Friday, June 30, 2006
Can I go home early? And where are those stupid scissors?
Well, Mexico lost to Argentina last Saturday 2-1, but they gave Argentina a very hard time and I’m proud of them. Even though I’m not really in any place to be proud of them; it’s not like I’m Mexican or they’re my fellow anything.
I hate amoebas. I am still not back to normal. Every time I think it’s OK to eat riskier foods (like fruits and vegetables and sauces), it turns out that it’s not OK. So I’ve been eating rice and toast and bananas and well-cooked meats and wondering if I shouldn’t just take a one-day cleanse of a liquid diet again. But oh, no, the hunger… I don’t think I could stand it.
Sorry, it’s such a cliché (not to mention disgusting) to be talking about my gastrointestinal issues in Mexico, but this has seriously been my life for the last week and a half. When will it end??? I need to enjoy my last week and a half in Mexico and eat lots and lots of yummy tacos before I go back to Americanized-taco-land! But maybe I should stay away from the tacos here anyway, before I go back to live without health insurance. (OK, I should probably get health insurance for the summer, at least before I get the Teachers College insurance.)
I entertained the idea of changing my flight to an earlier date. I finally told the principal that I am not coming back for the next school year, and only because she asked me. She asked me what day I was leaving (July 11), and she said that my apartment is paid until July 8, and that I could live in the school for my last few days after that. Yuck. Double yuck because the cursos diplomados will be all weekend and I would have to go because I’d be living there. I said I would prefer to stay in my apartment, so she said she would ask the landlady if it would be OK for me to stay another few days.
Then I found out that the last day for the students at the school is Monday, July 3, while the official last day is Friday, July 7. The teachers will have meetings all week until the 7th. I thought, well maybe I could just leave early. Maybe I could travel, go to the beach, or stay in my old posada in Guadalajara before I leave, since I’m flying out of there anyway. But that would be expensive. And it would be just as expensive (if not cheaper) to just change the ticket and go home earlier.
I asked for permission to leave early, and the principal told me that the superintendent or whatever she is will be having a meeting with us on July 7, and she would like me to be there. It works out all right for me to stay, though, because the landlady said I could stay in my apartment longer (without my having to pay) and then I’ll have more time to get all my stuff done before leaving.
This week was the last week of normal classes. I didn’t even know until a few days ago—but that’s normal for this school. I finished giving the final exams and then decided to only do fun stuff with the kids from now on. I had them do listening exercises with the songs “Stand By Me” and “I Want to Hold Your Hand.” They loved the songs, and I was surprised when they didn’t know who the Beatles were, or had never heard “Stand By Me” before. But then, it’s Mexico, and then again, those songs are like forty years old! I also taught them “The Hokey Pokey,” and we’ve been playing my old first-grade favorite game, “What Time Is It, Mr. Wolf?” It’s a riot. The kids ask me to play it with them during recess (which I never do, on principle, because it’s my break time, too, and anyway I usually have to do some last-minute planning then because I’m such a lazy bum).
This week the kindergarten had these things called “public classes,” where the teachers had to conduct a one-and-a-half-hour class with the students in front of the parents, to finish the school year. I had to give ten-minute English lessons to each class. Basically that just meant reviewing some of the stuff they have learned. It was actually the first time the principal observed me teaching a class, and she said afterward, rather surprised, “That was very good! You DO know how to teach!” Of course she was saying this in response to my breakdown a couple weeks before, when I had said I wasn’t fit to teach this group of children, and she had said that my “problem” was my lack of emotional control and that the children were not the problem at all. And I was thinking, how come this woman never observed me once before? How could she come to the conclusions that she came to without ever once seeing me teach?
It was positive reinforcement, however, and I have been feeling much better about teaching.
Yesterday we had a meeting, and the principal very seriously told us that if we did not return all of the missing craft scissors from her office then she would not pay us. How cruel! Every few days before the quincena (the biweekly payday), none of us teachers ever has money. OK, sometimes I have some if I have saved well, but I get paid more than most of the teachers at the school. This week, however, I was left with about twenty pesos (about two dollars), because I had had to spend money on medicine for my amoebas. Today was payday, and I did get paid, even though the scissors were not returned, but we were all scared of the possibility of a money-less weekend.
This whole scissors fiasco has been ridiculous. The principal kept saying that she has been looking for her missing craft scissors (they cut paper in funky designs) for three weeks, and she complained that nobody said anything to her even though everyone knew where the container had been the entire time (in the classroom of one of the kindergarten classes). Well, hardly any of us knew that she had been looking for the stupid scissors. I had certainly never heard her ask for them once. She said that she had told us all that she was going to keep them in the office, and that if we needed them we would have to ask her for them. But someone had gone and taken them out of the office, and they ended up in a classroom. The teachers in that classroom denied having taken them; they insisted that they had showed up one day and the scissors were just sitting there. There they sat for three weeks. Never in this time did we hear the principal asking the teachers for the scissors.
