Wit's End
We as English teachers here in Moldova are required to teach, at a minimum, eighteen hours a week of classes, usually three hours a week with every class. The vast majority of teachers here have, for example, maybe only three classes (fore example, fourth through sixth grade) but they will teach two sections of every class for a total of six classes, each at three hours a week. In fact, of the forty-five or so TEFL volunteers here in Peace Corps Moldova, I'm about ninety percent sure that I'm the only one who teaches the full gamut of classes. I have the fortune of teaching all grades, fourth through ninth. In general, I'm very lucky in that my kids are very bright, want to lean English for the most part, and really like me. Of the six classes I have this year, I taught four of them last year, so I know what to expect from them, they know what to expect from me, and we get along without problems. In fact, I would say that this is the case with every class except my eight graders, with whom I'm just about at my wit's end in trying to get across to them.
I had them last year as well and even then I just ran about of ideas with how to teach them. At the start of the year I worked like normal and didn't see any results from there work. My solution was to just work harder for them in the hopes that they would work harder for me and get the necessary results. And while I certainly stepped up my efforts, the results I wanted were not received. I tried to yell at them, to coddle them, to bring them down and to build them up, to reward them with good grades for doing the smallest task right and to punish them with bad grades for doing the smallest mistake. And nothing worked. I hoped and prayed at the end of last year that a summer off would some how rejuvenate them, in some way give them the spirit to work and to hopefully help them in their studies.
I was sorely mistaken. This year started off OK – we worked well for the first two weeks while doing very basic things like the alphabet and numbers one through one hundred. All was fine. Then we started doing trickier things, like plurals and possession, and their knowledge and skill slowly eroded. None of them do (or really have ever done) their homework, and while they work in class great and without problems (I have no discipline issues with them – they're all nice kids), without work at home their progress is highly limited.
My final straw with them came last Tuesday when I asked them, very basically, how to translate the work “she” into Russian, something we'd gone over literally fifty times in the last year and one month. At first they just looked at me and I, in expecting the answer right away, didn't tell them the answer. Then I waited. And waited. After thirty seconds I started to realize that the answer wasn't likely to come quickly, and while I was tempted to give them the answer I was very interested to know just how long it would take them to come up with the answer. So I waited more. And more. I started to read a book. I drank some water. Read a magazine too. Finally after fifteen minutes, they came up with the answer. Needless to say, I was in shock. I couldn't believe it. Mercifully for them, the bell came as soon as they answered. So at the next class, on Thursday, when I saw that no one had done their homework and no one had studied, I told them I'd had it, that they will do their homework in the future or I simply won't bother teaching them, that I'll just sit and read a book or prepare other work and that they are more than welcome to waste their own time but I won' allow them to waste mine. We'll see what happens in the upcoming weeks, but as for now I'm just at about my wit's end with them. I'm not sure what else I can do to get across to them.
Notes:
- This year I wanted to institute a new tool of discipline. Last year I was left with the choices of just telling kids to be quiet fifteen times or kicking them out of class, without a whole lot of area in the middle. So I decided to reach back into my childhood and take a page from the best disciplinarian I've ever met – my mom – and I instituted a policy of making kids stand in a corner, heads looking at the corner and backs to the class. They don't have to do anything but stand there and be quiet, and they usually start with five minutes but every time I have to tell them to be quiet or turn-around, they get one more minute added on (last week my most trouble-making fourth grader stood there for fifty three minutes). It's been a boost to my repertoire. Older kids really hate it while younger kids feel like kindergarteners when they're placed there. They hate it too. And it's great.
- Last month I went on a reading binge and I read six books in the span of four weeks, including one that was 900 pages (quick note – if you haven't read 'I Know This Much Is True' by Wally Lamb or 'The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime' by Mark Haddon, you should). So I decided then to channel all of that reading energy into taking on one of the most infamous long books ever written, 'War and Peace'. I have to say, I'm about 300 pages into it (only 1150 to go), but so far I love it.
- Next weekend promises to be one of the funnest weekends on record for the citizens of Moldova and it's capital, Chisinau. Every year we celebrate here the Day of Wine on the second Sunday of October while also celebrating the day of the city in Chisinau on the fourteenth. This year they happen to fall on the same day so wine day had been moved back to this following Saturday while day of the city will still be Sunday, the fourteenth. Top all of that off with a Moldova-Turkey soccer game on Saturday night in the center of the city and it amounts to what should be a great time. Of course, in the middle of all of it will be about fifty current volunteers, author included.
