I think the Nanubhai mission and my personal mission, just struck me. We are going to start evaluating students’ spoken English skills, both within our spoken English classes and within typical textbook classes. These evaluations will measure the effectiveness of the program through evaluating the improvement in the student’s spoken English abilities from the beginning of the year to the end of the year. Having to do these evaluations I have been thinking about my students’ English abilities. I started analyzing my best and worst case scenario students and both types of students make me nervous for success.
The students are making my experience here so worthwhile. I think all of these students will make a lasting impact on my life. They are helpful, appreciating, and mostly hard working. Many students are working extremely hard to succeed and have such a desire to learn. Most of my behavior problems are due to overzealous students that cannot control their excitement to answer a question. Even the students that are silent shy, and quiet, which is most of the girls, still excite me. I see more and more students approaching me and speaking to me in simple English. Even these small steps I feel are vast improvements.
My new sense of mission here is about bridging the gap between the have and have nots. Children here have unlimited opportunities, if you have the money to pay for private schools and tuition classes. Students in the English medium schools have the ability to go to school and understand the material in their classes, since many subjects are taught in English at the college level. Because the classes are taught in English, students that have been going to a Gujarati medium school now have to learn their profession in a language they cannot speak and have difficulty understanding. Many of my students have huge professional goals and to reach this point it is essential that they have skills in English.
The classes are divided into A, B, and C. Each standard is divided this way. The A classes are the most talented students and the other classes are the lower functioning students. The students in the B and C classes are in a trap. They had been put in these classes after having attended government schools. Even if these students improve they are stuck in the lower class, which makes it difficult for them to be challenged.
Spoken English classes is not split up in this way. There are no A,B, and C students, but all students taking the same class with a similar goal in mind, to improve their English skills. There are no tuition payments; there is nothing to limit their ability in understanding and speaking in English.
The students that I have in my class are amazing because they have stuck it out and now are committed to the betterment of their skills. At first kids came just to satisfy their curiosity. Once they realized how difficult the class was they would slowly disappear. Now my students are of many different levels, but they still come and try their best to succeed. None of the students lack in confidence. Whether it is confidence in the one word that they struggle to produce or if it is the confidence to tackle the complicated structure of an entire paragraph.
If my students stay with the spoken English classes they are bound to make dramatic improvements in their spoken English ability. From the small number of students that will improve I think there will be a new benchmark for spoken English ability throughout the school.
Here is my new mission and I am going to fully work for these students. I want to be innovative in my approaches with them so that they will never grow bored of learning. I want to continually give them endless opportunities to gain the confidence and to get a handle on the language.
Thursday, July 30, 2009
The Factory and the Dairy
Being welcomed into homes is common place here. Even with HUGE language barriers. We point and laugh and eat the most delicious foods together. One man showed us his family pictures and treated us to delicious fresh mangoes and lychees. He even showed us his barn full of prized cows. Another man invited us for Mexican pizza, burritos, and the best ice cream I have ever eaten.
On Sunday afternoon we went on an outing to Mudhi, a nearby town to Bujipura. We were invited by one of the teachers from Mudhi High School. We went to the dairy where they make the most delightful milk. I thought I really loved strawberry milk, but the cardamom flavored milk is out of this world.
At the home of the teacher, her husband served us our milk on a tray and did everything in his power to make our stay enjoyable. He picked roses and fruits for us on several occasions throughout the afternoon.
We went into a factory that makes a rice product used in dishes here. It is rice that is made to be flattened. We walked into the factory and discovered that it is like being in a blizzard of dust. They also must heat the rice, so the temperature outside of 100 degrees now became about 130. We squint our eyes and cover our faces to prevent the dust from entering our lungs and from burning our eyes. The women factory workers live in this dust seven days a week, working 13 hour days. They don’t wear masks, they just simply put their sari or dupata over their hair and they let the dust fall on top of them. Their kids also sit in the dust watching and waiting for their moms to finish their shift. There were also men in this factory, but they did not seem to be taking part in the “dirty” jobs.
