing so slowly. Dominican minutes last twice as long as American minutes. If it feels like I’ve been at school for 4 hours, it’s only 10am. It seems like we have endless hours of free time after we have finished all of our work.

 

One Last Trip to La Zona Colonial

As I mentioned yesterday, it is exam week for all 3 of our schools in Santo Domingo. All of use student teachers either have a half day of giving exams or no school at all, so our professor decided to excuse us from school so that we could spend one more day exploring and doing some souvenir shopping.

We went to the Colonial Zone this morning and visited a market. It was set up kind of like a flea market in the U.S. with people selling all sorts of goods. I was glad that we had Estela, one of our host moms, with us to help us barter. If she hadn’t been there we would have been charged so much more! We are not used to bartering at home, so it is pretty difficult, at least for me. Shopping was very overwhelming because the merchants were so persistent that we buy something from their shop. They would say things like “it is free to look” to try to get us into their store. I ended up with some very nice gifts for my friends and family, I’m so excited to see them in a few days! I also bought some jewelry for myself. I love wearing cute rings so I bought a larimar ring and an amber ring. Larimar is a type of stone that is only Found in the Dominican Republic. It is the pretty blue one in the picture. I have just always liked amber (fossilized tree resin) so I was excited to find that in many shops here too.

After the Colonial Zone we went to lunch at a Mexican restaurant near our apartment. It was delicious! I highly recommend Gastronomia Mexicana to anyone in Santo Domingo!

I forgot to mention in yesterday’s blog that I tested out Dominican Taco Bell. Anyone who knows me knows that I am quite the Taco Bell connoisseur. The verdict: Fiesta Fries are not as fun as they sound, but they have way better desserts than are offered in the U.S. I had a dulce de leche quesadilla that was quite yummy. Also, crunch wraps are crunchy wraps. Remember this, because I learned that they don’t know what you mean if you just say crunch wrap. I think it’s funny that there are so many American fast food and casual dining restaurants here and that they use the same (or very similar) names (in English) for the items on their menus.

Exam Week for St. Thomas and CMU Students

It is funny to think that this time last year I was studying for exams in classes such as Ecology, Education Theory, and Museum Programming and now I am sitting on my balcony in the Dominican Republic relaxing because I have completed all of the requirements for graduation. Graduation is THIS WEEK. And real life is starting Monday since I have a big girl job. How crazy is that?!

My students are under pressure this week too, because it is midterms week. Today the high school students completed their math and social studies exams during the half day of school. Tomorrow there is no school because it is a “study day.” Then another half day Wednesday. If exams were like that in my high school or college midterms would be a piece of cake! Like regular school days, exam days here are very different from what I’ve experienced at home. Students are still pretty talkative even though they are taking an important test. The teacher whose class the test was for would walk around to the different classrooms to answer questions. They were giving a lot of help because students had tons of questions. I felt like I was not very helpful at all today.This is what I accomplished: Helped a girl put her hair in a ponytail because she had a broken finger. Updated my LinkedIn profile. Made the finishing touches on my electronic portfolio. I did not know how to help because if it was my class I would have been much more strict on the talking issue, but I did not want to overstep any boundaries because I realize there is a difference in expectations here. Or maybe I’m just a “mean lady,” as a little boy at the museum once told me when I saved him from running into traffic…

Good luck to all my friends at CMU who are slaving over a hot scantron this week 🙂

Visiting the Sugar Cane Fields

This morning we visited a sugar cane field where 19 different Haitian families live and work. We did this as kind of a service learning project and to see how other people live in the DR because all of the students we work with are quite wealthy. This was a very eye opening experience that cannot be put into words.

Last night we made cream cheese sandwiches and filled a piñata with candy in preparation for the trip. We traveled far from Santo Domingo, toward the mountains that separate DR from Haiti. Once we reached the little village, children started running out to greet the van. By the time we got out of the van though, the children were all gone. We started handing out cups of coca cola to the adults sitting outside, and eventually the kids started to reappear. They had been called inside the change into nicer clothes because there were visitors! It was surprising because these people have so little, but they wanted to look as nice as possible. We handed out the sandwiches and chocolates, which everyone loved. I had some little “silly band” bracelets with the CMU Flying C logo that I handed out to all of the kids. They had no idea what CMU was, but they loved their new accessories! Then we set up the piñata. They loved it! When it broke open the kids were instantly in a huge pile on the ground, grabbing as much candy as they could. No one cried about being trampled or not getting a turn to hit the piñata or not getting enough candy. At home there would have been a lot of tears the way this game happened, but the culture is so different here. The older kids were so willing to share their candy with the little ones.

Next the kids started games of soccer and baseball. It was amazing how fast these little kids could throw a ball! And then hit it clear over the roof of a house! They were incredibly fast runners, too. It was very clear that they didn’t spend their afternoons playing video games inside like so many kids in the U.S. They were so happy to have just a flat soccer ball, a baseball, a bat, and a glove, it was remarkable.

