Wednesday August 26, 2009
*names have been changed to protect the identity of the little devils who tested my patience to the brink today
9th Grade
You’d think that the class period before having a massive exam, most of the students would be attentive and ready to crack down on the last themes of the quarter, since clearly the teacher wants to review the most important concepts and give hints about the upcoming exam. Well you’d be wrong. The students seemed to be more interested in flipping through three-week old newspapers than writing down the necessary vocabulary about the Food Pyramid. After repeatedly asking Maria and Juan to quit talking and playing with the stereo in the corner and pay attention, I finally told them to leave the room. I stared Juan down, tried to look as serious as I could, and after asking me if I was kidding (clearly I was not), he got up and left. But not without first flashing me the finger as he slammed the iron door. I suppose some obscenities stretch across multiple countries.
I’m glad that I never yelled, though. If I so much as lose my cool for two seconds and look out of control, that would be the end—they’d know how to push my buttons every time, and there is only so many times I can threaten to lower their participation points. The thing is—and the students don’t know this—we have to pass them. No matter if they’ve skipped 75% of the classes and fail the test, in 99 out of 100 cases they will move on to the next grade, and English class is no different. No wonder apathy seems to have settled upon a number of the Honduran teachers in Talleres.
8th grade
Why I teach this class for 2 hours and 10 minutes on Monday afternoons followed by an hour and a half Tuesday mornings, I don’t know. Someone was joking when they made this schedule for the volunteer English teacher. Again, Monday afternoon, the day before the exam, you’d expect attention and lots of questions. A third of the class decided to give up and put their heads down and sleep through my repeated pleas of “this is REALLY important for you to know—wink wink.” Another third was chatting among themselves and throwing me dirty looks every time I asked them to participate and answer the questions on the board. There were, however, a couple kids who frantically wrote down every word I said and page I referred to in the book, and it is nice to see that there are yet kids who desperately want to make a better life for themselves. I respect their efforts and their energy. But for those others who I drag through the 130 minutes of class on Monday afternoons, my patience comes from some yet unknown part of me. Maybe English is hard to learn, maybe a classroom is the last place they want to be, and maybe they are so stuck in serious personal issues so that paying attention to me during class feels like pulling their arm hairs off with duct tape. I get that, I have a special sympathy for these kids that I probably wouldn’t have if I were teaching in a nice neighborhood school in the States. But it is really hard sometimes to muster up the energy to keep pushing them, to use a level voice when they put their heads down again and again, to not yell when they show up 15 minutes late for class and tell me they didn’t bring their book. Small prayers, LOTS of soothing tea, and thoughts of swimming in the Represa or running a trail after school brings me enough peace and patience to exclaim, “Please put away your homework for your other classes, stop talking with so-and-so, and open your book to page 236.”
II Nivel (Remedial 5th grade-ish)
Thank goodness it wasn’t while I was teaching this class, but Monday morning brought more than just tiredness and reluctance to the week. Jesus, an illiterate who is in Talleres both for bad behavior and no prior education, decided to place a giant metal bucket on top of the half-way opened door to the classroom so that when Herica, a classmate, walked through, the bucket would fall on her head. Except the heavy metal bucket fell on the professor’s head instead and knocked her to the ground. She is still in the hospital with a head injury—and she is pregnant. Needless to say, Jesus has been expelled at least for three weeks (what a great punishment, right? He’ll be SO upset, no school for three weeks! Darn.) and has extra aseos (chores) to do in hogar and around Talleres. You can begin to see a reason why my class roster changes all the time.
Today when I went to the II Nivel classroom to teach the lesson, I was armed with extra Daniela Dolares to entice them all into participating. But instead of going to a class, the room more resembled a post-battle wasteland after a devastating war. No professor (still in the hostpital, remember?) inside, desks turned upside down, random trash spewed on the floor, and 5 out of the usual 11 students. Let’s do the math: 3 expelled for participation in Monday’s prank; another 3 usual troublemakers placed in other classrooms for the time being to be watched; and 5 remaining, supposedly the better behaved of the class. Lucia was sleeping on the floor, Iva was looking at a book, and the other three were drawing posters of Michael Jackson. Go figure.