- Another Moldovan holiday is Teacher's Day, which is celebrated on October 5th every year. On that day all the students give flowers to all the teachers, sometimes small gifts are exchanged, and after a few lessons we all gather outside in front of our school for a little ceremony featuring dances, speeches, and the like.
This year, like last year, on the day before Teachers Day some of us from my school went to my regional center of Calarasi for a concert and ceremony for all the teachers in the area. Last year we were there for two and a half hours, one hour of which was a ceremony in which they gave out awards to schools followed by a concert of national music for an hour and a half. Now, I have to throw out the caveat that this national music is something I can stomach for about ten, fifteen minutes – tops – before I can't take it anymore. As a result of this, I think it goes without saying that last year the hour and a half-long concert was exactly not the highlight of my day/week/year.
So this year, despite my less-than exceptional experience one year ago, I decided to accept my director's invitation and go again. And of course, about ten minutes after everything started I began to regret my decision to come and instead thought of all the things I could have been doing at home. There was one big difference though this year: at the concert last time they played the music I detest for an hour and a half. This year it was two and a half hours.
Then on Friday, when we celebrated the day at my school, it was a whole other experience. Students had prepared traditional dances with songs and concerts (as opposed to dancing to American hip-hop like last year), and everything was interesting and very well done. Afterwards all of us teachers gathered in our cafeteria for a feast where we also drank cheap cognac (1.85$ for a half-liter) and gave speeches (my toast killed) for two hours before we started to dancing (I with the female-mayor of my village as well as the sixty-five year old third grade teacher).
This day, however, there were no regrets. In fact, I started to get a little melancholy when I thought about how, in one year, all of those people will still be here in this village, doing the same thing, while I'll be in America, starting a whole new life.
It was together a joyous and sorrowful moment.
I had them last year as well and even then I just ran about of ideas with how to teach them. At the start of the year I worked like normal and didn't see any results from there work. My solution was to just work harder for them in the hopes that they would work harder for me and get the necessary results. And while I certainly stepped up my efforts, the results I wanted were not received. I tried to yell at them, to coddle them, to bring them down and to build them up, to reward them with good grades for doing the smallest task right and to punish them with bad grades for doing the smallest mistake. And nothing worked. I hoped and prayed at the end of last year that a summer off would some how rejuvenate them, in some way give them the spirit to work and to hopefully help them in their studies.
I was sorely mistaken. This year started off OK – we worked well for the first two weeks while doing very basic things like the alphabet and numbers one through one hundred. All was fine. Then we started doing trickier things, like plurals and possession, and their knowledge and skill slowly eroded. None of them do (or really have ever done) their homework, and while they work in class great and without problems (I have no discipline issues with them – they're all nice kids), without work at home their progress is highly limited.
My final straw with them came last Tuesday when I asked them, very basically, how to translate the work “she” into Russian, something we'd gone over literally fifty times in the last year and one month. At first they just looked at me and I, in expecting the answer right away, didn't tell them the answer. Then I waited. And waited. After thirty seconds I started to realize that the answer wasn't likely to come quickly, and while I was tempted to give them the answer I was very interested to know just how long it would take them to come up with the answer. So I waited more. And more. I started to read a book. I drank some water. Read a magazine too. Finally after fifteen minutes, they came up with the answer. Needless to say, I was in shock. I couldn't believe it. Mercifully for them, the bell came as soon as they answered. So at the next class, on Thursday, when I saw that no one had done their homework and no one had studied, I told them I'd had it, that they will do their homework in the future or I simply won't bother teaching them, that I'll just sit and read a book or prepare other work and that they are more than welcome to waste their own time but I won' allow them to waste mine. We'll see what happens in the upcoming weeks, but as for now I'm just at about my wit's end with them. I'm not sure what else I can do to get across to them.
Notes:
- This year I wanted to institute a new tool of discipline. Last year I was left with the choices of just telling kids to be quiet fifteen times or kicking them out of class, without a whole lot of area in the middle. So I decided to reach back into my childhood and take a page from the best disciplinarian I've ever met – my mom – and I instituted a policy of making kids stand in a corner, heads looking at the corner and backs to the class. They don't have to do anything but stand there and be quiet, and they usually start with five minutes but every time I have to tell them to be quiet or turn-around, they get one more minute added on (last week my most trouble-making fourth grader stood there for fifty three minutes). It's been a boost to my repertoire. Older kids really hate it while younger kids feel like kindergarteners when they're placed there. They hate it too. And it's great.
