Oh minions.
What a day of ups and
downs.
Sometimes this job is so
rewarding. The kids are adorable, they respond wonderfully to the lesson plan,
and you feel like the most awesome, fun, influential teacher in the world.
And then there are other
days… The days where you feel like a failure. The kids don’t listen, they don’t
respect you, and they sure as hell don’t respond to your lesson plan. In fact,
your time would have been better spent doing monotonous repeat exercises
instead of the super fun game you planned for them. They aren’t worthy of
activities, stickers, and games that were so lovingly allocated for them.
Today was one of the
latter.
Tuesdays are usually my
toughest days. I have five classes, five different grade levels, and two
schools. There is one school (out of my 4) that has managed to be my least
favorite. The kids are unruly, and I’m pretty sure they are the rejects from
other elementary school as each class seems to have its own dose of crazy.
There is one class in particular which is just OFF the walls insane.
I walked in to find one
student sleeping, five students reading manga, three students in an epic janken battle, two students stomping on the
floor as hard as they can, one student swinging his arms back and forth and
screaming at the wall. I wish I were making this up. The rest of the students
were either writing on their desk or having conversations with their friends.
The teacher nodded at me,
a signal to start class. Big surprise, no one answered my questions. In fact, they
continued speaking Japanese OVER me (Silly
English teacher, we are in the middle of a conversation. We’re fourth graders and obviously have
matters of the UTMOST importance to discuss). It felt awesome.
There were a couple times
in the lesson where I stopped to simply because I could not keep going. I need
a moment to collect my wits, not
scream at the top of my lungs, not storm
out of the room, and God no, please not
cry (I honestly wasn’t so sure I would survive the hour without doing one or
all of those things). At which point, the teacher would say “Please. English.
keep. teach” , as if I’m supposed to ignore the obvious chaos and continue the
class.
When I decided, “what the heck, it’s the last day of lessons
before Winter Break… We’ll just play this wildly successful game”. I had to
explain it to them. I got out one word (“timer”)
before I had 27 students SCREAMING Japanese
at me from the top of their lungs.
Dear fellow teachers,
How do I get this class
under control?!? I know very little Japanese and while I still have those
cheerleader lungs, I can’t manage to raise my voice over 27 high pitched
Japanese children. Their homeroom teacher does absolutely nothing.
Sincerely,
Crying for help
There WAS an up though…
my first grade class (at the junior high) responded to the daily questions (How’s the weather today? What day is it
today? What’s the date today?) with screams of “I LOVE YOU, JACKIE!” “JACKIE
ROCKS” “WE LOVE JACKIE!!!” The homeroom teacher was less than thrilled, but I
was overjoyed. It was a bit awkward, but still managed to make me smile.
Seriously though ALTS… I
need your help. Suggestions please!!!
