My Students

I realized that I have been writing about things that are out of the ordinary, and I want to tell you about a normal day for me, especially in describing my students, whom I love. :)

I wake up at 5:50am, and attempt to act awake for my P.E. class. We do taebo on the cement volleyball court because guys can see all the grassy places, and the girls get embarrassed. Hey, if you want to lay on the cement when we stretch and do abdominal exercises at the end, that's fine with me. There are 19 girls in my class. A lot have been skipping lately. Our class average is a C- because the entire grade is attendance and participation. Failing PE... how embarrassing. The girls love to punch. They don't like to kick as much, but I think that the punching makes them feel empowered. Some of them are so cute and try really hard, and some pretend to get hurt. Some girls think that they have the week off if they have their period. "No. Exercise actually helps you to feel better." I own you. I can already see a lot of improvement in the level of cardio activity. I feel really good about that. We offered the class to upperclassmen whose need for PE credits is more urgent because of graduation, but we have a couple girls from ESL in it. Why do they think they're in the class? I have no idea, but we'll give them credit anyway because they come every day. I face the huge orange sun as it rises every day, and if I wasn't doing side kicks and knee raises I would take pictures.

I run back to the room and get in the shower and run off to staff meeting at 7:00. At 7:20, we meet the students on the front steps of the ad building for any announcements. I go back to my room and pray and read my Bible. Then I start working on lesson plans for the day. I don't mean to procrastinate, but I just happen to work better under pressure. I can spend hours and hours trying to plan good things for them to do, and I usually end up changing my mind a half hour before class starts and sticking with those plans. I don't like my system, but it's hard to catch up because there is so much to do every night that I really don't have time to work on them before that.

My first class is 10th grade English, and there are 38 students in the class, which is way too big. We are reading the book Night by Elie Wiesel, and some of the despise it with a passion. It is most definitely a challenging book for them to read because a lot of the vocabulary is very descriptive, and a lot of it has to do with cultural and historical things. I'm really trying to teach them to figure out the meaning of words from the context. Most of the Sudanese students sit in the back and look half asleep. A lot of the girls who are very good students sit to my right, and there are some loud Egyptian guys in the very front right by my desk. Lately we've been having too much talking while I take attendance, so I have been making everyone get out of the classroom and practice coming back in quietly. Krista, Jessica, and I have started doing that with all of our classes. I took attendance in 9B probably four times the other day. For each time we have to practice, we deduct points because it is a waste of time. I thought that it would be a good review of the parts of speech to do mad libs with a partner--a horrendous idea. There was so much noise and confusion and frustration. No, it does not make sense. For some reason the only adjectives people could think of were colors. It was a mess. We started on our next thing, and there was way too much noise today. I don't know what was wrong. It got so bad that I made them put everything away and sit in silence for five minutes--no sleeping, no reading, no writing. We practiced being quiet. Overall I really like the class. I just feel bad because the classroom is so crowded, and it's hard to make sure that everyone is understanding the material when there are almost 40 kids to teach.

Next I have lunch--rice mixed with chopped up fried noodles with this thin red sauce on it. Whatever is in the sauce is the variable--potatoes, okra, eggplant, potatoes, or green beans. I have a little free time then, which is when I finish preparing for my afternoon classes. I don't mean to procrastinate and always feel so rushed, but that's how things always seem to turn out.

Next I teach Grammar & Writing to 9A. This is the more advanced ninth grade class. I am very good with grammar, and I can write well because I am very detail-oriented, but teaching these subjects is hard. I ask Jessica for suggestions a lot because she is so creative. I get bogged down by the details, and she helps me to see the big picture. She is my hero. I teach an idiom every day at the beginning of my classes, and, just as Jessica strongly warned me, they use whatever I teach them... all the time. "To drive someone crazy." The first example that popped into my head as loud music at midnight on a minibus. The second one was when students snap their fingers and shout "Miss! Miss!" at me. So they did it intentionally. haha. I taught "dressed to kill"--biggest mistake of my life. I said that it meant "wearing one's best clothes and looking good." I will be coming back from my PE class covered in sweat with the frizzy hairs around the crown of my head running wild, and someone will say, "Miss, you are dressed to kill!" There's one guy in 9A that always tells me I am dressed to kill. Stop. Just stop. We have figured out that we need to be really careful with the definitions for vocabulary that we give them. Category means "group," right? "I love to sing, so I joined the singing category." I can't remember the hilarious example that Jessica told me about... but just so you know, it was good. I teach Grammar and Writing for two periods, and they are really tired because it is right after lunch. Some of the students are in their own worlds and stare at the walls and ceiling. There are two students in 9A that are good friends, and Krista, Jessica, and I just laugh and laugh when we think about the combination. They seem like the least likely friends in the entire world (I don't want to go into much detail), but the one has his arm around the other one (perfectly normal in Egyptian culture) and they joke and punch each other. It's just too funny.

After 9A, I teach 9B for two periods. They are a very... energetic class. I think they're hilarious, but there's just too much noise. There are some students in this class that just make me laugh to think about. I love them, but sometimes I just think, "Why did getting up to erase the board in the middle of class ever seem like a good idea?" We made a seating chart for both ninth grade classes, and it seems to help somewhat. The students all shout out the answers when they know them (not just 9B, but more so than others). I make them raise their hands, so they wave their arms frantically while shout and snapping their fingers and yelling, "Ya Miss!" Then they apologize when I remind them yet again that snapping at me is very rude and I will not answer them. There are two students in 9B that will shout out the answer no matter what the teachers say. I'm laughing really hard as I write this, but it's so frustrating at the time. 

They are a lot of fun, and it reminds me of any high school class I've ever been in. There are a few kids that always want to volunteer. There are a few that pretend to fall asleep to look cool even if they're not really tired. There are some that completely understand the material, and there are some that... well... There are a couple people that have a very difficult time in the class, and I have sympathy, but it is also really frustrating. I will go to great lengths to write notes on the board and then go around and check to see that they wrote everything down. The problem is that they have no idea how to use their notes, and they don't like to think for themselves. That sounds harsh, and I don't mean it to be, but they would rather find a direct quote from a book than to interpret things or apply principles themselves, like almost anyone else.

Students haven't been turning in homework for my class, and the quarter is over in a few weeks, so they are all coming to me to try to make up what they missed. First my policy was absolutely no makeup work, but then I decided to give 50% for latework, and now my policy 70% credit. It's just frustrating. They think that my class' homework is not important because it is writing and not math. Excuse me? You don't know the difference between "is" and "are," and you don't think my writing is important? Good luck writing 15 page papers in college. I say to write 15 sentences, you write five, and then you get mad because I give you a 33%? Seriously? It's just frustrating.

I'll just post this because it's better to get something up than nothing. (That's what I tell my students--it's better to get some credit than none...) I love them though. I love them so much.