Perpetual Change

Reminisces from school

These are some of my last random thoughts from my time as a teacher:

I think that I mentioned how the students stay with the same class for all of their time in school. There are some definite advantages to this way, but after two years of observation, I have decided that I would hate to be with the same students always.

If you really want someone to learn/know/understand something, you should teach it as if the language you are using is not their first; in this way, you focus on different ways for them to understand the same material and review and repeat it in creative ways. The results are amazing.

I observed an English competition where one 16 year old student of mine was asked what career she wanted. She started her reply by relating how her father wanted something for her that she did not. "If my father really loves me, he would let me be what I want," she continued. But I started to wonder, would he? If he really loved you and he thought you were making the wrong decision and you couldn’t learn from it? What about manipulation? What about being made to do something you learned to love? These were hot topics for me as a Peace Corps Volunteer teaching things that their government had requested, but which the current cultural mindset didn't always see as useful or important.

One day in a class about ecology, a student replied in Ukrainian that animals that eat only plants are called: vegetarians.

They teach Christian Ethics in public Ethics class. I once engaged a group of students about what would happen to students that aren't Christian. Their response: But there aren't any in town. During Soviet times, they taught Atheistic Ethics. I have some textbooks from the time. They are quite interesting.

When I first met Zenovia Omylanivna (the English Department head) at the school I started working in my first fall, she thought I was Ukrainian. When I explained who I was at the end of a seminar that I was attending at her school that day, she was a bit confused.

I went to teach sports games at another school one week. I had told the students ahead of time to where shoes they could run in. The girls showed up in High heels, but it didn't stop them from playing "Steel the bacon." Well too, I might add.

In summary of my time teaching, my heart goes out to all of the teachers out there. Your work is invaluable, and your patience immeasurable. I know there are good times and bad, but most of your time is definitely under-appreciated. I appreciate it. And I will continue to advocate for more money to educators and education in any place that I live.

posted by jjs @ 1:23 PM