Settling In

As the time goes on it is getting easier here. I have meet more people that are very friendly and love to talk about their culture. My favorite person to talk with so far is one of the dinner kitchen staff. Heather (the other student teacher here with me) and I help serve dinner to the dorm students who stay here all week. D is what I will call him because I don't want to use real names. So we help D serve the students and then clean up the tables after they eat. While we clean up he has been telling us different places to visit and giving us advice. He also started talking about the Navajo culture to us tonight. He told us a Coyote story about respecting elders. Coyote stories can only be told during the winter and the stories are used to teach children life lessons. He also talked about some other things such as what men do before they go hunting and the customs of butchering sheep. It is so wonderful to hear them all talk about their own culture instead of reading about it in a book or hearing it from another Anglo. There is so much I want to ask them right now, but know that I have a lot of time here to ask questions and learn.
At school it has been a little more frustrating because the style of teaching is very different from what I believe in and have been taught. They use a more phonics based approach to reading and don't use a balance between whole language and phonics like I prefer. It is good to see how a classroom does use only phonics, but it is still hard. The teachers have not read aloud to the students at all and mostly have them do worksheets. I hope that when I get to teach more in the next weeks I can integrate more read alouds, invitations, guided reading, etc. From observing the students I think some of them would benefit more from that.
I can't wait to see what tomorrow brings :)