And now she was threatening us that she would not pay us if the rest of the scissors did not appear. So we spent about twenty minutes talking about who saw the scissors where and accusing each other of taking them. It’s laughable.
This weekend I have nothing planned except chores and beginning to pack. I don’t think I’ll even go to my swimming class, because I’m still not at my optimum health-wise. (That pool is also kind of sketchy; it doesn’t look all that clean to me.) Monday is the last class for the primary grades. I’m sad I won’t be seeing them anymore after that. I complain about them a lot, but I love those kids.
I’ve been looking over other English curriculum materials to plan for next year, because it’s ridiculous the books they have now, which are designed for reading classes in elementary schools in the States. I am truly sad I won’t be here to teach them English next year, because we’re going to get them these nice EFL books that will teach them the basics, and they’ll actually be able to speak more, I think. There are even fun CD-ROMs to use. In the kindergarten classes this year, the students had no English materials except those that I could scrounge up, draw, or photocopy, and now they are going to have their very own books. I believe that choosing these books will be the single greatest thing I have done for these kids the entire time I’ve been here, after having seen the damage done with the books (or lack of books) I’ve been forced to work with these past few months.
I think I’m quite arrogant for being a little sad that the kids will think they have better English teachers next year, when part of the problem I had with the students this year was bad planning on the part of previous teachers and the ignorance of the administration. But of course, I could’ve done a lot of other things a lot better all year long, so it’s not as if the blame is all on inappropriate books. I chose to try to work with these books; I could’ve insisted on changing the material if I wanted, even if the school and the parents would’ve objected.
In the end, I’m not sure what my self-evaluation for this year would be. I’m leaning toward being easy on myself for the moment. But it pretty much summed it up when I explained why I was not coming back next year, when asked by the school’s owner. I had said, “To avoid doing any more damage to these kids than I have already done.” We all laughed, but every funny joke is funny because there is some truth in it. Because there were times I could not or would not compose myself instead of blowing up at them; there were times I simply did not know how to keep order in my class and resorted to temper tantrums.
Instead of getting depressed about this, which is pretty easy, I do now, with hindsight, see that I have learned and have grown a lot this year as a teacher (even though most times I felt like I was regressing). I have more experience working with children now, and I know more what NOT to do. And I know that I need a lot more experience and guidance to be the kind of teacher I want to be, and that getting a master’s degree in education won’t solve these problems, but that I’ll have to keep struggling my entire life to do this very difficult work. I may not have been a great teacher this year, but I loved my students and I wanted them to learn. Maybe this is an OK start.
I hate amoebas. I am still not back to normal. Every time I think it’s OK to eat riskier foods (like fruits and vegetables and sauces), it turns out that it’s not OK. So I’ve been eating rice and toast and bananas and well-cooked meats and wondering if I shouldn’t just take a one-day cleanse of a liquid diet again. But oh, no, the hunger… I don’t think I could stand it.
Sorry, it’s such a cliché (not to mention disgusting) to be talking about my gastrointestinal issues in Mexico, but this has seriously been my life for the last week and a half. When will it end??? I need to enjoy my last week and a half in Mexico and eat lots and lots of yummy tacos before I go back to Americanized-taco-land! But maybe I should stay away from the tacos here anyway, before I go back to live without health insurance. (OK, I should probably get health insurance for the summer, at least before I get the Teachers College insurance.)
I entertained the idea of changing my flight to an earlier date. I finally told the principal that I am not coming back for the next school year, and only because she asked me. She asked me what day I was leaving (July 11), and she said that my apartment is paid until July 8, and that I could live in the school for my last few days after that. Yuck. Double yuck because the cursos diplomados will be all weekend and I would have to go because I’d be living there. I said I would prefer to stay in my apartment, so she said she would ask the landlady if it would be OK for me to stay another few days.
Then I found out that the last day for the students at the school is Monday, July 3, while the official last day is Friday, July 7. The teachers will have meetings all week until the 7th. I thought, well maybe I could just leave early. Maybe I could travel, go to the beach, or stay in my old posada in Guadalajara before I leave, since I’m flying out of there anyway. But that would be expensive. And it would be just as expensive (if not cheaper) to just change the ticket and go home earlier.
I asked for permission to leave early, and the principal told me that the superintendent or whatever she is will be having a meeting with us on July 7, and she would like me to be there. It works out all right for me to stay, though, because the landlady said I could stay in my apartment longer (without my having to pay) and then I’ll have more time to get all my stuff done before leaving.
