Monday, March 03, 2008

Just When You Think You've Got the Hang Of It....

I've been teaching for 6 solid months now, heading into the 7th. I look back on how I was as a teacher my first month, and even say up until my 3rd month, and realized what a crap show the kids were getting. I have basically found a stride in my teaching methods, and gotten to know the kids pretty well for the most part. It hasn't felt new in awhile, and I appreciated that.

Well, then everything came to a screeching halt and life got turned upside down this week. Some time ago I went in and told my director that I really liked teaching my preschool kids, and that I'd like to keep them when they moved up another level. I also told her I hated teaching activities (science, art, etc) because I loved having that time to do my planning for the day. And last but not least, I told her I found I hated teaching our Hi Kids! curriculum (English beginners) because I just can't keep everything straight and I hate not being able to talk to my kids (I'm a fast talker from NY... its tough to slow down sometimes). She said she understood and everything would work itself out in the new schedule and that she'd try to accommodate everything I said.

Gotta love that language barrier because not only did I only keep half of my preschool kids, I gained activities 5 days a week, AND now have something like 4 Hi Kids! courses. Honestly though, I didn't complain. Life has a funny way of fixing things though...

Today was the first day of the new classes and it felt like my first day of teaching all over again. Didn't have the right books, didn't know the kids names, had no idea where they were in their levels, it was just awkward. Everyone else on the staff agreed.

However two things happened today that really fed my ego. The first being those two preschool classes I loved. Well, apparently the parents were not so pleased that the kids got split up into two different levels of English and wanted to be put back the way they were. AND also on their list of demands was to re-instate me as the teacher for both classes. Which, as sweet as that is, they just effectively took away my 11:30am start time. Oh well - I get one week of sleeping in. And the second, was in my highest level afternoon class, one student dropped and I couldn't figure out why. So when my head teacher spoke to his mother she said it was just because he was going to middle school next year and needed a break from some studies. But she made a point to say that he was too shy to tell me on Friday that he loved having me as a teacher and wanted to say thank you and if he finds time to study English again, he'll come back and want to be in my class. As English teachers its really easy to bitch about the obnoxious kids, but when something like this happens, it honestly does make you feel like you're doing something right.

Anyway, schedules often change from month to month, but I think this one will stick for awhile. Can't really complain.

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