Because this is the first time I have ever been in such a position I think the huge gap has indeed paralyzed me a bit. And now I am starting to feel the need to do something BESIDES feel guilty. The guilt is not really helping anything. I know. I am trying to let it go and listen for what God wants me to do...He put me here in this position for a reason. What is it? I know it is not just to be a principal. I could do that anywhere. Why here...on this tiny island? One of the things dh and I have been talking about is trying to spend most of our money locally and not at the big chain restaurants or huge malls that charge western prices, etc. We are trying to buy as much of our food as possible from the locals at their little markets...even clothes and such...We know to these people every little dime (ringgett) counts. So while it is easy to go to things that are familiar like Chili's restaurant all the time, :D we are trying to contribute to the mom and pop shops more. It has been such an eye-opening experience to go from one situation in life where you really weren't any better off than anyone else you knew to suddenly being in the higher income brackets. I think I am just trying to mentally adjust to the switch. The funny thing is, I make less than half of what I made in the states! Life is so weird sometimes.

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Did you notice the smiley face? It was said tongue-in-cheek.

Well, honestly...I don't really. Teaching to the test is not the issue for me. I feel like if you set an objective for your lesson...as in what is it the child is supposed to learn...what should they know or be able to do as a result of the lesson... then it only makes sense that you should assess in some way whether or not you met that objective. So if you want them to learn how to do double-digit multiplication then you teach them to do it and then you see if they can through assessment. That is called "teaching to a test". And it is not evil. It is good instruction. Otherwise you have teachers teaching children whatever it is they want or whatever it is they like to teach and NOT teaching what they don't like. Then there are gaps in learning and somethings that are "fun" to teach get taught over and over (like units on dinosaurs or the pilgrims) and things that are not "fun" to teach (like grammar) are skipped. Setting objectives for a lesson then checking to see if the objective is met makes sense. Where the issue TRULY lies is in the objectives themselves and this is where many homeschoolers truly take issue. For instance, most elementary schools will not teach your child history a la SOTW. They will teach them "social studies". So if you take issue with their objective you will naturally take issue with them teaching to a test for it. And then there is the issue of course that objective tests are not the ONLY way to assess a student's knowledge and often not even the best way. But when you are talking abut assessing the knowledge of millions of children across the nation, it's the only way it CAN be done. People will often say they think teaching to the test is evil because it means teachers don't have time to teach other things that aren't on the test. Well, number one, NO ONE has the time to teach everything that is worth learning including homeschoolers. How many threads are there about how there just aren't enough hours in the day to get through all the things we want to get through? And number two, again it goes back to the objectives themselves... what exactly are they NOT teaching due to lack of time that they could or should be teaching and who decides? For public schools the answer is your state department of education. They have a group that comes up with common learning objectives for every subject in every grade and the test is to make sure those objectives are being met. It's not perfect but, in a public school setting, how else do you hold anyone accountable for anything?

Ugh. I forgot about that one too... We actually pay her twice as much as most ahmas make and several people were MAD at us for it! Like if other ahmas find out what she makes then they will want more money too. I am serious... people were genuinely mad at us. I guess some of this IS me learning, up close and personal, just how lucky Americans truly are to have so many opportunities that others in the world don't have. These people DO work hard...very very hard...and they love, and laugh, and live just like we do... and realizing that just being born in America gives you this HUGE head start on the rest of the world is a tough pill to swallow. Sometimes the truth really DOES hurt.

No. That is not why I posted.

[quote=simka2;2396031 Is there anyway you can help those who work under you to become even better employed? then train up new employees. That would be doing even more with your position. Make sense? OK...this might sound crazy but I have wondered if my ahma would like to learn to read. She can speak 4 languages but she can't read any of them as she didn't go to school. I wonder if she would like to learn to read English as skills in English are very big "plus" in this country. But I just can't figure out how to ask her without offending her.

Can I just hire you to be my own personal conscience? :D It is interesting the comment you make about helping your "neighbors" because you CAN. I had a conversation at work the other day with a co-worker. Her ahma needed some extra money for a family crisis she was having and asked her for money. My co-worker refused. She told me she didn't want to "encourage" that kind of behavior. :confused: So then I am thinking I am this huge push-over because we give our ahma extra money all the time simply because we know she needs it. And then I thought "NO. We are blessed. We need to share that blessing." I know part of it is because I see so much need everywhere I look and I just start feeling helpless and overwhelmed by it because I would fix it all if I could but I can't and .... sigh....

Well, we do... a lot. I don't like to talk about it because I don't think one should brag about how "generous" they are (I know people like that). But something is still bugging me and I can't quite put my finger on it....

Car insurance would be the LEAST of my worries had I spoken to my mother like that....