After witnessing the struggles of these workers we were off to see a rich guys mansion. This man keeps a second home in Mudhi complete with statues, 100s of mango trees, five watch dogs, at least three staff members, five cows, and beautiful porch swings, a staple in any Indian home. We sat in his lawn and were fed, by our gracious hosts, raw mango and guava slices with salt. This is quite delicious! We should not even eat mango in the states, it is a crime after eating mangoes here. They are INCREDIBLE.
At the end of the day we were sent back on our rickshaw, paid for by our hosts, to ponder the craziness of the weird dynamics of India. Poor and rich side by side is just simply common place.
So Much Stuff
From the very first day arriving in India I have felt the heaviness of my material self. It all started with persistent men trying to take the weight of four bags from me. As they hosted a fifty pound suit case onto their head and on top of the little, now weighed down, rickshaw. I thought of how ridiculous this looks. No family, just me carrying this infinite weight around all of India. I literally felt like passing out running with my bags to catch the train. Lyndi and I together had 8 bags, which weighed around fifty pounds each. We didn’t even know where we were going to find room for the bags on the train. We were desperately searching for someone to take our bags for a reasonable price, but the official bag carriers that Cat told us about were no where in sight. All of this stress was because of this unnecessary weight I decided that I needed to bring to India.
Now how ridiculous I feel coming into a country where everything is half the price. The tailors and farmers can live on a couple of dollars a day, where I am used to spending more on just a single cup of coffee.
I am now literally floating in stuff. My “necessary” items are under my bed around my bed and overflowing out of my two shelves. I load up my America size back pack for class and find that I am even carrying more and more outside of my bag. The teachers don’t have large classrooms full of materials and resources. They sit at the staff table with a drawer and one small locker space. The large oversize teachers’ bags of the states are laughable here. The teachers sit around the table laughing at the size of my bag as they hold up their own tiny purses that seems to meet all their needs. They pass around the container of markers I have with over fifty colors. They cannot understand why these items are necessary for my classes, as they carry pieces of chalk and a duster to class. The text books here are small and paperback, weighing a third as much as the huge hard cover text books of America. I can’t begin to imagine the price difference.
The bottom line is that I question the value of all the American crap set out to better student achievement. The school I left in North Carolina had less than half of the students passing end of grade level tests, where here the students are passing at much higher rates. These kids come to school with no shoes sometimes and you can be sure that they are not getting free breakfast or lunch from school. They simply come to school, maybe walking and hour to try and succeed. The students see the importance of success because they are able to see people struggling all around them.
Now how ridiculous I feel coming into a country where everything is half the price. The tailors and farmers can live on a couple of dollars a day, where I am used to spending more on just a single cup of coffee.
I am now literally floating in stuff. My “necessary” items are under my bed around my bed and overflowing out of my two shelves. I load up my America size back pack for class and find that I am even carrying more and more outside of my bag. The teachers don’t have large classrooms full of materials and resources. They sit at the staff table with a drawer and one small locker space. The large oversize teachers’ bags of the states are laughable here. The teachers sit around the table laughing at the size of my bag as they hold up their own tiny purses that seems to meet all their needs. They pass around the container of markers I have with over fifty colors. They cannot understand why these items are necessary for my classes, as they carry pieces of chalk and a duster to class. The text books here are small and paperback, weighing a third as much as the huge hard cover text books of America. I can’t begin to imagine the price difference.
The bottom line is that I question the value of all the American crap set out to better student achievement. The school I left in North Carolina had less than half of the students passing end of grade level tests, where here the students are passing at much higher rates. These kids come to school with no shoes sometimes and you can be sure that they are not getting free breakfast or lunch from school. They simply come to school, maybe walking and hour to try and succeed. The students see the importance of success because they are able to see people struggling all around them.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Aluna
“But Ma’am, why? It is for good husband!” The 12th standard girls are right; in retrospect, I should have at least tried to participate in the five-day fast for the Aluna festival. Every unmarried girl in the village followed the strict rules of the fast in hopes of finding a good husband: they ate grains only once a day, only sweets that are home-made, and no foods cooked with salt. In the villages of Gujarat, that really limits what you can eat— I was not sure if my body could handle it after being sick and not having eaten meat for the longest time in my life. But for a good husband, why not? It would have been an experience!
