Tuesday, October 20, 2009

First Day of Class - Monday, 5 October 2009

First Day of Class

Did I say I relish a challenge? Well, there is a difference between giving someone a challenge and setting someone up for failure. I don't get this system of education. Is it British? Is it international? Is it Kazakh? Is it old-fashioned? Or is it just simply wrong?

Sophia and I walked with Christy to school; it was a pleasant, crisp morning. Shortly after we arrived the children ran out of the rooms to go into the main hallway for the National Anthem. I watched Sophia pretend to sing along.

Then we returned to the rooms, where I learned that I would not teach until 12:35 today. They showed me the English book, practice book, and teacher's edition. I had no other supplies, nothing else telling me what to do or how to do it.

The Russian vice principal came in, spoke Russian to the other teachers, and then I was informed that the schedule had been changed--I would teach English first! I had no idea what to do, and the children were as loud as possible. They did respond very well to "Good morning, class!" but I could not spend all day doing that. I went around and tried to learn names. It was too hard, and I think some of the children were frustrated that I could not pronounce their names. And the rest of the class became very disruptive.

I was saved by the vice principal returning to say that I would not be teaching English first after all, that instead I would have planning time. The children would have Kazakh language lessons, and the foreign children were pulled out for Russian language lessons.

I went into the teacher's lounge with the supplies I had to study them and try to figure it out. The textbook is very poor. The children do a lot of drawing and coloring, the teacher tells a lot of stories. The book is very thin and it does not look like it should take a long time to go through, at least not in an English immersion class where the children are supposed to be learning on par with British and American kids in grade 1.

The American teacher told me what she was doing--introducing 3 letters of the alphabet a day and pictures with their sounds, and I used the computer to make "flash cards" with the pictures for the sounds. The printer in my room wasn't working, so I used the one in the neighboring room.

My class had PE today; the boys changed in the room while the girls changed somewhere else. There was a lot of running around and screaming by boys in just underwear. Two boys did not go to PE. I got to talk to the woman who was staying with one boy. He is from Saudi Arabia, and knows no Russian and very little English, and thus is uncomfortable in this school. She is his nanny and will stay with him until he lets her leave (which will be never, now that he is used to having her here.) She is from the Philippines, and she has a husband, an 11-year old daughter, and 2 stepchildren in the Philippines, whom she has not seen in the 5 months that she has been working as a nanny. She hopes to become an accountant one day, and plans on finishing school after she's been a nanny for a few years.

After PE it was my turn to teach. One of the Kazakh teachers showed me a trick she uses to get their attention--"1, 2, 3, 4!" For 1 she holds up one hand, for 2 she holds up the other, for 3 she lays one arm flat on the desk, for 4 she lays the other arm on top of the first. Ready to listen.

It works to a degree. I noticed quickly that I had quite a few students who were eager to learn, and several who did not care one tiny bit. My lesson was somewhat interesting, and I was as enthusiastic and expressive as I could be, telling the story of Toby the Toad who wants to go to school but he is so slow. (The teacher's guide had come with masks to help tell the story.) However, the class got extremely loud many times, and I simply stopped. "1, 2, 3, 4!" I said and then I went around the room, carefully and dramatically explaining that I would not teach until I heard nothing. Many children played with items on their desks, I took away these items. (After a few warnings, wherein I made it clear that I would take items if they were being played with.) One student, Alex (obviously not his real name!) became extremely angry and I am pretty sure he was saying mean things about me in Russian. I don't understand Russian that well, but I understand tone of voice, and he definitely was angry at me! I made a point of telling him he could keep his pen if he was quiet. He was quiet for about 3 seconds and then let out a loud scream. I took his pen. He yelled at me again. Who knows? I would not be surprised if he was cursing.

Finally it was lunchtime. Music plays in the hallway at the end of a lesson, and the children know this means to jump out of their seat and run noisily to the hall. There is no transition. There is no work to do when you get to a classroom before lessons have begun.

At lunchtime we met with the principal who told us our new schedules for the week. Christy would have 32 hours of lessons again (the same as she had last week. However, I learned, she is being paid overtime for this, something that would be unheard of in South Carolina.) I will teach math this week, and starting tomorrow, I will teach 2nd grade math. When I looked surprised at this, the principal asked, "You can teach 2nd grade math?" to which I of course answered yes. Yes, I can teach 2nd grade math, but you give me less than one day to prepare, and I don't even know who their teacher is or what the have already learned, or what they are currently doing. Later, I found out that they haven't had math yet, and introducing them to the English numbers 1 - 20 will be enough.

After lunch, I was going to introduce the letters A, B, and C, but instead I decided to read a story first. This was a great idea. The second great idea was to pass out paper (they do not have an English notebook) and have them draw as I read. I read "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you see?" by Eric Carle, and yes, this book can take a full hour to get through. The children were QUIET and for the most part WELL-BEHAVED. I had them draw each animal as we got to them. I drew the animals on the board as well. After each animal, I repeated multiple times what the animal was, what its color was (in the book), and what sound it makes. And I counted, over and over, how many animals we had drawn so far. Then, I would read what the next animal was before showing its picture, to see if anyone knew what that animal was. A few students knew "dog" and "cat" and happily said "arf-arf" or "meow" when I asked what noise the animal makes (before showing a picture.) One student, Matthew (again, obviously not his real name), who liked to be out of his seat, hit people, and talk to me in Russian, drew a tiger on the board. I covered his tiger and asked him to help me draw the animals. He was much better behaved while occupied.

In fact, they all are much better behaved while occupied. They had so much fun drawing the animals, and later that afternoon I hung the pictures. When they returned to the classroom (after who knows what activity) they were thrilled to see their drawings.

Then, I had math--which I had not prepared for. There is no math book either. So we did the numbers 1 to 10. Again, this took almost an hour, and again, the children were better behaved because they were occupied. Again, I repeated myself over and over and over. For each number, we wrote the numeral, spelled the number, and colored in that number of squares (their math notebooks are grid paper.)
Matthew was not well behaved during this time, and did not do his work. Towards the end of the period, I started drawing smiley faces on the papers of students who had finished. Suddenly, this boy knew what to do, and he worked furiously to get a smiley face too. When he finished, and I gave him a smiley face, he gave me an extremely tight and happy hug.

So... The children need to be OCCUPIED, but there also needs to be some system of management. I do not have them all of the day, I do not have my own space in the classroom. I do not have them for lunch or recess, but perhaps I can take away a bit of recess anyways (if I can figure out when recess is.)

So, to be in a classroom that you do not own, where there is no discipline, perhaps is worse than being in a classroom which is yours, where you can from Day 1 set the tone and set the routines (we're talking about similarly behaved students here). Perhaps... we'll see.

Being in a school where you're expected to be able to waltz into a room and teach a lesson without even knowing that you will be teaching, without a book, without a curriculum, that's... um... interesting.

Sophia apparently had a great day and talked excitedly about Russian class and music class and the science activity they did (predicting what would sink or float). During the walk home she clung to her teacher. So at least she is having a good time, even if she is not learning anything (other than Russian.) Really, the students so far this school year have learned close to nothing, and there is no order in the school. And the parents are paying for this.

Hopefully, now that the American teachers are here, there can be some sort of order. The schedules that keep changing will stop changing, we will all know our schedules and come to own our classes some more. The children will be more immersed in English and learn it more quickly. We will find a way to stop the kids who love to hit from hitting.

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