The Good Days and The Bad

For every good day there is inevitably be at least one bad day to go with it. I wouldn’t say Wednesday was a bad day, but it sure had its moments…

         Lessons were going really well before break. Then, after break I had 5D for a double period. This class can be a challenge at times. There are a handful of extremely bright learners in this class who I absolutely feel bad for because most of the time they are just bored (this is where the struggle to differentiate instruction becomes extremely evident and so frustrating). This class also has some of my toughest behavioral cases.

I set the expectation from day 1 that the learners line up when they arrive at my class and I invite them into the class when they show me they are ready to come in. I greet each and every one of them at the door and they walk in quietly and stand behind their seats until I come in to greet them and we begin. Well, today, as my cooperating teacher would describe them, they walked in like a bunch of baboons. There were learners pushing each other in line, screaming at each other immediately after greeting me, a fight that broke out before I could even walk over the threshold. Meanwhile, I have 10 kids swarming me asking “teacha can I leave the classroom?” and “teacha can I go drink wata” and “teacha they are beating each otha.” For those of you who know me, you know I rarely get angry. I don’t like to raise my voice and I’m especially bad at being a mean teacher. Well today, I had to put on my mean teacher pants…big time.

When I walked into the classroom I was completely distraught. I was not prepared for this after a morning of such great lessons. So, after breaking up the fight between two boys that was going on when I walked into my classroom, I put on a stern look and told this class of learners that I was VERY disappointed in them and they were to walk back outside and line up again. This time, it was almost worse than the first. I had even more learners pushing each other to be the first in line, yelling “teacha teacha” and being absolutely ridiculous. For a split second, I thought I might have to kill half of them. My head was about to explode. But I didn’t…I stood for the next 5 minutes in front of my door at the head of the line, waiting for them to show me they knew how to line up. When I finally had silence, I looked up and down the two lines (one boy line, one girl) and gave them a long speech about how disappointed I was in their behavior and how disrespectful they had been to me, another class expectation. I gave them a mini lecture about how it is a privilege to walk into my classroom and they may only walk in when they have shown me they deserve that privilege.

After 3 tries, they finally got it. They sat with their heads down for 10 minutes, which I think was punishment enough for their behavior. I took this opportunity to tell them that I cared about them and wanted them to be successful. I told them I have high expectations for them because I know they are capable of success. When they walked out of the classroom that day many of them gave me big hugs and told me how sorry they were. What I have realized in having a few experiences like this is this…in Namibia if you are “bad,” often times you are just beat, no questions asked, whether it is their parents, grandparents, teachers or whomever. For most of these learners I think there have been very few instances in their lives where they have been held to high expectations because someone cared about them. Even though the class began in frustration, it felt so incredible to hug each of them at the end and tell them how wonderful they are!

Twice each week we volunteer after school at the BNC, a children’s center where about 200 learners go after school to play with friends, eat lunch and have extra learning time in Math and English. When we first heard about the BNC I was really excited. It sounded like these children were really excited to be here to get extra help on their homework and be stars in math and English. Well, a lot of the kids were more naughty than I expected. They were violent to each other, rude to adults and overall just naughty kids. Amy and I are co-teaching grades 2 and 3 math. We have each class for an hour and then switch.  When we first started with these kids we had to be firm. It was hard to spend the hour telling them to be quiet, to sit in their seats and to raise their hands. Many of them just didn’t get it. It was completely exhausting and after a long day at school, I would dread going to the BNC.

On Thursday, I had one of the best days! This was our 3^rd week, so our 6^th time teaching these classes and we decided to do something different. We are working with story problems, and even though this is math we thought it would be fun for the learners to read a story from the library first and then make math problems about the story. So, we pushed back all the tables and chairs and had the kids sit on the carpet. I read If You Give a Moose a Muffin and the kids absolutely loved it. For many of them, the BNC is the only place they see books with pictures. They are completely fascinated and itching to see the pictures. I had every student completely engaged, even the ones who are usually bouncing off the walls. They were so engaged by the end of the story, I even felt like they could stand up and do a fun brain break to recharge their energy. Then, Amy thought of some story problems about the moose and hi muffin and led those for the class. I had a blast and I cannot wait to go back next week!

Since I am teaching upper primary math at St. Barnabus, I have really missed reading stories and using some of my more elementary teaching and management techniques. It restored so much excitement for me and was a great reminder of why I love to teach!