Teaching Annecdotes, Week 4

Most fun: Teaching "If you're happy and you know it" to 8th graders, and breaking out the high five
"If you're happy and you know it" is an awesome song. You can't be unhappy after singing it.
I taught another one of my 8th grade classes and some of my 7th graders how to give high fives, as a combination of being encouraging, reviewing numbers and teaching American culture. Seriously, I challenge you think of something American than giving a high five: a hearty dose of encouragement and goodwill.

Most humbling: Realizing the sacrifices students make to come to school 
Because of interruptions in my classes this week at the school in El Tule, my counterpart teacher gave the students a take home assignment. El Tule is a fairly well connected community just off the highway, but it draws students from a very large and very rural area. Therefore, my counterpart had to go through his class roster community by community to see where students live, so they could work together easily. Later, he explained to me that some of the students walk over an hour and a half from the highway to reach their homes. They might leave home at 8 or 9 am, walk in the hot sun to the highway, get a bus, and then wait around for school to start, not returning home until dark. Beyond the challenges this poses for the students themselves, it's also a challenge that the teachers deal with: integrating students whose only experience of school has been a one room schoolhouse with one teacher with their "urban" peers in the 7th grade. Other students from rural areas live with relatives in El Tule proper during the school week and return to their nuclear families on the weekend. Given those kinds of circumstances, the kids who show up are really dedicated, which makes working with them a really great experience.

Most frustrating: The constant interruptions to the students' schedule/ limited amounts of class time
Nicaraguan students at public schools only have school for 4 hours a day. Including the singing of the national anthem, the singing of the Literacy hymn (dating back to the Alfabetizacion campaigns of the 1980s), a  break, and gym class (once a week). So naturally, as a time-sensitive gringa, I balk anytime there is an interruption, however legitimate it may be. This week, we had a lot of interruptions in each of my schools, which was surprising given that there weren't even any holidays, but are only poised to increase next week when the town wide parties to celebrate the town's patron saint begin....Three different NGOs/government agencies came to give charlas, which were all on really great, relevant topics, from human trafficking to interpartner violence. It's just frustrating that they can't find a better system for imparting this information, like keeping the kids after school for a little bit. It was extra frustrating since these visits were not pre-announced, and my coteacher had planned to give a test to check in on the students. Additionally, the majority of the students and many of the teachers at the school in San Miguel left school midway through the session to attend funeral services for a well-respected grandmother in the community. It's impressive that the community is so tight knit. And in Las Palomas, there was an American medical brigade visiting to provide medical services to the community since it was the biggest space in the community. All these interruptions provided great, necessary things, but they were interruptions all the same.

When I first arrived in Nicaragua, I questioned why the school day was so short, but there are a lot of reasons why it's unlikely to get longer anytime in the foreseable future. Most schools, especially in more rural areas are used as a primary school in the morning, and a secondary school in the afternoon. Alternatively, many schools in more urban areas have multiple "turns", with multiple sessions of high school. There simply isn't funding to construct more physical space, or additionally, hire more teachers. Secondly, Nicaragua is still a very agricultural country. Lots of kids help out around the farm or the house in the morning. Thirdly, as mentioned above, with the travel time it takes students to reach school, it would be difficult to extend the school day without negatively affecting these populations.

Oops: While a health worker was talking to my counterpart teacher just outside our classroom, it fell upon me to explain an assignment we were going to do. Since part of TEFL volunteer's role is to use more English in class, I was naturally explaining in English. Slow, cognate peppered English. The students were generally messing around, and yelling at me to explain in Spanish. The phrase "No freguen" slipped out. I'm not even sure this was the best way I could have conjugated it, Dejen de fregar probably would have been better. I was looking for an equivalent phrase to "Knock it off" which can be kind of playful and threatening simultaneously. I think what I said has that meaning, vaguely, but it's a little bit vulgar, or rather, not the kind of thing a teacher is supposed to say. They tattled on me when my counterpart came back. Luckily, we have a really chill classroom environment, so it wasn't a huge deal, but probably I need to look for a new phrase that's more professional, respectful and appropriate.

A small success: In one of my 7th grade classes last week, one of my students was being a real wise guy and giving me a hard time, which was a problem because I was teaching class for a bit on my own. I wanted to chew him out very badly, but I've been trained to use positive reinforcement to deal with discipline issues in a way that treats students with dignity, so I restrained my impulsive urge to yell, and took him aside to explain that he is an extremely bright student, and that he will do great things in school if he can pay attention and respect his classmates and the teachers. This is true. In class this week, he was super into participating and behaved far better than previously. Don't know if I deserve credit, but maybe being called something other than necio! necio! (roughly: misbehaver) had an effect. The power of positive thinking? I hope.

Head scratching moments: I had a discussion with one of my counterparts about whether the phrase "in their own words" was redundant or not. She said that an American teacher told her that it was, because "their" implies ownership. I can't imagine the phrase any other way; "in their words" sounds wrong to the Native speakers' ear, so that was what I told her. But I can kind of see her point. Then, we got in a discussion about using "What" vs "Which"? In Spanish, the word for which is used far more often than it is in English, at least I think so. For example, in Spanish, the question "Cual es tu color favorito?" would be directly translated as "Which is your favorite color?" implying that you are choosing a color from within the pool of possible colors that exist. Maybe that's correct according to some grammar book in some library somewhere, but I dare you to find anyone in America who talks like that in real life. So I basically told her that we only use "Which" in cases where the action of choosing is more explicit or right in front of you , ie "Which pen is yours?"  But now I'm paranoid that I talk badly, and I owe her a better explanation.