Students as People

At the risk of sounding like a terrible person...it's only this year that I've really been able to appreciate my students as people. 

My first year of teaching was so all over the place and so much about getting the hang of classroom management that I don't feel like I was really able to relate much to my students. I was too exhausted by them to want to. I tended to see their behavior as a variable in the way a class resulted, but didn't always take the extra step back to consider why their behaviors existed. I got caught up in the cult of the "necio! necio! "(annoying/bad!)  instead of trying to be a model of positive reinforcement. 

My second year is different, for the most part. I'm a little better at being patient (some days). I know a few of their home situations a little better, which can help. But I think the biggest thing that is different is that now that I know many of their names or at least recognize faces, I see them around the various towns where I work and in different contexts. While it's awkward at times (ie the rebellious student eyeing me as I was curled up in a ball of pain on the bus, or when they're drinking at parties), it's also a really beautiful thing that builds a bond with them. I see them performing folklore dances at special events, riding bikes, loitering in the parks with their friends, watching their brothers and sisters, holding their children, selling food from house to house, doing errands, playing soccer. I've gotten slowly accustomed to having no space apart from them, and I've grown to find it more comforting, a sense of belonging to a community, if only in the most temporary of ways. 

Like any teenagers anywhere, life isn't all rainbows and sunshines. There's plenty of the awkward manifestations of puberty, especially in the boys, as they awkwardly grow into their bodies, suddenly lanky and high pitched, posing as more knowledgeable about life than they really are with hair gel and fake swagger the only things backing them up. Then, there are the happy teenage couples, who scare me with the likelihood of teen parenthood. I want to give all of them a million condoms. And then, the students who I imagine may not have enough to eat, or whose parents are absent or have other difficult circumstances.

Yet there are moments of pride as well. Having two of my favorite students from last year, with completely different personalities, go off to study English at UNAN, the public university, was an amazing reward for me as their teacher, as well as seeing them participate in a leadership camp put on by Peace Corps.

So that´s exactly my resolution for this year: to see the students as more than students. To see them as people.