Teaching!

What a week. I started teaching on Tuesday, and it has been one of the most exhausting, yet exhilarating and eye-opening week of my life. Teaching is very hard, as I’m sure all of you teachers reading this are and nodding your heads. I was waiting until Friday after school to add to my blog about teaching, so here we go. This is a long one.

I was very nervous for this day. Chris explained it as “we know a nuclear bomb has been launched and is heading for our direction. All we have to do now is wait, and waiting is hard.” That might have been a little over-the-top, but I knew what he meant. All of the lesson planning was done, and I just wanted to get up in front of the class for the first day and get it over with. I knew if I survived the first day I’d be all set. I was deathly afraid of making a first impression and laying down the rules.
So we had morning assembly at 8:00. Teachers made a few announcements. The Juniors and Seniors demonstrated this cheer for the new freshman, a cheer that students would do at a pep rally or at a sports game. They were banging on desks and shouting, and it was really cool. I am planning on recording it somehow and showing it to everyone. I’m also brining it back to the States.
Anyway, my first class. Junior English Skills. I have two sections, each with 17 kids. I introduced myself quickly, took attendance, told them that I WILL NOT remember their names for a while and that I will butcher their names as well when I called them out. The students laughed at that. A teacher admitting that he or she is about to make a mistake eased the tension a bit. I then explained prayer, how I will say a quick prayer before each and every class. Then I handed out the syllabus and we went over everything (introduction to the course, course objectives, materials, grading, assignments, and finally the rules). I only have three rules, and they are the same for each of my classes: Respect Yourself, Respect Me, and Respect Each other. We talked about those three rules, and then quickly discussed what specific rules would fall under each of those main rules (for example, talking in class disrespected the teacher and others, so that’s breaking two rules, and so on.) Most of the syllabus and rules were modeled after some from a JV last year, but I also came up with a lot.
I did this in each class. I talked a lot. I surprised myself when I started getting really passionate about why each subject is important (the other one is Sophomore World History).
I also had each class call me “Professor”. They seemed to like that a lot and are still calling me that.
Classes are 40 minutes long. The first day was very technical. Just handing out syllabi and going on about rules and why this course is great. I was hoarse by the end of the 4 classes, but I made it. The Juniors are great, because they are not shy, they are more outgoing, and more willing to speak out in class. There are some kids who are still shy. For instance, when I ask if a certain student is there for attendance, he or she will basically whisper their name looking down at the desk. It’s cute. The Sophomores will take a lot of work to get them to participate. They are very shy and quiet. I head the Freshman are even worse.
After school was over for that day, I felt very good. I didn’t do anything too embarrassing, and I had the kids in class laugh a few times. I even noticed they were all interested when I was talking at some points, which was great. So it was a great day. The nervousness and excitement did not wear off for a few hours.

The second day was also fine. The students and I got past the nervousness of the first day. I spent the entire English Skills and History periods focusing solely on “Why This Subject Is Important”. I figured once we were all sure of this, the students would not questions this for the rest of the year. For the Juniors I gave them homework to write “What Writing Means to Me” and for the Sophs I had them write their own history. Writing their own history allowed them to point out things they wrote about, and I showed them how they picked things that were important and helped them notice certain themes that were similar in everyone’s histories. I also pointed out that each person will find certain things different with the same set of facts. The Juniors equated writing with many things, like fishing, running, playing a game, being stranded on an island, drowning. It was great because they were very honest. I let them know before I gave out the assignment that if they really really hated writing, that would be great, but they had to let me know. I think that threw them off guard, a teacher saying it’s ok if their students think writing awful. So we had fun reading off some of the examples in class. Then in each class I handed them a short list of why I think each of those subjects is important. We discussed it, then the day was over. Again, I was exhausted and even more hoarse since I did so much talking.

