Monday

This is the hardest job I have had so far in my lifetime. I come home at the end of the day emotionally drained. My level of respect for teachers has risen dramatically.

Our first day was chaotic, to say the least. Not unlike a regular first day of school, where no one quite knows where they are supposed to be or what they are supposed to be doing. Mix-ups and names to learn. But add to that the typical behavioral dysfunctions multiplied by ten. Or one hundred.

Our first class of the morning has one boy who clearly wants to run the show and was very uncooperative. The second class of the morning has two boys who constantly talk trash to each other and have to be physically restrained, a boy who is very hyper, and another boy who will not participate in any activity but loudly draws attention to himself by any means. One little girl has a very serious attitude problem and no qualms about trying to get other kids in trouble. Add to this a different girl who is either having trouble understanding the language because she has an auditory problem, or English is her second language. Needless to say, it will definitely be a challenge this summer to teach anything.

For the first exercise of the day, the teacher had them each create a self portrait and write something about themselves. Here's mine:

The kids seemed to really like this activity. It was a way for her to get a feel for their abilities right away.

For the second exercise she placed an orchid in the front of the room and asked the class to write as much as they could about it. Some children wrote sentences, others lists, and still others drew a picture of the flower because they simply didn't want to write. There was no way right or wrong way to complete this exercise; it was, again, a way for the teacher to assess their style and level. If you are picturing a quiet classroom, studying a flower and writing their thoughts, you are picturing a classroom other than ours. During the midst of this assignment, there were several boys who were declaring how much they hated flowers and wanted to crush them, pencils continually fell off desks, desks were being opened an shut randomly for unknown reasons, and other children were continually asking how to spell each and every word. It sounded so much easier when they presented the curriculum to us in training!

One thing that stood out to me right away about a few of the kids was how physical they were. Not so much that they were constantly touching each other (kids tend to do that) but that several of them were quick to hug and hang on me, a virtual stranger. They want to wrestle with the tutor, and poor guy...I can tell he has no idea what to do!

My heart goes out to the teacher as she struggles to find her footing, gain control of the class and actually teach. I want to support her, but I am not sure how she wants me to go about doing that. I don't want to usurp her or clash with her teaching style. I'm hoping to unite as more of a team by the end of the week. I think the most difficult thing for all of us is the switching of the classrooms mid-morning. Getting a whole new group of kids takes a big chunk out of instructional time and seems to wind them up. As the week continues and we (hopefully) settle into a routine, I pray the switching won't be so hard on everyone.