They were surprised to see me—“Tocamos inglés ahorrita?” they asked quizzically. “Yes, we do,” I said. Quickly changing the plan for the day into something that would accommodate only a few students of the class without getting too far ahead of the others, I drew the newer vocabulary on the board, passed out some small scraps of paper, and had them make cards to play Memory. My class period with II Nivel was more babysitting I suppose, since after drawing and writing the cards they promptly went back to coloring Michael Jackson’s hair. But I was able to work one on one with a quiet girl, Ana, who informed me last week that she had been expelled from school, but she still likes to come to my English class. With me, she has changed her attitude from sleeping in class and ignoring the teachers to wanting to participate. Known as one of the more difficult kids on the Ranch (ask other volunteers about her and they roll their eyes), Ana is very special to me. She has no friends and she is always doing extra chores in Hogar; in class, she puts her head on her desk to sleep as if there are just too many other people in there for her to deal with. But with just the smallest bit of positive reinforcement, she instantly changes, and her usually blank expression instead becomes a beautiful, rare smile. This is a lesson learned today that I will not forget the whole time I am here on the Ranch.
Ana has claimed since day one in my class that she has no English notebook, so could I please give her one? I declined each time she asked, since not only did I not have an extra notebook, but she was always sleeping anyways rather than participating; plus, I had heard stories about her as a little thief. But today, she proudly showed me a brand new notebook just for English. I admit I felt bad that indeed, she really needed a new notebook, and I had been too consumed by my own preconceived ideas to give her request a chance. Today, Ana wanted me to help her. “Show me,” she said.
After drawing all the food vocabulary into her brand new notebook and excitedly writing down the words in English, she wanted to show me that she could read. We read 5 stories in her Level 3 Spanish reader and she was so proud of herself for getting through stories of 2 or 3 pages. Ana came to the Ranch in 2006 not even knowing the alphabet, and now she can pronounce most of the harder words in her reader and even has comprehension. It was quite an experience to be helping someone learn to read in Spanish when my own Spanish is only so-so. I was a tutor and a student with her for an hour today, and when she triumphed over a big word like “orgulloso” (proud), it was my triumph, too.
I was glad when 1:00 rolled around and I could usher the kids out of the classroom for lunch, but I didn’t exit myself until looking above the door to make sure no heavy metal tins rested up there waiting to knock me out and send me to the hospital, too. The coast was clear, and I was free until another day.
*DISCLAIMER: the above snapshots are indeed NOT comprehensive; not every class I teach is a test. I have had a handful of angel classes this week where I handed out copious Daniela Dolares, smiled, laughed, and found myself truly happy to be in the classroom teaching these special kids. Soon I will write about some of my favorites, who do their homework every time and who always want to try to make me proud with their good work in their notebooks. One girl, a very special kid for me, even asked to come to my office and work on the vocab together after school. For these moments, I am truly grateful. Talleres, then, cannot be simply put as the remedial/vocation school for all the bad kids who aren’t smart. It also houses some of the nicest, most hardworking kids that I’ve met here. All of them though just need some extra attention and recognition that they CAN do this—and that makes all the difference.
Writing this in retrospect of one day removed, I realize that my first day of school actually went pretty well. No one yelled in my face or told me they hated me, like the other volunteers told me they likely would do, and no one tried to throw rocks at me like they did at the old volunteer maestro once. In fact, only one of my students, Isaac, kind of fell asleep; the rest were awake and participating, even asking questions. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the two classes that I taught were the best part of my day in Talleres, not the worst part. Granted, I had quite the morning before classes even began. Once again, I learned a lot about how things are done in Honduras.
I arrived at school at 7:10, early enough to set some things up in my office before morning prayer at 7:25. I had been preparing for days in advance, creating each lesson plan and practicing what I was going to say. My first class was scheduled to begin at 9 am, and I was to have three 45 minute classes. The previous volunteer in my position had just changed the whole class schedule around in Talleres for each individual grade. (There are 6th through 9th graders here and they are broken up into levels a, b, c and sometimes d, but the ages in a grade vary depending on how much education a kid has when he gets to the Ranch.) This new schedule allows for more classes per week and less time in each class, so instead of me having to teach a 2 hour class twice a week (and the kids having to sit through it), I would teach three or four 45 minute classes per day. Shorter classes more often is MUCH better for language learning, and I was thankful that this would be the new schedule for me.
This new, elaborate schedule—which the old volunteer had cleared with Jorge—was to begin on my first day. The old volunteer purposefully did not give me the old schedule so that we could not return to it, no matter how much the teachers here would be opposed to changing anything. All of us teachers sat down with Jorge soon after prayer for a meeting about the new hours and my first day teaching. As soon as Jorge mentioned that the new hours were beginning, chaos erupted in the tiny classroom where we sat. Four angry voices rattled off their discontent in rapid Spanish, each of the female teachers building off the heated responses of the others. I didn’t stand a chance to get a word in—at least until Jorge asked me why the old volunteer wanted to change the hours. I tried my best to explain that the old schedule was too challenging for the volunteers in terms of planning and that the classes were too long for these young kids to pay attention the whole time. I pointed to the past three volunteers who left the position dissatisfied and frustrated.