I did have the opportunity to observe and participate in many of the other events and activities that are part of Aluna’s festivities though. When I walked into Spoken English on Monday morning, the girls looked at my hands and exclaimed, “Ma’am! Why no mendhi?” All of them had freshly applied mendhi on their arms and hands—intricate and creative designs, as different for each girl as their fingerprints are. They were each wearing a colorful salwar kameez to celebrate Aluna (while the boys still had to wear uniforms). “Teacher, I do your mendhi!” So during the thirty minutes between Spoken English class and Morning Prayer, I had a crowd of girls around me drawing flowers and curlicues on my arms with impressive speed. Every girl here seems to have an innate talent of creating beautiful mendhi designs; they control the tube of henna with swiftness and no hesitation. Upon returning to the staff room after Morning Prayer, I was about to start correcting students’ notebooks when the other teachers intervened: “Don’t use your hands!” They joked that having henna on your hands is to have forced leisure time; one must guard her hands carefully and blot it with a mixture of sugar and lemon juice to make the mendhi dark. Supposedly, the darker the mendhi, the more your husband will love you!
During the week of Aluna, the school held some kind of competition for the students every day, including a 
mendhi competition, aarti competition, hair styling competition, and fashion competition. I was impressed in particular with the aarti competition—about sixty students, both boys and girls, participated, and everybody had such unique ideas! They had an hour and a half to finish making the aarti, or the decorated plate of lighted wicks used at a puja. As the competition began, everybody pulled out their own pans and colorful materials, from feathers and beads to flowers and nuts to mirrors and colored sand. Primary students and higher secondary students alike all worked intently, carefully placing each object and strategically laying out the design. As the students began to finish, they added the lamps and lit the wicks; soon the entire room was full of beautifully lit aarti plates. The smell of incense lingered in the air as the judges walked around the room, while curious students crowded the windows of the prayer hall to see who might win the competition this year.
During the week of Aluna, I discovered that my students had talents that I never knew about. It was another big step in getting to know them!
More on Aluna next time, so look out for more updates!
Namaste and thank you for reading,
Milly
Balancing the "Star-Struck" and the "So Over It."
Hello readers,
As time passes, it’s interesting to have our days divided into the two different worlds of the English and Gujarati mediums… each day brings its own mini culture-shock. In the Gujarati medium I have the sense that many of the students remain a bit “star-struck.” I’ve glimpsed giddy girls clapping their hands in delight that I’m coming to their classroom before rushing back to their seats to greet me with an enthusiastic “GOOD MORNING, MA’AM! HOW ARE YOU?” as I walk in, after which I can’t hide my amused grin.
Because of the lower English comprehension level in the Gujarati medium, my teaching takes on a more theatrical quality, and I’m increasingly prone to gesture, act out, and make voices for different characters—I feel like it’s my job to make the stories come alive for the students, so that they’re really focused on understanding what happens next. One of the biggest tendencies I’ve had to fight is the trap of speaking too quickly. Even when I feel like I’m speaking slower than normal, this is often too fast for my classes, especially the younger standards, who are dealing with my foreign accent and pronunciation on top of everything else. In the absence of slide-show technology or a printer (though Pamela and I are planning on investing in one of those soon!) I’ve started to find success in drawing pictures on the board, gesturing wildly, and finally (it seems) finding the right speaking tempo. The amount of Gujarati translation the kids end up with varies depending on which co-teacher I’m working with during the day, and some teachers are eager to jump in and over-explain things, while others sit back and watch me do my thing. I felt highly rewarded yesterday, however, when Vijay Sir, one of my more silent co-teachers, watched my full lesson and actively chose not to provide any Gujarati translations. When the kids seemed a bit confused, he merely backed me up and said, “Listen carefully to Madam! You will understand her explanations.” I repeated myself, while speaking slowly, drawing, and acting, and the kids were able to follow! The story I was explaining was “The Black Bull,” which is a Jataka Tale that tells of one of the Buddha’s previous lifetimes before he became the Buddha, when he was born as a black bull. During the first paragraph the kids encounter the line, “In these lives, he is known as the Bodhisattva, or the Buddha-to-be.” To explain “Buddha-to-be” I asked the kids what they wanted to be when they grew up, and wrote those things on the board. We ended up with an “engineer-to-be,” a “doctor-to-be,” and a “policeman-to-be,” as well as many more enthusiastic hands that there weren’t time for.
