hip to be a square

January 12, 2011

Today I had a really good day, which I was in need of. My lessons went well today. I think the kids like to have lessons that are not taken from some book filled with formal English. I’ve been working with some student teachers and I really like it. The one is very much in control and the other is, well, getting there. We’ve been teaching the same thing to both sections and until today had been going to town with the prepositions. Going to be honest, the only thing I really knew about them before was that you are not suppose to end sentences with them, but I do anyways. Now I know so much more. So it was nice to change it up and do some cause and effect relationships today. We sang, we danced, we wrote stories, we got outside of the box. They loved it! Also, I got a box from the States! Mail will always make my day better, and I was at the point where I needed a better day.

Maybe it was the prepositions getting me down, but earlier this week when I got a text stating how sometimes it is so frustrating here I couldn’t help but reflect on my week and agree. This week while working in the library I’ve had some visitors, four girls probably in grade one that have come to see me every day. Our library is not a working library (yet, go Peace Corps!), so basically these kids were just playing hooky, and no matter how many times and in what language I said it in I could not get them to go to class. I realize that that statement makes me sound like a square, but hey education is important to me, and is kind of the reason why I am here. The thing is, nobody cared that these girls were not in class. No matter how many times I told them they needed to be in clase they knew that maybe they needed to be there but they didn’t have to be there. The teacher didn’t care, their parents wouldn’t know, the principal wasn’t around. The only person who cared was some Americano, and they thought it was more fun to stare at me and giggle. Cute yes, but also frustrating.

So yes at times it is hard, but there are the good days. The days when your students get upset when they have to stop your activity. Days when even the shy kids raise their hands. Days that confirm that all those years of schooling were not for not.  A good way to end my week of teaching, and I’ll take it!