A Crazy Day of English

Monday morning I got up and got ready for class.  I was feeling pretty excited because I had a fun lesson plan for the day.  We had learned numbers 1-100 the last class, so I was going to start the day with Bingo to review.  Preparing the Bingo boards had been grueling because I also had to make the “chips” to cover the numbers on the Bingo board, which meant cutting up a billion little pieces of paper and then coloring them in red.  Lucky for me, it was worth it, because the kids loved the game and I would say a number in English, and they had to tell me what it was in Spanish before I wrote it down.  We played and they loved it.  

After that, I made our winner, Gladis, come to the back of the room where I had taped up two papelotes, or big pieces of paper.  I traced her body onto the paper, which everyone thought was hilarious, and then we named the paper person “Angelica Liz”.  I used my new paper person to label body parts in English.  I had them write it down in their notebooks and then I brought them all to the back of the class to teach them the hokey pokey.  I told them just to follow what I did with my body, but they mostly just laughed at me.  It was fine, until I got to “hip”, and then they totally lost it.  I should have known.  About that time I gave up.  I had them sit down and quizzed them on what each body part was called, then brought them back to the open space in the back of my classroom to try and teach them “Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes”, which they tried to learn but didn’t have enough confidence to try to do on their own.  They would do their best to follow me when I did it, and they could talk me through it, but when it came to “singing” it, they freaked out and gave up.  I’m always so surprised by the moments in which they get shy or give up, it’s usually when they are completely capable of doing something, which makes it frustrating. 

            

Miss Angelica Liz

While I attempted to prepare for our next game, I sent them to the back of the room in pairs to quiz each other on what various body parts were called.  This was more or less the first independent work I’d really given them, and while I was setting things up at the front of the room, they were doing absolutely nothing.  When I looked up, Mishel wasn’t even near her partner, Hames, who was standing on the other side of the room by himself waiting for her.  I told her to go work with him, and she actually shook her head at me!  I couldn’t believe it.  I had given her specific instructions and she had literally said, “No.” It was the first time any of them had refused to do what I asked.  I told her again and waited, and she didn’t budge.  So I told her she had two choices, she could work with Hames, or she could sit at the table by herself.  She didn’t do anything, and I started to get angry, but I waited.  Yeni, this adorable little five year old walked up to the table and sat down, which made me laugh.  I told her the choice was only for Mishel and that she needed to keep working with her partner.  Eventually, Mishel came and sat down and told Hames to work with his friends.  Still, they did nothing, even though I had told them repeatedly that I needed to hear them practicing.  I finally turned around and I told them to sit at their desks.  It was the first bad moment I had had in my class and I was upset the Honeymoon period seemed to be over. 

            

Adorable pic of Gladis

After that attempt, we played a different game, which is fun to take photos of.  I had them break up into two teams, and I always feels so bad because the four boys always want to be together, and if it’s a group of five, they pick Mishel, because Darlyn and Hames are cousins with Mishel.  However, there is another boy, Alex, who is incredibly sweet, and they never want to be on his team.  Usually, unless I make it otherwise, Alex gets left with the other girls.  That’s what happened in this game when I told them to make two teams.  For the actual game, I had made two sets of mini strips of paper that had body parts written on them and a small piece of tape on the back.  The team that could stick all the pieces of paper in the correct place on one of their teammates first, won.  They loved it, and it provided some great photo opportunities.  The boys team, plus Mishel, ended up winning. 

One team sticking the body part labels on Gladis

Cute picture of Samer all "stuck up"

            

The boy's team + Mishel sticking labels on Samer

The winning Team - I took two photos and they were wiggling all over the place in both.

The Losing Team = girls team + Alex

All my kids!  Top L-R: Darlyn, José, Samer, Alex, Yessi, Yeni, Gladis
bottom L-R: Mishel, Hames, Lesly

After all the games and taking some photos, which most of my boys couldn’t hold still long enough for, I set them to work drawing a “map” of their communities.  Community Maps are one of the tools that we use as volunteers to see the community through the eyes of different sub groups within that community.  In this case, I split the boys and girls up, and had them draw separate maps.  Because there is not much in the community, and for my students, the primary school is the center of their world, they both took up most of the paper to draw the school.  Interesting differences were that the girls drew two houses on their map and the boys didn’t, which could have something to do with the fact that the girls spend a lot of time helping their moms at home.  The girls didn’t draw the main road that leads to Chota, but the boys did, which might be because the boys get to go into town more often than the girls.  The boys also traced a chicken playing soccer off a notebook, and when I asked about it, they said they play sports at the school. 

girls working on their map

Boys working on their community map

Yessi and Yeni choosing a color 

What it looked like when I finally ended Gladis's tyranny.

The girls with the finished product. 

The boys - proud of their final product

Community map drawing, which should have been pretty peaceful, was not.  Apparently, Gladis turned somewhat tyrannical without my awareness.  I found out, because I asked Mishel why she wasn’t drawing on the community map, and she said, “I don’t want to.” I decided I was going to talk with Celina when I got home about how she had behaved in my class.  I was a bit worried she had started a catalyst for mutiny.  When I looked back over at Mishel about ten minutes later, she was crying.  I asked her to come outside with me and I asked what was wrong.  Unfortunately, I have enough trouble understanding Spanish when people are not children, and not talking through sobs.  It took me a little while to figure out that Gladis had said she couldn’t draw.  I asked Mishel if she wanted to draw a house, she said yes, so I led her back in, told her to pick a spot on the paper and go to town.  I then checked in with every other girl working on the poster and they all wanted to draw something so I helped them find a space and left them to it.  Gladis was clearly pissed and I got something that could pass for a death look, or blatant resentment. 

           

By the time the end of class came, I was glad it was over.  I was exhausted from diffusing problems, and still a little bit surprised that teaching had suddenly become about a billion times more complicated.  The crazy thing about it, is that these kids don’t have to come!  AND, I don’t have to teach!  Therefore, why are there issues?

          

  I went to the health post to see if anyone was planning to go walk around the community (like I do every day), and maybe do an encuesta while I waited.  When I got there, Violeta made me sit in a completely separate room by myself, even though there was plenty of space and chairs in the main room with them.  They were just doing paperwork like always, and I felt kind of rejected.  The sun came out, and I ended up sitting outside in the sun, greeting people as they walked by for about an hour.  After that I decided I’d just head home. 

           

Celina asked me how Mishel was doing in class, and I told her we had some problems today but it was the first time so I wasn’t too worried about it.  Mishel was there when I said it, and I think I kept her trust while also warning her that if we had a problem again, I was going to tell her mom.  I also felt a little bad about the Gladis situation, and every kid has a bad day.