School Days

Supra 

 My colleagues(my co-teacher is hiding in the back row) 

I’ve been in Georgia for a full month now and it is amazing how time flies. I’ve done so much and it all feels like it happened yesterday. The last time I wrote I was hanging out in Poti and I haven’t really done too much since then. I’ve been in Shromisubani. I had school everyday except for Thursday. I went anyways with the hope of being able to use the computers but that didn’t happen for two reasons. The first being that no one at school had a key to the computer room and the second being that even if I had gotten in there was no power at school today. The power is pretty intermittent in my school and at my house but it doesn’t matter during the day because there are plenty of windows that let in enough light. And if it happens at night you just pull out the battery powered lamp and hope the power comes back soon because the usual evening entertainment of the television is not an option. I’ve taken to “playing” the piano when the power goes out. I use my book light to light up the keys and a music book in English that I have borrowed from school. And by playing I mean slowly plunking my way from one key to another. I’m getting better but I will only get much better if the power continues to go out, but please don’t hope for that one.

In regards to teaching I would have to say that is it a challenge everyday. There is no such thing as planning for a lesson before you teach it. Evidently that is just how it works over here. The teacher goes in, asks the students what they remember from the last time and then continues in the book from there. Maybe it is just my co-teacher but it is frustrating. I try to at least think ahead before class starts but that only works if my co-teacher agrees with my ideas. Most of the time she has her own ideas. Which is to be expected.

The things that I am finding most frustrating is that my co-teacher calls the students who fall behind bad students, she calls slower ones stupid and then she only call on the ones who know the answers. Then they ones who are falling behind continue to fall behind. She doesn’t remember from one day to the next that little Natia wasn’t in school for the past two days so there is no way she could know the words that go with letters g-r. In all of my classes there are two girls who are special needs. One(grade 6) is deaf but has a hearing aid and the other one(grade 5) has severe development problems. My co-teacher almost entirely ignores the one in grade 5 and doesn’t expect her to learn anything. IT frustrates me to no end because when I point at the picture of the girl and ask her what it is she says “girl”. So I don’t see the problem or why my teacher ignores her.

On another frustration grades 1 and grades 3 are in the same classroom. Grades 2 and 4 are also in the same classroom. The latter is not quite a much of a problem because second graders are much closer to being fourth graders than first graders are to being third graders. I don’t understand why they do it that way. Why not 1 and 2, then 3 and 4? It would make my life much easier. We try to teach separate lessons to the 1^st and 3^rd graders but the 1^st graders just get distracted but the lesson on the other side of the room. I could totally teach the same lesson to 1^st and 2^nd graders, well minus the alphabet. My co-teacher doesn’t want to teach the little ones the English alphabet until they know the Georgian alphabet. I tried to explain to her that it doesn’t matter and that they will learn both just fine at the same time. But she didn’t understand so we’re not teaching the 1^st graders how to write the alphabet, only how to recognize it. Her English is good when it comes to school things but try and take it to a discussion that she might not have run across in a book and it is impossible. Sometimes I feel like I’m talking to a wall and that if I were speaking gibberish she would understand me just as well as if I was speaking English.

As much as I might complain about it I do l enjoy it. My 5^th and 6^th graders make it all worth it. They are smart and really want to learn English. They brighten my day. Sometimes I think that it would be better if I didn’t have a co-teacher and I was allowed to do it on my own. The students would learn more if they didn’t get yelled at for doing things incorrectly. If they were praised for everything they did correctly and praised for when they tried even if they got it wrong. My co-teacher wants them to pronounce everything 100% perfectly but that isn’t a reasonable goal. A reasonable goal is for them to pronounce things well enough to be understood by a native speaker.

Okay I think I am done venting for now. One good thing this week was the supra(aka massive amounts of food and drink) that we had at school on Tuesday afternoon. It was to celebrate my co-teacher and me in our first time teaching at this particular school. There was lots of toasting for Georgia, for America, for teachers, for friends and even for our students. It was quite a grand event. It was around 2:30PM and I definitely did not have dinner. Also in other news I have acquired a tutee for English. He is in grade 10 at the same school Kenneth is at but he lives next door to me so I get to be the one to tutor him. His name is Giorgi and he’s a good kid. His English is alright but he needs lots of practice so that’s what I’m for. Yay. This weekend I’m going to Tbilisi with some other English teachers from around my area. I will finally get to see the city that I spent a week in. I’m very excited about this idea. I hope to have lots to report when I get back. Goodbye for now.