Often-times, I’m not sure if the silences that follow my comprehension questions signify confusion regarding how to answer (the students must wonder, Should we use English or Gujarati? What is the proper way to answer the question? Can I just read this passage from the story?...I get a strange mix of all the above) or confusion regarding what in the world I’m saying. Lately, though, by using simple sentences with them, repeating them, and sometimes dropping hints, one kid in the room will suddenly thrust their hand into the air, and “Oh! Ma’am!” at me excitedly, hardly waiting until they’re called on before they stand up and answer. These correct answers are, I hope, encouraging not just to me, but to the other students as well! It’s great to see even the sixth and seventh standards answering me in English, rather than Gujarati. On a few occasions I’ve even been able to coax full sentences out of them; the correct sentence is then written on the board, and the class copies it into their notebooks.
By now, the English medium students have, for the most part, “gotten over me.” This isn’t necessarily a negative thing, it just means that they’re reverted to their typical, mischievous middle-school selves. Now that the students have adjusted to my pronunciation and the novelty of a foreign teacher, I’m left faced with the time-old task of just keeping them interested in the lesson. During a usual class session, this isn’t unmanageable, but during the Library periods that I’ve been asked to take, I’ve been trying to switch things up from the usual routine and have met with an excited and chaotic response! For one thing, I’ve tried to begin the class by allowing the students to choose their own books to read. This seemed only logical to me, since I only ever wanted to read the books I was interested in. Isn’t that true for all of us? But it seems that the students are accustomed to having their books doled out to them, like unappealing rice gruel, and are forced to sit through the thirty five minutes in bored-to-tears silence, mouthing the words of the story or staring blankly into space. Considering this history, it’s no surprise that they have no idea how to conduct themselves when given the freedom to choose their own stories… the students battle over books, claim they need to trade two or three times, and rush out of their seats before being called. After some trial and error, I’ve concluded that I need to give the class printed hand-outs to better hold their attention and still their questions. Handouts are something they never receive on a usual day since printers aren’t common and supplementary material is usually unnecessary when following the government curriculum. Still, I hit up the internet café two days ago to print some Reading Log sheets that the students can use to record their progress, and write down the title of their book. This way I can make a master list that absolutely WILL NOT change, so that we can hopefully finally start the activity that I have in mind: For four weeks, the students will read the same book (and hopefully complete it), while logging the pages they’ve read each week. The students are divided into three teams, and the winning team will be selected based on a couple of categories: one is cumulative pages read, and the other is a poster presentation, which will include a character description, plot summarization, and plot synthesis. Extra points for added details and creativity. The groups must also figure out a way to combine everyone’s individual posters to make one collage-style presentation. It seems that this activity may max out their group collaboration skills, but I’m hopeful that it will be fun and interesting for them. If the kids are overly lively… well, at least they’re excited!
Today was especially fun in the Gujarati medium because it was the Science Fair, and I got to wander around and look at all the little contraptions the students had hooked up together. There were lots of light bulbs, fire alarms, solar-powered lights, wind-powered lights, and even some water purifiers and a water alarm (perfect for rainy season!). Most of the kids wouldn’t attempt to explain their creations to me in English, but I got one well-rehearsed Gujarati explanation from a girl who looked to be in about 6th standard and was undeterred by my blank look, as well as some very neat English explanations from my 11th Standard kids. (So proud.) Pamela had her camera with her, so there should be some nice technicolor pictures pending!
