February 14, 2013
Our first official week of teaching was this week and I am happy to say that, excusing a few bumps, things went well… for the most part.
The first day of school was pretty rough, but not because of my classes, more because my principal decided to come give me her usual 6 am wake up call but this time she crossed a line. She came in and smelled the coffee I was brewing and told me to give her a cup, now I am trying to become a better sharer and everything but with my coffee, come on, that's just too much too soon! But what was I to do?I had to hand her the cup, with a single tear slowly falling down my face. After the cup of coffee she, told me to clean out my fridge and put this humungous watermelon in it- umm sure I guess. When I walked, the two feet, to school with my materials the teachers asked me when I was going to teach, as if I have any idea the school’s schedule or when English period is- but sure I guess I will just start now, oh I should also mention that they told me to just take however much time I needed be it 15 minutes or 2 hours….I go into class and try the lesson I had planned a month ago and very quickly realized that this is going to be a learning process for all those involved (while planning ahead of time may have seemed like a good idea, it was pretty useless). Overall I was pretty satisfied with the first class though (class 5 and 6). It was, and still is, class 3 and 4 that is making me struggle with every fiber of my frustration control. I was trying to teach the alphabet (after realizing that they didn’t recognize the letters nor the sounds) meanwhile the teacher was yelling at them the whole time and giving them the answers- it is hard to explain, but imagine trying to ask a kid a question and when he doesn't answer right away an angry Tongan yells at them and tells them the answer...
When I got done teaching my principal told me that we were getting some visitors from Tongatapu (the main Island) and we needed to cut up the watermelon for them, so we went to my house. While cutting up this watermelon (it is getting everywhere in my house and I don't have running water anymore so clean up is a b+#$h) she decides she needs to borrow my floor mats, my stapler and my plates… and then my chair and a handful of napkins and all the water, then she said the words every Peace Corps wants to here: “I am glad you are here” oh wait, oh no, what was that? The full statement was, and I quote: “I am glad you are here because now I can use all your stuff” well if I didn’t feel super useful before!
Luckily the week got better and I have decided that the cheesy statement “the kids make it all worth it” is kind of true. On Wednesday class 4 didn’t understand anything I was doing and was not getting anything I was trying to teach, but luckily for me, the teachers were late coming back from lunch so I took the class again and tried to teach them a completely different (way easier more realistic) lesson and after they started understanding it I got so excited that started laughing at me. Then I did some PE with them and made an obstacle course and had them do some rolling at a certain part, it was pure hilarity. I guess I will just have to remember those moments when I am so frustrated I begin to understand why they hit these kids (like today with a certain class 4 that decided they were over learning of any kind and thought it would be fun to just repeat anything i said and blurt out wrong answers to any statement)… As long as they don’t try and drink my coffee though, I am sure I can handle them…
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