This week was the last week of normal classes. I didn’t even know until a few days ago—but that’s normal for this school. I finished giving the final exams and then decided to only do fun stuff with the kids from now on. I had them do listening exercises with the songs “Stand By Me” and “I Want to Hold Your Hand.” They loved the songs, and I was surprised when they didn’t know who the Beatles were, or had never heard “Stand By Me” before. But then, it’s Mexico, and then again, those songs are like forty years old! I also taught them “The Hokey Pokey,” and we’ve been playing my old first-grade favorite game, “What Time Is It, Mr. Wolf?” It’s a riot. The kids ask me to play it with them during recess (which I never do, on principle, because it’s my break time, too, and anyway I usually have to do some last-minute planning then because I’m such a lazy bum).
This week the kindergarten had these things called “public classes,” where the teachers had to conduct a one-and-a-half-hour class with the students in front of the parents, to finish the school year. I had to give ten-minute English lessons to each class. Basically that just meant reviewing some of the stuff they have learned. It was actually the first time the principal observed me teaching a class, and she said afterward, rather surprised, “That was very good! You DO know how to teach!” Of course she was saying this in response to my breakdown a couple weeks before, when I had said I wasn’t fit to teach this group of children, and she had said that my “problem” was my lack of emotional control and that the children were not the problem at all. And I was thinking, how come this woman never observed me once before? How could she come to the conclusions that she came to without ever once seeing me teach?
It was positive reinforcement, however, and I have been feeling much better about teaching.
Yesterday we had a meeting, and the principal very seriously told us that if we did not return all of the missing craft scissors from her office then she would not pay us. How cruel! Every few days before the quincena (the biweekly payday), none of us teachers ever has money. OK, sometimes I have some if I have saved well, but I get paid more than most of the teachers at the school. This week, however, I was left with about twenty pesos (about two dollars), because I had had to spend money on medicine for my amoebas. Today was payday, and I did get paid, even though the scissors were not returned, but we were all scared of the possibility of a money-less weekend.
This whole scissors fiasco has been ridiculous. The principal kept saying that she has been looking for her missing craft scissors (they cut paper in funky designs) for three weeks, and she complained that nobody said anything to her even though everyone knew where the container had been the entire time (in the classroom of one of the kindergarten classes). Well, hardly any of us knew that she had been looking for the stupid scissors. I had certainly never heard her ask for them once. She said that she had told us all that she was going to keep them in the office, and that if we needed them we would have to ask her for them. But someone had gone and taken them out of the office, and they ended up in a classroom. The teachers in that classroom denied having taken them; they insisted that they had showed up one day and the scissors were just sitting there. There they sat for three weeks. Never in this time did we hear the principal asking the teachers for the scissors.
And now she was threatening us that she would not pay us if the rest of the scissors did not appear. So we spent about twenty minutes talking about who saw the scissors where and accusing each other of taking them. It’s laughable.
This weekend I have nothing planned except chores and beginning to pack. I don’t think I’ll even go to my swimming class, because I’m still not at my optimum health-wise. (That pool is also kind of sketchy; it doesn’t look all that clean to me.) Monday is the last class for the primary grades. I’m sad I won’t be seeing them anymore after that. I complain about them a lot, but I love those kids.
I’ve been looking over other English curriculum materials to plan for next year, because it’s ridiculous the books they have now, which are designed for reading classes in elementary schools in the States. I am truly sad I won’t be here to teach them English next year, because we’re going to get them these nice EFL books that will teach them the basics, and they’ll actually be able to speak more, I think. There are even fun CD-ROMs to use. In the kindergarten classes this year, the students had no English materials except those that I could scrounge up, draw, or photocopy, and now they are going to have their very own books. I believe that choosing these books will be the single greatest thing I have done for these kids the entire time I’ve been here, after having seen the damage done with the books (or lack of books) I’ve been forced to work with these past few months.
I think I’m quite arrogant for being a little sad that the kids will think they have better English teachers next year, when part of the problem I had with the students this year was bad planning on the part of previous teachers and the ignorance of the administration. But of course, I could’ve done a lot of other things a lot better all year long, so it’s not as if the blame is all on inappropriate books. I chose to try to work with these books; I could’ve insisted on changing the material if I wanted, even if the school and the parents would’ve objected.
In the end, I’m not sure what my self-evaluation for this year would be. I’m leaning toward being easy on myself for the moment. But it pretty much summed it up when I explained why I was not coming back next year, when asked by the school’s owner. I had said, “To avoid doing any more damage to these kids than I have already done.” We all laughed, but every funny joke is funny because there is some truth in it. Because there were times I could not or would not compose myself instead of blowing up at them; there were times I simply did not know how to keep order in my class and resorted to temper tantrums.
Instead of getting depressed about this, which is pretty easy, I do now, with hindsight, see that I have learned and have grown a lot this year as a teacher (even though most times I felt like I was regressing). I have more experience working with children now, and I know more what NOT to do. And I know that I need a lot more experience and guidance to be the kind of teacher I want to be, and that getting a master’s degree in education won’t solve these problems, but that I’ll have to keep struggling my entire life to do this very difficult work. I may not have been a great teacher this year, but I loved my students and I wanted them to learn. Maybe this is an OK start.