As it is, it’s late. Time to call it a school night.
Namaste,
Dalena
As time passes, it’s interesting to have our days divided into the two different worlds of the English and Gujarati mediums… each day brings its own mini culture-shock. In the Gujarati medium I have the sense that many of the students remain a bit “star-struck.” I’ve glimpsed giddy girls clapping their hands in delight that I’m coming to their classroom before rushing back to their seats to greet me with an enthusiastic “GOOD MORNING, MA’AM! HOW ARE YOU?” as I walk in, after which I can’t hide my amused grin.
Because of the lower English comprehension level in the Gujarati medium, my teaching takes on a more theatrical quality, and I’m increasingly prone to gesture, act out, and make voices for different characters—I feel like it’s my job to make the stories come alive for the students, so that they’re really focused on understanding what happens next. One of the biggest tendencies I’ve had to fight is the trap of speaking too quickly. Even when I feel like I’m speaking slower than normal, this is often too fast for my classes, especially the younger standards, who are dealing with my foreign accent and pronunciation on top of everything else. In the absence of slide-show technology or a printer (though Pamela and I are planning on investing in one of those soon!) I’ve started to find success in drawing pictures on the board, gesturing wildly, and finally (it seems) finding the right speaking tempo. The amount of Gujarati translation the kids end up with varies depending on which co-teacher I’m working with during the day, and some teachers are eager to jump in and over-explain things, while others sit back and watch me do my thing. I felt highly rewarded yesterday, however, when Vijay Sir, one of my more silent co-teachers, watched my full lesson and actively chose not to provide any Gujarati translations. When the kids seemed a bit confused, he merely backed me up and said, “Listen carefully to Madam! You will understand her explanations.” I repeated myself, while speaking slowly, drawing, and acting, and the kids were able to follow! The story I was explaining was “The Black Bull,” which is a Jataka Tale that tells of one of the Buddha’s previous lifetimes before he became the Buddha, when he was born as a black bull. During the first paragraph the kids encounter the line, “In these lives, he is known as the Bodhisattva, or the Buddha-to-be.” To explain “Buddha-to-be” I asked the kids what they wanted to be when they grew up, and wrote those things on the board. We ended up with an “engineer-to-be,” a “doctor-to-be,” and a “policeman-to-be,” as well as many more enthusiastic hands that there weren’t time for.
Often-times, I’m not sure if the silences that follow my comprehension questions signify confusion regarding how to answer (the students must wonder, Should we use English or Gujarati? What is the proper way to answer the question? Can I just read this passage from the story?...I get a strange mix of all the above) or confusion regarding what in the world I’m saying. Lately, though, by using simple sentences with them, repeating them, and sometimes dropping hints, one kid in the room will suddenly thrust their hand into the air, and “Oh! Ma’am!” at me excitedly, hardly waiting until they’re called on before they stand up and answer. These correct answers are, I hope, encouraging not just to me, but to the other students as well! It’s great to see even the sixth and seventh standards answering me in English, rather than Gujarati. On a few occasions I’ve even been able to coax full sentences out of them; the correct sentence is then written on the board, and the class copies it into their notebooks.
