When my kids act up I make them write a 3 page essay about why they were kicked out, how they're supposed to behave, and why their behavior is disruptive.
Gustavo is one of my 7th graders who is fairly bright but feels as though the rules dont apply to him. He was sent out of the room along with another girl because they were out of their seats not following the rules. How I caught them was I heard the girl, Deymi, screaming. Gustavo begged me to let him off and not write it and when I asked him why I should make an exception for him he didn't have a really good answer, but being bright he figured he should adjust his attitude and actually wrote the paper so here it is:
Hi, Miss Megan, I'm sorry that I didn't give this to you the date you told me to. I'm very sorry. I know I was out of my seat when you send me out but I didn't mean to get you angry. I was just opening a gum and I think Deymi was going to say to me to change my gum to a candy that she had, but I didn't want the candy so I put the candy in my mouth and suddenly, Deymi started shouting like a little girl:Gustavo, Gustavo!!! And I said What???? And then you said, "both go out and you are going to write me a 3 page essay for tomorrow.
I tried to explain to you what I was doing but you didn't permit me to talk. I was a little angry because I thought this was not fair but now I realize that you were right,I was not in my seat, I needed to be in my seat like everybody else and I wasn't. I was very angry with Deymi because I was telling her that it was her fault that I was doing this unfair punishment. But the I said to myself, "why am I say that if I was out of my seat? I am very sorry Miss Megan. I should not be out of my seat, because I know that you have the same rules of Mr. Dale.
Miss Megan I sweat that I will not do that again. I am going to be in my seat every day, I will try to do that. I will try to follow your rules. This is all that I can write. I don't know what else to write. I already told you that I was sorry. Bye Miss Megan. I will try to don't do that again.
I think I behave bad because Carl makes me laugh when the teacher is not looking. And when the teacher turns Carl stops laughing and I can't stop laughing because he says a lot of funny things that makes everbody laugh. I'm sorry. :(
I thought this was hillarious. Its funnier if you know the kid. Knowing Gustavo this is total bullshit but I have to give him credit. He picked up on the fact I wasn't going to buy the whole he was being unfairly punished thing so he decided to admit to part of it and apologize.
As for the other 7th graders they're improving some. Slowly but surely I'm working on them. Some of the ones who have done really poorly are doing better in part because I've tried to take some of them aside and encourage them.
One kid, Stefano, was a little terror and didn't do so great on this quiz. I pulled him aside and told him I knew he could do better if he just tried a little more. Then I met his mom and lied and said he was a good kid in front of her and I expected him to do well and there's been a complete change in him. His grades are improving and his behavior is so much better. There are a couple others that this seems to be helping too.
Tuesday, March 28, 2006
Tuesday, March 21, 2006
More Pics Yet Again
These are the hieroglyphic (sp?) stairs and really awesome to see.
Nice skull looking thing. If you look at it it probably means you're cursed and will die in a month...too late
More glyphs. These tell you what date the statue was built. The Mayans had a really complex calendar system with several different cycles going on. There's the 260 day calendar, the 365 day calendar and so on and so forth. This here tells us that this was built in the year of the beaver and the era of the turtle. Impressed with my knowledge? Actually I have no clue but my fellow teacher and roommate Dale liked to take out his book and guess at each marking. Personally I think the archeologists are making it up because the drawings in that book look nothing like these markings, but you gotta get your grant funding somehow.
Another nifty statue honoring some Mayan leader
Nice skull looking thing. If you look at it it probably means you're cursed and will die in a month...too late
More glyphs. These tell you what date the statue was built. The Mayans had a really complex calendar system with several different cycles going on. There's the 260 day calendar, the 365 day calendar and so on and so forth. This here tells us that this was built in the year of the beaver and the era of the turtle. Impressed with my knowledge? Actually I have no clue but my fellow teacher and roommate Dale liked to take out his book and guess at each marking. Personally I think the archeologists are making it up because the drawings in that book look nothing like these markings, but you gotta get your grant funding somehow.
Another nifty statue honoring some Mayan leader
More Pics
Another picture from the fort in Omoa. Isn't it beautiful?
Yet again another fort pic.
This is from the chapel at the fort and I just thought it was cool.
A ruin thingy in Copan.
Sunday, March 19, 2006
Stupid Pictures
Ok, I'm having trouble posting pics from Omoha and Copan but eventually I will post them and pictures of some of my students.
As for updates this weekend was not action packed but it has been productive. I made my way to San Pedro and found an ipod charger, so my ipod lives again! Thank goodness because I thought I was about to die.
Dale found a pedal for an electronic keyboard which was awesome. Its so weird here, some people have electronic keyboards (im not sure if anyone here owns an actual piano) but no one has the pedal extension on them and they're impossible to find. How can you play the piano wihtout a pedal? I mean it can be done but if you want to go one to play bigger better things the pedal is definately helpful. Dale also found a tuner for his guitar so he was very excited. He's been trying to teach me the guitar but I find the chords very difficult which I like to blame on the small size of my hands. If possible I'm going to try and locate a children's guitar and maybe I'll be able to actually learn something. If not there's the two years in Togo to practice, right?