I am really really struggling with something lately. And I apologize in advance if this ends up incoherent. I am struggling with the great financial divide I see and am a part of daily. It is something I have never experienced before and I didn't "get" it until now. But there is this HUGE disparity between our expat staff and our "local" staff and it is just...I dont know... hard to live with, I guess? When I was in admin. in the states there were of course also janitors and maintenance people in our district but they weren't POOR by any means. They didn't make as much as I made but they made good money, drove good cars, had homes, etc (yes, I did know them personally). So there was not such a HUGE divide. But here? I make literally 7 times as much money in a month as a national staff worker makes. The difference is enormous and because I also know these people personally, the difference is also...i don't know...embarassing? Simple examples... It's "quittin' time" so my family piles into our vehicle to leave and as we pull out of the parking lot we see the national staff members gathering at the bus stop near the lot to wait for the bus that may (or may not) show up on time, that has no A/C, that takes forever to get them all home, etc. And we wave to each other...and then there is this feeling I have in my stomach that I don't like. If something goes wrong in our homes a member of the national staff comes to fix it...the homes are leased by the school for the expats so that is the school's responsibility. We have also had a few occasions to go to their homes (to drop them off or pick them up, etc). After seeing where they live I am too embarassed to ask them to come fix something in my home. The same goes for our ahma. She is here 5 days a week. She knows everything about our family and has a pretty good idea of our finances. She invited us over for christmas eve and I was so humbled by it. She lives in this tiny little ghetto apartment with her husband, mother and two teenage daughters. And I find myself wondering what she thinks of us? WHY do I feel this way? I have worked hard, gone to college. I have three degrees. I have worked my way up the ladder. Dh can say the same. I have earned everything that I have. Nothing has EVER been handed to me. So why am I embarassed of my success? Why does it embarass me to have so much when others I know and care about have so little? Why do I worry so much that these people must think us expats are all just... over privileged? Why does my heart hurt so much?

Ditto except we start closer to 7 or 8 with piano. I tell ds I will appreciate it for him until he is old enough to appreciate it himself.

I love you Daisy. :D

OK, just so I am clear on your stance... you are saying that because Luther had anti-semitic views at some point in his life we should then throw out his 95 theses, all his other writings and anything else he ever said or did that was good? That is not a question meant to continue the argument. Just one so I can understand your position clearly. If that is what you are asserting then I will happily leave the conversation because I really find no merit in it whatsoever. If you are trying to cherry-pick scripture in order to make some kind of "christians are hypocritical" point then I will also happily bow out because that topic has been discussed ad nauseum and is also not, to my understanding, the point of this thread.

Well golly, then I suppose we should never listen to anyone ...ever... about anything. Because not one of us is perfect and every church father there ever was who ever had a good idea about anything ALSO sinned at some point in their life. It is ridiculous to think that someone who had some really bad ideas could not possibly also have some good ideas. I am not Lutheran and I have never taught that Luther was a perfect man or a saint or anything other than a Catholic who spoke out about some really important issues. And I have never taught my kids to accept wholesale the teachings of any mere human. But I would also never teach them that someone who sins should have everything they have ever taught ignored entirely. :001_huh:

So therefore we should just ignore all his other ideas? No matter how much merit they have? Is it possible that a "very bad man" could still come up with a very good idea?

Well I think it is only going to get up to 85 today but we are prepared for it. :D

Well no...it's a horrific thing that he wrote that book and even had those ideas about Jews in the first place and I would never gloss over that fact in teaching (but I also don't make "perfect heros" out of most people in history). I teach Martin Luther as a lead figure in the reformation. Period. Not as some kind of saint. But to say that you can't trust ANY of his ideas because one of his ideas was awful is a fallacy. (Can you tell we are having fun with our logic class?).

That's true. But are you implying that we should reject any of his good ideas because he had some bad ideas too? I just went over this idea with my kids on Monday during logic... if a serial child murderer came up with the cure for cancer would we ignore it because it came from a child murderer?

YEAH!!!!!!!!!

It has been said that the best revenge is living well. Congrats on finding beauty in the ashes. Your story is an inspiration.

I think it depends on the child but both of my children were reading at 4yo and I used 100 EZ Lessons. Now, my 7th grader recently finished Hamlet and my 1st grader can read books even on a 6th grade level. At my school we begin teaching phonics in the preschool (4yo) room and the kindy classes begin straight away with beginning readers. Out of 26 kindy students all but 3 of them are progressing quickly.

That made me sad too.

WELCOME!!!! I am Heather NOT ACTUALLY in NC. :D I live in Malaysia with three dc (one ds adopted from Korea, one dd adopted from Malaysia and one ds I had the old-fashioned way!) and my dh of 14 years. I have been homeschooling my oldest ds for nearly 8 years (He is 12). My youngest ds (6yo) attends the christian school where I am the principal and my dd is just a lil' thing so she is not in school yet. This is an amazing place to get info, hang out, argue, laugh, cry. There is no other place like it on the internet!