Wow.  I got up this morning and didn’t feel nervous about my first day teaching.  I didn’t feel excited either.  I have no doubt I can do this.  We were supposed to teach 6 middle school classes – the same English lesson plan.  We are teaching in pairs which is part of why I didn’t feel nervous.  This won’t be our final school.  It’s just one day and it will be good practice.  School starts with all the kids in lines per their age/grade in the front yard of the school.  They had a band which I was quite impressed with.  They were better than any middle school band I’ve ever heard.  They raised the flag, did the national anthem, and then sang a bunch of other songs.  Then a couple teachers spoke to the group.  I teared up a few times as it started to hit home that I would be doing this every day in the very near future.

Then we were told that since the assembly went so quickly that we would do 4 classes before lunch instead of 3.  We went to our first class.  They did ok with the vocabulary words, but putting them into sentences didn’t go as smoothly.  They were not too interested in learning English.  We had some fun games for them to play.  There are a few students who are the top students and this was easy for them and then there were kids at the opposite end of the spectrum.  It was so difficult to keep their attention.  One second, you had it, the next was total chaos.  Each class was the same – some learning, but more time spent trying to get their attention.

After, 3 classes, they left for lunch even though we had been told 4 classes before lunch.  Then they told us 2 classes after lunch.  Apparently, nothing ever goes as planned or as you are told it will go.  I want to learn to go with the flow of life?  Ok, here it is.  I felt ok at lunch and felt like two more classes would be ok, but I can’t say I was having fun or enjoying myself.  So far, this is not my idea of a fun job.  It’s just the first day and I know that where I get placed in the future may be very different.

We got back and there were only a few kids in our class.  They told us no more class for the day.  Huh?  Then the teachers told us our grade was done for the day so I went and watched another teacher pair.  They seemed to be having similar issues to what we had.  Then our last class of the day – mayhem.  They didn’t get the opening activity we did.  They were all over the classroom.  Half of them participated.  The other half didn’t. Everything we did to get their attention failed.  Then a half hour in, they started packing up their bags and putting their chairs on their desks, telling us class was over when it wasn’t.  I felt completely useless.  Another one of the teacher pairs ran in and helped us corral them, but it was difficult even after that.  Total chaos.

It was hot and we have to wear pretty conservative clothes.  It wasn’t as bad as I had anticipated, but I was soaked by the end of the day and sooooo ready for a cold shower.  Still, this is “winter” so come June, whoa.

If I end up with a class like this, I feel I won’t last a week in my job.  Some of the other teachers commented that they had fun today.  I didn’t think today was horrible, but I didn’t find it fun either.  Do I need to re evaluate my idea of fun?  What did I expect?  What do I wish it was like instead?  I expected this, but not quite as unruly.  I’m not judging myself.  I did my best and my best didn’t quite cut it so I have some work to do learning classroom management.  I realize I wouldn’t want to sit in language classes all day either.  I think what I want is to teach those that want to learn.  I feel like they won’t retain or use anything they learned today which feels a bit like a waste of time.  Of course this day was as much for our learning as theirs.  I learned I need to work on classroom management.  I feel this isn’t the job for me, but I’m here and this is what I’m doing so I might as well learn something.  I feel that I’ve come a long way with self judgments as I don’t feel an emotional charge to how the day went.  I am a bit nervous about going off to some school by myself in the very near future.  Wish I had more pictures to share, but that was one thing too many for me.  I’m sure there will be more in the future.

(c) all rights reserved Kimberly Fiore