Jaqi Cox

Stories from the fall.

Fall 2024.

I have been having the best time this fall. So for this update I am going to give you a series of brief stories to share what I have been up to.

With that, what’s more appropriate than having our school librarian reading a story to my students (more on that later) as the header for this update!?

The Big Cheese.

If you remember last year on the first day of school I read the story “The Magical Yet,” Well this year it is all about The Big Cheese.

This is the story of a cheese with a big ego because he’s good at everything he does (granted he doesnt try new things to not risk being bad at something). Eventually though, he gets beat. After humbling defeat, and a bruised ego, he learned that life isn’t all about him, life isn’t about being the best at everything.

So for my students, this was a reminder that their identity is so much more than what they are good at. We wont always be the best, and maybe science this year will humble us, but thats okay. We learn from our mistakes, and we celebrate others for what they are good at instead of getting jealous. So my students made “Big Cheeses” and taped them onto their science notebooks.

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The First Day of School Vibes.

I became “Mountain Jaqi” and lead my students on a practice hike up the new Doulos property to prepare them for the Pico Duarte and Valle Tetero outdoor education trips.

This year I am hiking with 9th grade down Valle Tetero.

This dog is named Latte, and yup she’s in my classroom. One of my students has really bad anxiety and her mom told me that when her kid has anxiety, Latte, comes to the rescue, sits on her hands (so she cant pick at them) and calms her down.

So I suggested to her mom that we bring Latte to school on test days, and have her kid take her science tests after school with Latte to reduce her anxiety- bc believe me I get it, I have horrible testing anxiety.

And the school approved this idea with ease!!

So, heres Latte in my class providing emotional support to my student. &As a result- she scored way higher than she normally does!

My student wrote and performed a chemistry rap for her classmates.

We threw a surprise birthday celebration for one of my roommates students in La Joya.

Once a month my roommate throws an “English Conversation Night” for all her students. Here my friend Esther and I are volunteering to pretend we know absolutely no Spanish to help these students practice their English speaking skills.

They exhorted me a lot to practice my Spanish too, so sometimes my friends and I have Spanish conversation nights& its a lot of fun.

Story time! I needed my students to remember their diatomic elements, so one trick is to remember the word “BrINClHOF” but I wanted that weird word to stick, so Chat GPT and I wrote a children’s story about a quirky scientist named BrINClHOF learning the meaning of his name with the help of his element friends Bromine, Idodine…etc. So here is me having circle time with teenagers and them loving it.

One class even went to the library to have “carpet time” and our librarian read them the story! Next they answered a set of questions and drew pictures of BrINClHOF himself that are now hung in my classroom.

They now know if they forget to make one of those elements diatomic- BrINClHOF will come and haunt them at 2:01 am….

That’s a joke, but they do know their elements!!

This year I am the small group leader for the 10th grade girls. I love Fridays because I get to hang out with them extra, laugh a lot, talk about loving Jesus and loving others.

Here is one of my 10th grade girlies preaching in chapel!!!!

My students steal my phone to make “vlogs.” My goal in the near future is to edit their videos, make my own additions, and then post a video, so you guys can live through a day at Doulos with me, and experience the fun.

This is me catching one of my girls in the vlogging act.

Jesus is good.

These past few months have been crazy.

Through prayer, The bible, my friends, a book called Practicing the Way, a podcast called “Fight Hustle, End Hurry”- my relationship with Jesus has grown so much & I am so thankful for what I have learned.

For example, I have experienced inexplicable joy and peace through various hard things (dare I say trials…James 1 anyone?!). I definitely relearned a lot about what God has created me for, and relearned what it means to stay grounded in Him and where He’s calling me, even if it doesn’t make much sense.

I am truly having the best time living a life with Jesus. & if you would like to know more about what I am saying here, please message me.

Thank You.

Lastly, I just want to say thank you. Without your support I would not be down here. I really just love being able to love God, love people, and have so much fun doing it.

So thank you for allowing me to teach high school chemistry in the Dominican Republic- this is about so much more than high school chemistry.