The end of the quarter

It's the end of the quarter tomorrow, so, with piles of papers to grade on my desk and grades to compile, I thought I'd take a moment to write in our blog.

Some people are wondering what the students are like. I like to reflect on what my thoughts were in the week before we came to Honduras, while we were packing up our house and getting ready to fly out of town. "The students have been learning English since Kindergarten. They should have great English skills." "This is a private school where the kids want to be there. I bet I'll have great students who want to learn." "The website says that I'll have a yearly plan and a curriculum to work off of."

Are all of you laughing? The reality is that all of my students in all 5 classes except for one are English Language Learners. A big part of my job is deciphering what they are trying to say rather than what they are actually saying. "Will you borrow me a pencil?" is a classic example. Another part of my job is to teach them words like homozygous and uniformitarianism. Some of the children may have attention deficit disorder, but we don't know. Things like that aren't tested for here.

"But you have the class curriculum? That must help." Are you kidding? I finally found last year's yearly plan tucked away in my desk drawer in a folder under other random papers. Coming in at the start of the 2nd quarter the way I did, I am 5 or more chapters behind and falling further behind every week. I am fortunate that I have a book that comes with CDs that provide worksheets, quizzes (although I have to amend them), and a vague teaching plan for each section. I use the book and outline the rest.

What about all of the students wanting to be there? Who was I kidding? What kid wants to be in school? They're middle school students. Half the kids are scholarship students and tend to be the ones that try the hardest. The other half are children of wealthy parents that can afford to send their kids here. There is a rumor that the wealthy kids don't actually fail each year, whether they do the work or not. I am lucky that my largest class size is 13 students. My 7th grade classes are shrinking, so are now down to 10 and 11 students each. (My big fear now is that they'll combine them.) When I started, 4 of my 5 classes where in complete chaos. The former teacher apparently had them reading and working on projects while he sat with his feet up on his desk tossing a ball into the air. I am proud of my 7th and 8th graders that they, for the most part, can now sit somewhat quietly in their chairs and appear to be paying attention in class. I am now working on getting them to take notes, do their classwork, and turn in completed homework. (Kyle says, "Hi.") I think I am a really hard teacher.

It is now a week after I started writting this blog posting. My grades are turned in, the report cards go out next week. I've signed up to have parent-teacher conferences with about half of my students. 2 failed 9th grade science (what I like to call Pre-Physics), 9 out of 27 failed 8th grade Earth Science, and 8 out of 21 failed 7th grade Life Science. Sigh. (This is actually a little better than I thought because I thought half of 8th and half of 7th grade failed - I'm glad to note it's less than that.) I've decided to stick with the hard line, though, and not give the kids an easy out. Is it too much to ask for them to turn in their homework and not cheat?

One on one, the kids are great. They have their moments, good and bad. 7th grade can get really, really hyper, especially 7A. It's amazing how crazy 10 kids can get. My better days are when I'm long on patience. I constantly remind myself of a Facebook comment one of Alex's co-workers from Yellowstone made, "I hope you're teaching, Alex, and not Amy. Us Leos do not have a lot of patience." I'm gradually learning to teach and very gradually learning to teach kids who don't know how to learn.

It gets better every week!