- Last month I went on a reading binge and I read six books in the span of four weeks, including one that was 900 pages (quick note – if you haven't read 'I Know This Much Is True' by Wally Lamb or 'The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime' by Mark Haddon, you should). So I decided then to channel all of that reading energy into taking on one of the most infamous long books ever written, 'War and Peace'. I have to say, I'm about 300 pages into it (only 1150 to go), but so far I love it.
- Next weekend promises to be one of the funnest weekends on record for the citizens of Moldova and it's capital, Chisinau. Every year we celebrate here the Day of Wine on the second Sunday of October while also celebrating the day of the city in Chisinau on the fourteenth. This year they happen to fall on the same day so wine day had been moved back to this following Saturday while day of the city will still be Sunday, the fourteenth. Top all of that off with a Moldova-Turkey soccer game on Saturday night in the center of the city and it amounts to what should be a great time. Of course, in the middle of all of it will be about fifty current volunteers, author included.
- Another Moldovan holiday is Teacher's Day, which is celebrated on October 5th every year. On that day all the students give flowers to all the teachers, sometimes small gifts are exchanged, and after a few lessons we all gather outside in front of our school for a little ceremony featuring dances, speeches, and the like.
This year, like last year, on the day before Teachers Day some of us from my school went to my regional center of Calarasi for a concert and ceremony for all the teachers in the area. Last year we were there for two and a half hours, one hour of which was a ceremony in which they gave out awards to schools followed by a concert of national music for an hour and a half. Now, I have to throw out the caveat that this national music is something I can stomach for about ten, fifteen minutes – tops – before I can't take it anymore. As a result of this, I think it goes without saying that last year the hour and a half-long concert was exactly not the highlight of my day/week/year.
So this year, despite my less-than exceptional experience one year ago, I decided to accept my director's invitation and go again. And of course, about ten minutes after everything started I began to regret my decision to come and instead thought of all the things I could have been doing at home. There was one big difference though this year: at the concert last time they played the music I detest for an hour and a half. This year it was two and a half hours.
Then on Friday, when we celebrated the day at my school, it was a whole other experience. Students had prepared traditional dances with songs and concerts (as opposed to dancing to American hip-hop like last year), and everything was interesting and very well done. Afterwards all of us teachers gathered in our cafeteria for a feast where we also drank cheap cognac (1.85$ for a half-liter) and gave speeches (my toast killed) for two hours before we started to dancing (I with the female-mayor of my village as well as the sixty-five year old third grade teacher).
This day, however, there were no regrets. In fact, I started to get a little melancholy when I thought about how, in one year, all of those people will still be here in this village, doing the same thing, while I'll be in America, starting a whole new life.
It was together a joyous and sorrowful moment.
posted by Andy Buchanan at 1:45 AM
3 Comments:
I know a guy who taught at a private English center in another former Soviet country and made his students stand in the corner as well-- even the 40 year old businessmen. It worked well, though.
He also started all his classes off with a week of lessons in which students were forbidden to talk or write; they just had to sit there and watch and listen to him speak and demonstrate using TPR.
Ok so I read every one of these BLOGs that you post. And I have to say that I enjoy them very much. However, this last one, albeit still enjoyable, had a tinge of whining in it. No offense, but we all have that one class that is a pain in the ass. I have had many, and what I try to do is draw out the leader(s). Allow them to set the tone and usually the other students tend to follow. This can be done with discipline, but usually individual encouragement one on one works the best. Moldavian students may be different, but that is what has worked for me.
Hang in there, and as you stated, enjoy it while you can. Usually the hardest parts of the experience are what you come to ultimately treasure through persistence and eventual success.
BC
Andy,
'Can't imagine the difficulties of teaching young people, even as at work where I am currently engaged in "teaching" a new employee the essentials, and he really wants to learn ! For me it's a struggle and it seems like you never get everything right, but maybe the thought of "Cloning" myself and my approach is all together wrong, in the long run he'll get by, he has to.
What wonderful National ceremonies, honoring the arts of the vine and of teaching. No matter what the future holds for the citizens of your fair land I expect these two, and several others, will always be celebrated. Oil and energy changed the West first, other regions followed, some due to their natural endowments, others by imitation. But it is ending..., and maybe we can re-discover our vital ceremonies.
Of course I am reading, too, right now wrestling with Hobbes' Leviathan, due to the language (17th Century) and ideas presented it's a toughie !
Dad
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