It's still quite overwhelming to try and put every day in words, and descriptive enough to relay some vague idea of what every experience was like.
The school system here is divided into trimesters, which is new for this year. Per semester, there is a mandated number of ACSs (essentially quizzes that are at the teacher's discretion), and ACPs (like midterms or finals). In my school, we have 2 ACSs and 1 ACP per trimester. These three grades, weighed evenly between the total ACS and ACP grades, make up the trimesterly grade. So 9 grades make up the entire year.
I made the mistake of telling the kids to hand in their homework (TPC) on a fresh sheet of paper. Because they only usually hand in ACSs or ACPs, they thought this was an ACS and copied off each other, ran after me if I didn't get their TPC, and generally were more obnoxious than usual.
In one class, I told them I was leaving and did, even though many hadn't turned in homework. They chased me into my next class, insisting I take their papers, putting them on my desk. I swept them onto the floor to demonstrate that it was too late - but only later found out why they were so concerned.
Now, I am going to be counting their TPC towards their final grade, but nothing like an ACS. What bothered me is A) they actually thought I'd give an ACS that simple and unmanaged without much doubt, and b) that they cheated so openly and didn't seem to care when I saw it.
Obviously, I'm going to have to refresh them on the rules before I actually give an ACS or ACP.
On the flip side of things, I got an enumerated list of questions about HIV/AIDS from the class yesterday that I couldn't answer all the questions for. They are excellent questions, like getting HIV from oral sex, and if HIV can be contracted from sex if ejaculation occurs outside the female. The "chefe" of the turma took control and got this list together, so I think I'm going to see if he'd be interested in forming an HIV/AIDS awareness group for the 9th grade. He's got the curiosity and brains for it. I think he just needs a reason (extra credit) and a good source of information (theoretically, me).
I received a care package of sorts from Dirt Devil, incuding all sorts of great stuff - CDs, pens, paper, candy, DD paraphernalia (!), collapsible cones for playing Ultimate, and a noticeable lack of frisbees (somebody must have nabbed 'em en route). Getting this stuff has made the other North Americans in town very jealous. Rightfully so: I now have a PEZ dispenser!
Mental health update:
To be brutally honest, this job is f---ing hard. I don't say that about a lot of things. But adjusting to a young educational system that is structured very differently and places different, greater demands on teachers, without proper repercussions for poor behavior (I hear stories every day about kids being hit in class as an accepted method of discipline) and without resources considered essential in developed countries, and doing it all in a different language that the kids don't speak all that well, which makes topical confusions seem like lingual confusions and assigning even TPC a chore and a half to explain, is just plain hard and stressful.
Having kids laugh at you all day, not because you look funny, you do something funny or what you're teaching is funny - but because you're not a REAL threat to them compared with other teachers, parents, siblings, etc., because you speak the language differently (and not necessarily incorrectly), you don't speak their mother tongue, they really don't care that much about their grade anyway, and they just don't understand the material.
I have ways of blowing off stress and just relaxing, but I still get mentally exhausted from it all. I've never felt so...short...day in, day out before. I find myself taking lots of deep breaths, and trying to release my muscles, but it isn't easy.
And I can understand why they say the first three months are the hardest, not because you sit there the first day and say "Wow this is tough" but because you have these days quite often, and it doesn't feel like it will ever relent.
I already laugh at myself a lot, but I'm going to have to learn how to do it more.
Peace
John
