Teaching

Teaching

“We must give to life at least as much as we receive from it.  Every moment one lives is different from the next.  The good, the bad, the hardship, the joy, the tragedy, love and happiness are all interwoven into one single indescribable whole that is called life.  You cannot separate the good from the bad.  And, perhaps there is no need to do so either.”

-Jackie O

Ready for my first day of school!

Teaching is an incredible experience.  There are days when I come home and I wonder why I ever decided to become a teacher and then there are days when I know that this is what I want to do for the rest of my life.  I’ve already grown attached to my six kids.  With a small class it’s easy to get to know them well.  I know their personalities very well even though we can’t communicate verbally.  I’m learning how to teach to their needs and they are learning what I expect of them.  Oh, but they swear alll the time.  In both Samoan and English.  I can’t go an hour without one of my first graders coming up to me and saying, “so and so said, “Fucking ass.”’  The kid doesn’t know “tree” but he knows “fucking ass” …awesome.  They are also really, really violent, punching each other, screaming at each other, throwing stuff at each other.   This has been something that the other Worldteachers and I have found hard to change because it’s such a big part of their culture.  As long as I keep them engaged in the work they are great and eager to please, but as soon as they have a free second all hell breaks loose.  The classroom management is the easiest part at this point.  The hardest part is figuring out what the hell I’m doing.   I really have no idea.  It’s easy sitting in class and thinking about what I will do for my theoretical classroom but now that I have my own, I see that it’s much more of a challenge.  I have changed everything from lesson plans, to procedures, to the arrangement of my classroom countless amounts of times since being here.  Now that I know my class really well, I think we can finally settle into a steady routine.   The biggest problem is that I have 6 kids, all on 6 different levels.   I can’t teach anything whole group because the levels are too extreme, so I have been training my students on how to do centers.  This has been difficult because they have never done independent work, but they are finally starting to get it.  The resources have also been a problem.  I have everything I could possibly want for first grade, but my students aren’t on a first grade level.  I’ve been taking a lot from the kindergarten standards, but I don’t have any resources to work with. For the past two weeks I have been working on days of the week with them.  They have them memorized in order but they don’t have any concept of what a day is.  This has been very tricky to teach with the language barrier.  I’m starting to realize that a lot of classes here have been taught by just having student memorize.  This is even prevalent in reading.  I have two girls that can read at a second grade level but they have no idea what any of it means because they don’t speak any English.  Though its difficult and time consuming, I’m really enjoying it.  I have all the time in the world here so I never feel stressed. It’s amazing how much more time I seem to have without Facebook or television.  Through the chaos, I really like how things are going.  

How can you possibly be stressed when you have this to look at every night?

Did I mention that this is my front yard?