The other women teachers would have none of it, and though I suggested that we try the new schedule starting the following week, they stubbornly resisted. After much more discussion about the behavior of the kids and what would be best, Jorge capped the meeting by deciding that we would go back to the old hours for the rest of this quarter, and then “discuss” starting the new ones in the next partial. My stomach dropped; I felt like someone had just stolen my homework that I had worked so hard on. Another battle lost.
On top of it all, I locked myself out of my classroom twice in under an hour (I was very flustered, as you can imagine) and had to search for the electrician teacher to open the door for me—who then asked me for my phone number so he could take me to sushi this weekend in Tegucigalpa. That’s all I need: a balding, middle-aged Honduran electrician teacher chasing me who can’t even say the word “sushi” and hides his premature aging with a sad looking comb-over. Welcome to Talleres!
After the meeting, I ran around the school grounds to each teacher to ask whether I was supposed to teach their kids, and when, and where, and how often. Of course, no one has a copy of the old hours here, so nobody really knows what my schedule should be. I quickly scribbled down a makeshift schedule from what I could gather, and it seemed that I had one class that day before lunch. Relieved to at least be able to have a minute to gather my thoughts, I returned to my office to plan. Ten minutes later, there was a knock at my door, and Angel, the youngest in level IIIb, told me I was supposed to be teaching their class right now. Oh. OK then. I grabbed my stuff, headed off to class, and winged it.
The kids in both of the classes I taught loved my power point presentation of my life with pictures of family (“your sister is so fresh and beautiful! Is she coming to visit?”), my pets, my friends, my house (“you LIVE there? you have a POOL?”), my favorite foods, and my favorite activities. They howled at the video of me faceplanting in the snow after attempting a ski jump in the Alps, and they listened entranced at the concept of fishing with a fake bug. After explaining my “Pelicula Puntos” system (points to earn a movie day), and how they can earn Daniela Dolares for our bodega (Danielle dollars for a class store), and the fact that we’d have a Song of the Day that could be Michael Jackson music, the kids were sold—I think. I also gave them an assignment: find out the meaning of the Word of the Day (‘help’) and bring the answer to class the next time to earn a Daniela Dolare. Three kids already came running up to me today to tell me they knew the word.
The classroom system here is so different than in America, and I am sure that I will come to realize more just how much. When I asked the kids what kinds of things they would like to have in our classroom store (bodega), their answers surprised me and brought me back to the fact that these kids are living in a community setting with little privacy and few personal belongings. “Boxers!” they shouted. “Socks! Underwear! Hair gel!” I never would have wanted underwear in a class store growing up—that would be way too embarrassing, and I had plenty at home. I’d much rather of had cool pens and markers and candy, maybe a fake tattoo. They’d love to have those things, too, but there is a distinct difference here between want and need.
In the evening, I had my first Projecto with one of the girls from my hogar, Jocelin, and her older sister, both very timid young ladies who seemed to be rather awkward around each other at first. Projecto is an evening activity where brothers and sisters on the Ranch have a chance to connect with each other (when they are otherwise usually separated into Hogars) by spending the evening cooking a meal or dessert with a volunteer and playing a game. Candy, another volunteer, and I made brownies with Jocelin and her sister and then played the game ‘Sorry!’ while listening to Reggaetone, the most popular music here. The game became pretty heated when it was a race between Jocelin and her sister to get all their pieces back to the Home square. The two sisters were laughing hysterically and making jokes, challenging each other and just behaving like any two close sisters do playing a game and having a good time. They ate tons of brownies and we bought them each a Pepsi. They savored all 700mL of it.
By the end of the evening, the two sisters were hugging each other and telling us they had a wonderful time hanging out with us in the volunteer house. It was a true reward for me to see their joy and happiness to feel special for a night, to spend time with just family and some loving volunteers when family is quite a rare treasure here. At one point during the night, Jocelin’s sister asked me whether I missed my family. I wasn’t quite sure how I should answer the question without making her feel bad. “Yes,” I said. “Of course I do.” But at least I can talk to them when I want and know that I’ll see them soon enough, I thought to myself. Most of the kids here don’t know when, or if, they will see their parents again.
As I plan for the rest of the week—making sure to be flexible enough now to NOT have plans—it helps to remember that I can only offer my best. I am finding that the key to being a successful teacher is to relax, breathe, give it all you can that day, and of course, just smile when I don’t understand something.
-DJ