It was astounding to see the huge gap between the rich and the poor in this country. I know it can be seen at home too, but it is so apparent here. Our students in the private schools are all very privileged, they have anything and everything they want and need. I know most of them will never travel to one of these sugar cane fields to see how others live…their families may even be the ones who own the sugar cane fields and provide the low wages and unsanitary living conditions. I hear my students, both here and in Michigan complain about little things that truly are first world problems. But then to see that this really is a third world country in some areas, and that the children are so grateful for everything they have, is just heart breaking.

I am so glad that we had this opportunity to help.

27 Charcos

What a fun day! I’ve been looking forward to the trip to the 27 Charcos for weeks, but I had no idea how awesome it would be! I was expecting to walk around the edges of some beautiful waterfalls and just see nature. Boy was I surprised.. I ended up hiking up a mountain in the jungle, jumping off cliffs, and sliding down the waterfalls. It was amazing! Oh did I mention that it is finals week back at CMU? So while everyone is studying this weekend, I have been fortunate enough to be a part of this great program that takes me to jump off waterfalls! How cool is that?!

We left bright and early at 5:30am to drive to Puerto Plata. We were the first trip out to the waterfalls today and we had two really fun guides, ChiChi and Moreno. We had about an hour hike to reach before getting to the waterfalls, which was great because it warmed me up because it was pretty chilly.

We made it to the first pool of water, and that was kind of a test run. We swam a little and jumped off a small ledge. I was terrified of even that little jump, but I had no idea what I was in for next.

When we got to the big waterfalls we had to either jump or slide, there was no walking around it. Sliding was fun, it was crazy seeing these natural waterslides made by water!

When we got to the biggest drop we could choose to slide down or jump off. At first I was going to slide. Jumping from 30+ feet into deep water sounded crazy. But then I thought that I should jump because a) I wanted to say I did it (and hopefully have a cool picture!) b) it would hurt less than the slide and c) jumping would be faster than sliding. So I jumped. After they counted uno, dos, tres about 7 times, I finally made it off the ledge. Clearly I am terrified, as you can see me flailing about in the picture.

I’m so glad that I did the big jump, it was a lot of fun! There was a little more sliding and jumping and then we reached the end of the waterfalls. After a short hike back to the buildings we were greeted with a delicious buffet, which was necessary after all the hiking and adrenaline rushes.

I thought it was interesting that admission to the Charcos, including a helmet, life jacket, and guide was only 500 pesos (about $12). It would be at least $75 dollars to do something like that in the states, I’m sure. And there were no waivers to sign, that would never happen in the U.S. Luckily no one got hurt, because our guides were so helpful and kept us safe. I am covered in bruises, but they were worth it! I have a trip all planned out now because I would really like to take my family to the DR. We could stay at Olga’s house in Las Terrenas and visit the waterfalls. The only expensive part would be the plane ticket!

On the van ride home I was reading the Hunger Games while everyone tried to nap, and I made a little friend.

This teeny tiny baby lizard crawled onto my finger and was just the most adorable thing I’ve ever seen. I didn’t know what to do with it, but luckily we were stopping for a baño break so I gave him a new home in a potted plant.

It was a fantastic day, and we have another interesting excursion planned for tomorrow. We spent the evening making sandwiches and filling a piñata with candy to take the the children at the sugar cane fields tomorrow. It will be a very new experience.

Visiting Other Schools

Today half of our group of student teachers visited other schools in Santo Domingo. We went to the International School first thing this morning, and wow, was it different from St. Thomas! I really like that it has an outdoor amphitheater, a pool (being built), a functioning library, an art museum, and it is more out in the country. All of the teachers that I met there seemed very nice, and the little kids were just adorable. Today was one of those days where I wish I would have been an elementary teacher instead of secondary. But since I’m a week away from graduation, I better stick with what I have, haha. I go back and forth a lot, I never could decide 100% if I wanted elementary or secondary. Lucky for me, I can have the best of both worlds by working in museum education!

After International School, we visited my school. We just wandered around looking at everything, which I haven’t even done yet! It turns out my school has a store, an auditorium, and tons of extra classrooms that I never knew existed! Next the group headed to St. Michaels, but I stayed at my school because I planned to go souvenir shopping with a couple of the teachers after school. We went to quite a few different places to get things for our friends and family back home. It was nice to see some different areas of the city, too! I am most excited for the sweets that I picked up in la zona colonial – dulce de leche and cacao balls.

We have an exciting excursion planned for tomorrow morning at 5am so I am heading to bed! I hope to have some really cool pictures to post from our adventure.

I forgot to write in my journal yesterday

Nothing overly exciting happened yesterday school wise so that’s probably why I forgot to write. The students were just working on their review guides for the most part. The government class presented the political parties that they created, so that was fun to watch! I saw some great creativity and heard some good ideas, too. The students here seem to know a lot about US government, even more than the kids back home! Here are their presentations:

This group of boys had the slogan “yovo: you only vote once.” Pretty funny!