By now, the English medium students have, for the most part, “gotten over me.” This isn’t necessarily a negative thing, it just means that they’re reverted to their typical, mischievous middle-school selves. Now that the students have adjusted to my pronunciation and the novelty of a foreign teacher, I’m left faced with the time-old task of just keeping them interested in the lesson. During a usual class session, this isn’t unmanageable, but during the Library periods that I’ve been asked to take, I’ve been trying to switch things up from the usual routine and have met with an excited and chaotic response! For one thing, I’ve tried to begin the class by allowing the students to choose their own books to read. This seemed only logical to me, since I only ever wanted to read the books I was interested in. Isn’t that true for all of us? But it seems that the students are accustomed to having their books doled out to them, like unappealing rice gruel, and are forced to sit through the thirty five minutes in bored-to-tears silence, mouthing the words of the story or staring blankly into space. Considering this history, it’s no surprise that they have no idea how to conduct themselves when given the freedom to choose their own stories… the students battle over books, claim they need to trade two or three times, and rush out of their seats before being called. After some trial and error, I’ve concluded that I need to give the class printed hand-outs to better hold their attention and still their questions. Handouts are something they never receive on a usual day since printers aren’t common and supplementary material is usually unnecessary when following the government curriculum. Still, I hit up the internet café two days ago to print some Reading Log sheets that the students can use to record their progress, and write down the title of their book. This way I can make a master list that absolutely WILL NOT change, so that we can hopefully finally start the activity that I have in mind: For four weeks, the students will read the same book (and hopefully complete it), while logging the pages they’ve read each week. The students are divided into three teams, and the winning team will be selected based on a couple of categories: one is cumulative pages read, and the other is a poster presentation, which will include a character description, plot summarization, and plot synthesis. Extra points for added details and creativity. The groups must also figure out a way to combine everyone’s individual posters to make one collage-style presentation. It seems that this activity may max out their group collaboration skills, but I’m hopeful that it will be fun and interesting for them. If the kids are overly lively… well, at least they’re excited!
Today was especially fun in the Gujarati medium because it was the Science Fair, and I got to wander around and look at all the little contraptions the students had hooked up together. There were lots of light bulbs, fire alarms, solar-powered lights, wind-powered lights, and even some water purifiers and a water alarm (perfect for rainy season!). Most of the kids wouldn’t attempt to explain their creations to me in English, but I got one well-rehearsed Gujarati explanation from a girl who looked to be in about 6th standard and was undeterred by my blank look, as well as some very neat English explanations from my 11th Standard kids. (So proud.) Pamela had her camera with her, so there should be some nice technicolor pictures pending!
As it is, it’s late. Time to call it a school night.
Namaste,
Dalena
love aaj kal
As my friends, parents, professors, and especially boyfriends know, I am obsessed with love. I love the concept of love, the idea of it, the feel and action of it. Senior year in college I did an honors thesis called "1,372 for Love," a collection of love poetry I wrote, and I've spent countless hours reading and thinking about the language we use to talk about love. Needless to say I'm aware the English language has some pretty strange ways to talk about love.
So I was understandably amused when I found myself in front of a class of 14 year old boys, trying to get them to create a narration for a story called "The Romance" in spoken English class. The activity, called the story jigsaw, involved them looking at three different stick figure drawings, narrating the drawings, and then putting them in order. The first drawing was of a stick figure girl and a stick figure boy with a heart over his head.
The question was, "Why does the boy have a heart over his head?"
"Because he is loves the girl!" someone answered.
"Yes, but the correct way to say this is "he loves the girl, or even 'he is in love with the girl.'"
They looked at me like I was crazy. I sighed. Then I wrote "fall in love" on the board.
"Who knows the word 'fall?'" I asked. No one knew, so I acted it out. "In English we say 'I fall in love.'" I pretended to fall again, then pointed at the ground. "The love is there on the ground, and I FALL into it," I said emphatically, falling into an imaginary pit of mushy feelings, hormones, and heartbreak. All the boys laughed. I felt ridiculous, but not because the boys were laughing.
I felt stupid because the phrase is so stupid! What kind of stupid language am I teaching, anyway??
The final question I asked the class was "Why does the girl not love the boy" (the final stick figure drawing is of a girl running away from a boy while yelling "NO!"). A very bright student raised his hand.
"Because the boy is not handsome!"
I laughed really loud. "Very good!"
If only it were that simple...
So I was understandably amused when I found myself in front of a class of 14 year old boys, trying to get them to create a narration for a story called "The Romance" in spoken English class. The activity, called the story jigsaw, involved them looking at three different stick figure drawings, narrating the drawings, and then putting them in order. The first drawing was of a stick figure girl and a stick figure boy with a heart over his head.