The next morning, during morning assembly, I made an announcement for signing up for this year’s drama production Romeo and Juliet. However, in front of all the kids, instead of saying Romeo and Juliet, I was about to say “Shakespeare in Love.” I caught myself before I finished, but everyone caught on and started to laugh, which I in turn thought was actually really funny, so I bounced back fine. So now under the sign up sheets, and whenever I remind people to sign up, the sheet reads or I say “Sign up for Romeo and Juliet….not Shakespeare in love”
The third day was fine. I realized a few things from the first two days of teaching: I need to talk slower and I need to dumb things down a bit, especially for my sophomores. See, the whole Social Studies curriculum is completely changing this year (I don’t know if I mentioned this yes….I’ve been writing this blog over a span of 3 days) and I am supposed to teach these Sophomores everything they were supposed to learn Freshman year in like 2-3 weeks. I found out that I not only have to teach them the material they missed, but the skills they do not know. They did geography and Pacific history last year. They do not know note taking, reading a time line, graphs, charts, and their geography is pretty poor. I decided to put that to the test on the third day for World History class: the entire day’s lesson was on how to take notes, and I was going to give them notes on Themes in History as an example. However, an hour before class I photocopied blank maps, wrote 17 different places on a key (as easy as places like North America and the Pacific Ocean to difficult things such as Egypt, Europe, The Mediterranean Sea, and Cuba). Out of 40 pairs of students ( I let them work in pairs) only 2 got all 17 perfect. A lot of people do not know very simple geographical locations. That bothered me a lot. What did these kids learn last year as freshman. So now I have to spend time having them review geography.
Anyway, in English skills I had the students write down 10 topics they want to write about this year. I told them if they can only become better writers by practicing their writing, why write about boring things. I’ll let them write about things they want to, as long as it can turn into long essays. They liked to hear that. Then we did a grammar review (what I’ll be doing next week too before we get into the serious writing aspect of the course).
At the end of the day, it started to pour, I mean a lot. I thought I was going to experience my first typhoon, but the winds did not get that strong. However, it poured nonstop from about 4 in the afternoon until past midnight. The girls, who get driven home every day at 5:00 PM, were stuck on campus until 7:30 because their bus was having problems. It was hectic for a while as soaked students were running all over the place, and the girls were waiting in line to use the one phone in the school. The guys were a little rowdy after they left, I think because the girls were on campus for so long.

Friday, yesterday, the fourth day of teaching, was a beautiful day. I had a study period second period (meaning I had to sit in the study hall as I watched over the freshman study) but other than that it was a drop day for the Juniors, so I only had two classes at the end of the day with the sophomores. We went over note taking again, then I played a map game with them, where I asked them questions and then they had to point to a piece of paper covering a place on the map indicating that is where their answer is located (for instance, my question would be “Gandhi is from here” and they would say India and the team that got it right would point to a note card covering India on the map….sadly, no one in both classes has heard of Gandhi. Seriously. No one.) It went very well

After the last class, I felt great. I loved the weekend so much at that point. It is now Saturday afternoon as I’m finishing this blog. I was so tired. Except I promised myself that, as a reward for finishing my first week of teaching, I would start Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. I was up until 1 reading it last night (my usual bed time is now 10, earlier if I can help it) and I finished it this afternoon. Amazing book. I was quite sad at the end.
After a nice game of Frisbee and a good night’s sleep, I’m excited to make next week lessons more efficient, and hopefully, I will have to do less talking. It’s not that I don’t want to do anything, but I feel I’ve been lecturing too much. This isn’t college. They would probably do better reading mixed with group activities mixed with individual research. A little bit of lecturing would be good.

Thanks for reading this blog. If you have any specific questions about teaching (I’m sure I forgot a lot) please please please ask me. Anyway, thanks for the letters to those who have sent them out. I miss you all a lot. I think reading Harry Potter has made me a little homesick for the first time, but I’m surrounded by really cool and fun people here, and I’m very busy. I’ll write again soon. Much love.

PS: With all of the love I have been surrounded by here, I have found some room for pure hatred: there is this rooster, I may have mentioned him before, who we affectionately call Peevus. He makes a racket at ungodly hours during the night and way to early in the morning. He now has a friend who screeches for minutes on end at like 4 and 5 in the morning. I think one morning I will hunt them down and kill them. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a loving person. I love to eat chicken.