So my counterpart (Radmilla) calls me about an hour before I'm due at school last Tuesday - the second day of the term - and tells me an emergency has come up with her brother and she needs to go to Podgorica for him. She apologetically asks if it would be okay for me to do her classes. I am not excited. Partly because it's her most difficult day - five classes, three of them second graders. One 6th. One 8th. And the 8th is a group I have not even met. I was due to only "lead" the 6th grade class as I had already observed/met them. And then for the 2nd graders, I was to do one fun activity while she taught most of the class.
As mentioned, I was NOT excited. But Radmilla was pitiful enough, suggested the classes could be cancelled in case no other English teachers had a free period to cover them and if I didn't want to do it, etc., so of course what was I going to say as a new PC volunteer? Then, before she hung up, she mentioned this 8th grade class I had not yet met was, of course - of course - her most diffcult in terms of behavior, with wild boys who wouldn't sit still, wouldn't stop talking, etc. Sigh. Here's the school, by the way--pretty basic/boring:
Of course that 8th grade class was first up. And yeah, it went about as well as you'd think, considering the above. They all lost their minds to be alone with the American who they had not yet met, and couldn't stop interrupting the "lesson" to ask questions about me, about America, etc. I promised them if they could quickly get through the bulk of the required vocab/grammar, I'd be happy to chat with them at the end. And that worked for about 5 minutes. It wasn't until I suggested sending 2-3 of the worse offenders (boys - it's almost always boys) to "visit" the Director (principal) that things calmed down to a mild chaos, and even then very little of substance was learned.
Luckily, the 6th grade class was next, and while they were a little antsy, too, with regular teacher gone, at least the behavior was decent and we had a good class. This one may end up being my favorite class. Apparently, all these kids are from small nearby villages.
The day ended with 3 straight classes of 2nd graders. Of course they are adorable--and generally well-behaved. Certainly more so than the 8th graders. But they're also like 7 years old, so there was a lot of distraction, movement, etc. And I had NOTHING prepared since I didn't think I'd be teaching them, so I spent most of the lesson reviewing what they had learned during the last term: numbers, colors, animals, and toys. Then tried to play Simon Says while introducing parts of the body.
Again, good kids, pretty well behaved, but exhausting to entertain and I was definitely feeling it by the end of the day. Peace Corps wants us to teach around 15 classes per week, with 3 more hours allotted for planning/grading (ha, more like 5 is needed) and then 3-5 more hours for extracurricular stuff (e.g., Drama club, English club, etc.). Unfortunately, Radmilla's schedule includes 18 lessons: 9 for the three 8th grade classes, 3x a week each, the 6th grade class three times, and then the three 2nd grade classes, twice a week. I would love to not have the second graders, but that leaves me with 12 hours, so we're still trying to figure stuff out.
After a month or so, they want me to switch to Teacher Linka, who has all the 9th grade classes, so my schedule will change; and then afer a couple of months with them, they want to pass me around like a show pig so the other English teachers/grades/kids get to...I dunno...."experience" the American? Not too thrilled about it, but I did get here halfway through the year. I'm hoping/assuming/planning to "ask" to have a set schedule for the next school year so I'll have the same kids all year - if I could pick, only 5th, 6th, 7th, and/or 9th grades. We'll see. Pray for me.
Disclaimer: Any thoughts, observations, opinions, etc. are of course mine and not necessarily the views of Peace Corps.
No comments:
Post a Comment