Two Days of Teaching + One Saturday Morning

Two full days of school this week were more than enough to exhaust me after a five day break.

Thursday morning, as usual, I headed to Prepa (the Honduran name for kindergarten.) I was trying to squeeze an entire week of curriculum into two days, so everything was going to be pretty real. The kids were fairly energized after five entire days of vacation. My objectives for Prepa on Thursday were to learn the letter 'S' and to learn the words and concepts of "mother," "father," "sister," and "brother." But before we could begin class, I had created an entirely new seating arrangement for the students. I honestly spent about 40 minutes planning it out. The kids had gotten really antsy and loud and I was hoping that mixing everyone up at each table would help in that respect. Anyway, by the time they were all situated in their new spots, they were all talking and playing and fighting just as much as usual and all I could do was hope that they would remember their new seating assignments.

Because we were fitting all the week's content into two days, I had decided to do three learning stations, instead of the usual one or two - this meant that my two aids and I were all teaching simultaneously, rather than me teaching one station while they supervised and controlled the children at each other station. Dulce, who speaks English, was helping the kids at her station draw pictures of things that started with letter 'S' around an outline that I had drawn of the letter in each and every student's English notebook. Isis, my aid who does not speak English (also the aid who hot-glued the posters to the wall,) was working with the kids to trace the letter 'S' on a worksheet. And I was showing my station two photos of my family, one from this summer and one from almost ten years ago. Using my family as a visual, I taught the kids "mother," "father," "sister," and "brother," and they loved seeing pictures of my family. The thing is, I wasn't sure whether or not this lesson would work. But it completely did. And they got what I was teaching them, which felt wonderful. I told them the names of all my family members and all the kids got super excited when I told them that "brother" is named Jeremy, because there is also a student in the Prepa class named Jeremy. The only complication in the whole matter was when I tried to teach them "sister," because I have none. I explained that I was the sister in the family, the sister of Jeremy. But they know me as Miss Eliza, not as "sister," so that was a bit rough. But I'm still beyond thrilled at the success of the lesson.

Thursday afternoon meant second grade. I teach second grade English for two periods every afternoon, but on Thursdays I teach them Science for one period and Physical Education for the other. One of the other volunteers who usually teaches them science writes the lesson plan and I try to execute it. They were learning about the mouth and had to glue 32 teeth to a drawing they had made - 16 on top, 16 on bottom. The concept of the number of teeth, however, was extremely difficult for the rowdy second graders to grasp. We ended up having to pull many teeth off their construction paper mouths, which ended up with very lopsided dentistry. By the time the period was over, I was ready to get them out of the crazy-hot classroom and ready to play the subject pronoun running game we hadn't made it to the week before. That was going to be the first half of PE, and the second half would be an actual game. Except for the second graders are still so much of a mess that they only made it through 15 minutes of PE before we had to head back to the classroom where we sat and attempted to review vocabulary. I so feel for those kids, and the fact that they have five different teachers only complicates things. I get along with them and they like me, but teaching them is really an uphill battle. For every one of their teachers. It's said that they are currently the worst class at CBS.

By Friday we were learning number three in Prepa and continuing with family. There's this little boy in the class, named Hernan, who is new to the school this year, meaning he has even less English than the other 4 and 5-year-olds. He's super tiny, adorable, and just all over the place all the time. During stations on Friday he'd wander around instead of working at his station. So I decided to just grab him and hold him close next to me while I worked with the other stations. We spend a lot of time around here cuddling the little ones and not worrying about contracting lice. When he got bored of hanging out with me he simply wandered back to his table. It worked very nicely, and honestly, I really do think I'm catching him up. The only other thing of note during Friday morning was when a boy told me he had to go "poopoo." So I told him to go to the bathroom. He just stood there and repeated that he had to go "poopoo." I again said that he should go. When he remained in front of me, I asked him if he could go by himself or if he needed help. He needed help. And that's how I learned that my kindergarten children are not fully potty-ready. Joy.

Second grade on Friday got off to a real rocky start. One of the volunteers who had been teaching them before lunch gave the entire class lunch detention. This meant that when I went into the room during lunchtime to arrange the desks into stations, I couldn't, as the room was full of students. It also meant that when lunch was over and class had begun, every single student had to use the bathroom. So that was fun. Even more fun were the twelve minutes of absolutely deafening noise that the students took to arrange their own desks into stations. And by the end of the two periods I had realized that the kids were not getting much of anything out of what I was trying to teach them. Which is pretty concerning.

Saturday morning was interesting. We had an 8am meeting with the Honduran administration and teachers. When we all stumbled into school together, the three male volunteers showing up 25 minutes late, we sat down to a very Honduran meeting. For three and a half hours, the Hondurans talked back and forth, heatedly discussing their grievances and issues with the school and its systems. We then took a short break for breakfast and Coca-Cola, set up a ridiculous student council system for ourselves, and resumed the debating. I was put on the "environment" committee; whether that means natural environment, school atmosphere, or fun planning, we have no idea whatsoever. I've been told that this crazy "student council" is set up each year for all the teachers and doesn't mean a thing. After three and a half hours we all headed back home and back to bed.

So that was school for this week. Teaching is freaking me out. And I've got so much to learn before I'll begin to feel even the tiniest bit of confidence in what I'm currently doing.