A Few Thoughts on Teaching, Life

Its been two full weeks of teaching now, and I already have way more respect for my elementary school teachers that I thought I ever would. There is so much crap to put up with, ie: kids wetting themselves, undiagnosed learning disabilities, unruly children with no sense of respect, etc. And that was just first grade for me. But really, as much as the kids are frustrating and noisy sometimes, and impossible to discipline, they always make it worthwhile.

I found out yesterday that the kid that I had been calling Hill this whole time (that’s what he told me his name was the first day), is actually named Hell. And I really don’t know how to approach that situation, because he really seems set on that. I think I’ll just call him Shell instead. Or maybe Bell. And the kid whose name I thought was ironically Tiny (he’s obviously taken a liking to McDonalds), is actually named Tidy.

We spent most of the week reviewing Hello, how are you? And, Nice to meet you, too. Also they sing me this Good Morning song everyday which makes me feel really good, and loved, even though I’m forcing them to sing it. I teach 7 different classes of first grade at one school, and was really impressed with my first 3 classes that I had on day 1. Then I got to my last 4 classes, and found them to be quite a bit more unruly, not bright, not paying attention, etc. It turns out that they take some sort of test to see where they will be placed, and they really do just rank them in order of overall brightness. This means I have to have about 10 different activities ready for the last few classes because they are all so severely ADD inflicted. Nothing holds their attention for more than 4 or 5 minutes, which makes for some interesting days.

Its easy to see though that most of them really love English, and having the one “foreign devil” teacher in the school be all theirs. I have kids running around on the 10 minute breaks, just swarming me, saying “hello!” about 900 times a minute. I found that if I say hello back to them, it only encourages them, so I’ve taken to responding with really complex sentences like “What’s the square root of 49?” and “Iraq didn’t have WMD’s after all!” or “China’s GDP has been growing at an remarkable rate of about 10% for the last 10 years!” This is met with screams, and looks of terror, which in turns get me a few moments of peace. Plus, I’m expanding their exposure to English, so I think its win-win.

Funny Randomness:
-Girl with “I have plenty of milk. Would you like some?” Emblazoned on her shirt
-Sign at my school “Cultivating children for future.” Apparently I work at a child farm. Better than a sweatshop I guess…

Pictures now up at www.flickr.com/photos/llama