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!

montheversary!

September 28, 2010

I don’t know how I missed my one-month being here in Leyte. Perhaps because I’m so worried about the future. Where will I be? Who will be my supervisor? Where will everyone else be? Who will be their supervisors? A lot to look forward to, and to be honest it doesn’t feel like I’ve done all that much.

We worked last week on our PACA and had an awesome plan. The school had some unused buildings so we were going to do an English camp/clean out the rooms project. We were going to have the students develop a game plan, and teach them English working words, and the kids who came were going to report back to their classes. Something totally different but also fun at the same time. We went to pre-present it to the principal and was shot down.  She suggested we help with a teachers’ inservice and she would give us details for it tomorrow. We stressed that we would only be doing two topics and were thinking of great ideas. This plan wouldn’t use any of our PACA budget because it was school sponsored so we could make amazing visuals and handouts. Not our original idea, but it was actually our back up plan. Today we found out from out TCF that the principal wants us to do a beautification project. Hopefully tomorrow we get this straight so we can start planning for week 10 (I can’t believe this is midway through week 6, we are halfway done with training).

Week 6 means we are also half way through language training. This is such a struggle. Lately I’ve been really working on trying to use Waray instead of answering immediately. It’s not that I don’t know how to answer most of the time, it is just I don’t allow myself to. Curse you English frame-of-mind. I’ve got it so that I rarely say yes and no any more, but I still have trouble with what no to use (waray for existential things and diri for no). The kids say Good Morning! (doesn’t matter the time of the day) and it is hard not to kind of mimic them and say Good Morning! Not as you normally would say it but with the same inflection and cadence as them (it just sounds happier). Other habits are starting to form. One day it will click, but for now it is a hot mess.

Teaching! I love that every time I walk into my class the kids stand up and say, “Good Morning Teacher, and Mabuhay (welcome)! As they pump their fists in the air. I love that. I also love how much they pay attention to me. If only I could just slow down. This has always been a shortcoming of my teaching. I have an excited personality and just tend to rattle away. It is not so much nerves but pure joy and energy level. I’m glad I not only got to teach today, but also tomorrow and Thursday.

So a month in and I’m still feeling green around the gills, but I love it!