The question was, "Why does the boy have a heart over his head?"
"Because he is loves the girl!" someone answered.
"Yes, but the correct way to say this is "he loves the girl, or even 'he is in love with the girl.'"
They looked at me like I was crazy. I sighed. Then I wrote "fall in love" on the board.
"Who knows the word 'fall?'" I asked. No one knew, so I acted it out. "In English we say 'I fall in love.'" I pretended to fall again, then pointed at the ground. "The love is there on the ground, and I FALL into it," I said emphatically, falling into an imaginary pit of mushy feelings, hormones, and heartbreak. All the boys laughed. I felt ridiculous, but not because the boys were laughing.
I felt stupid because the phrase is so stupid! What kind of stupid language am I teaching, anyway??
The final question I asked the class was "Why does the girl not love the boy" (the final stick figure drawing is of a girl running away from a boy while yelling "NO!"). A very bright student raised his hand.
"Because the boy is not handsome!"
I laughed really loud. "Very good!"
If only it were that simple...
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Tough Love
The most heartbreaking thing happened to me last Friday: because each and every student in my 8th standard boys class - the devious yet endearing lot - lapsed into repeated bouts of violence, I absolutely lost my temper at their lack of decorum and they really lost their temper back. Class ended with me storming out, telling the boys not to bother coming back to class, and them yelling back that they didn't want class anymore. I regretted the shouting match as soon as I got home and realized how much I actually do love them (I have told Milly so many times that, for the first time in my amateur teaching career, I will most probably shed tears on my last class with these rascals), and the fear that they would actually not come back to class and outright reject me took over for the rest of the weekend.
Well, I sheepishly walked back to Bajipura today for my afternoon class, and lo and behold! All of my students (I mean all of them), were waiting for me in their seats. In true form, they all aloofly asked me what I was doing coming to class when I had threatened that I wouldn't, and I (childishly) reciprocated by asking them what they were waiting for since I obviously wasn't there for class, and things were really tense. Then as soon as I put all of their notebooks on the table, they eagerly jumped out of their seats, laughed, grabbed their notebooks, fished spare bits of chalk out of their pockets for me to write on the board with like they always do....and then the impossible happened: THEY WERE BETTER BEHAVED THAN THEY HAD EVER BEEN BEFORE.
We had such a wonderful class, our mutual affections are rekindled, and GOSH have I learned a big time lesson. Kudos to Meghan for patiently telling me so many times how very forgiving children are - my boys really just left the past in the past, better than I was able to do. So me possibly (probably) crying on my upcoming last class - the three day countdown, yikes! - still holds, but I am so grateful that my relationship with my students has been healed, and made stronger. And, well, let's be completely truthful: absence really does seem to make the heart grow fonder...
Well, I sheepishly walked back to Bajipura today for my afternoon class, and lo and behold! All of my students (I mean all of them), were waiting for me in their seats. In true form, they all aloofly asked me what I was doing coming to class when I had threatened that I wouldn't, and I (childishly) reciprocated by asking them what they were waiting for since I obviously wasn't there for class, and things were really tense. Then as soon as I put all of their notebooks on the table, they eagerly jumped out of their seats, laughed, grabbed their notebooks, fished spare bits of chalk out of their pockets for me to write on the board with like they always do....and then the impossible happened: THEY WERE BETTER BEHAVED THAN THEY HAD EVER BEEN BEFORE.
We had such a wonderful class, our mutual affections are rekindled, and GOSH have I learned a big time lesson. Kudos to Meghan for patiently telling me so many times how very forgiving children are - my boys really just left the past in the past, better than I was able to do. So me possibly (probably) crying on my upcoming last class - the three day countdown, yikes! - still holds, but I am so grateful that my relationship with my students has been healed, and made stronger. And, well, let's be completely truthful: absence really does seem to make the heart grow fonder...
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