For everyone who didn't get the memo I have received and accepted my invitation to be a Health Care and AIDS prevention extension agent in Togo, Africa (its right by Benin and not too far from Nigeria and about the size of West Virginia for those of you unfamiliar with Togo). My departure date is September24th 2006 and I will be there until December 2008. I'm very excited about it and what I'm even more excited about it no more school teaching.
I'm sure I'll encounter my own frustrations and obstacles with the Peace Corps but if it means no screaming 7th graders I'll take it.
Back to Honduras...Lets see Friday was Father's Day and the school put on a big show. All the teachers were responsible for a grade or their class or something and then that evening all the parents came and they all did their little performances. It was supposed to start at 5pm but this being Honduras we didn't start until 6.
It was a different experience to say the least. For one thing the songs people sang or danced to didn't actually have a lot to do with fathers, but little kids are cute so everyone is happy to see them up there dancing around. The interesting part is the way in which these kids dance...basically the little boys stand there and these young girls dance very suggestively girating (sp?) and shaking their ass and all that. When I saw the rehersal I thought the parents were going to be up in arms about this. I mean this is a Christian school with many evangelical Christian folks but they all just cheered them on. Then again if you see the way the moms dress down here I guess its not that suprising.
Then there was the high school. The Spanish teachers were in charge of that and the kids all sang these songs about shitty fathers. The 7th grade song was about a Father who never loved his kids enough or paid them enough attention so they didn't love him either. The 8th grade I wasn't so clear on and the 9th grade song was about this man whose wife was dying and he had abandoned her and their son and he was getting married to some other woman. How terrible is that for a Father's Day presentation?
Some of the 7th grade girls came to me the day of the presentation begging for me to help them come up with something. I told them I'd try but sadly we weren't able to do it. Well I say sadly but I'm a white person therefore I can't dance (no offense to all those who can). Aside from that they decided to ask me this about 6 hours before the program so no luck, but for Mother's Day Im taking over the 7th grade and we're gonna have the most kick ass program. It'll be tough because competing with cute 1st graders when you're in 7th is rough but it's gonna be awesome.
Dale has decided on Thursdays he's gonna try and start teaching kids who want to to swing dance. I, who was born with two left feet, have agreed to help him in this venture so I guess I'll be learning how to swing dance as well. I think its good because there are really no extracurriculars here. So wish me luck.
Well I'll post more later, I've wasted enough of the day.
As for updates this weekend was not action packed but it has been productive. I made my way to San Pedro and found an ipod charger, so my ipod lives again! Thank goodness because I thought I was about to die.
Dale found a pedal for an electronic keyboard which was awesome. Its so weird here, some people have electronic keyboards (im not sure if anyone here owns an actual piano) but no one has the pedal extension on them and they're impossible to find. How can you play the piano wihtout a pedal? I mean it can be done but if you want to go one to play bigger better things the pedal is definately helpful. Dale also found a tuner for his guitar so he was very excited. He's been trying to teach me the guitar but I find the chords very difficult which I like to blame on the small size of my hands. If possible I'm going to try and locate a children's guitar and maybe I'll be able to actually learn something. If not there's the two years in Togo to practice, right?
For everyone who didn't get the memo I have received and accepted my invitation to be a Health Care and AIDS prevention extension agent in Togo, Africa (its right by Benin and not too far from Nigeria and about the size of West Virginia for those of you unfamiliar with Togo). My departure date is September24th 2006 and I will be there until December 2008. I'm very excited about it and what I'm even more excited about it no more school teaching.
I'm sure I'll encounter my own frustrations and obstacles with the Peace Corps but if it means no screaming 7th graders I'll take it.
Back to Honduras...Lets see Friday was Father's Day and the school put on a big show. All the teachers were responsible for a grade or their class or something and then that evening all the parents came and they all did their little performances. It was supposed to start at 5pm but this being Honduras we didn't start until 6.
It was a different experience to say the least. For one thing the songs people sang or danced to didn't actually have a lot to do with fathers, but little kids are cute so everyone is happy to see them up there dancing around. The interesting part is the way in which these kids dance...basically the little boys stand there and these young girls dance very suggestively girating (sp?) and shaking their ass and all that. When I saw the rehersal I thought the parents were going to be up in arms about this. I mean this is a Christian school with many evangelical Christian folks but they all just cheered them on. Then again if you see the way the moms dress down here I guess its not that suprising.
Then there was the high school. The Spanish teachers were in charge of that and the kids all sang these songs about shitty fathers. The 7th grade song was about a Father who never loved his kids enough or paid them enough attention so they didn't love him either. The 8th grade I wasn't so clear on and the 9th grade song was about this man whose wife was dying and he had abandoned her and their son and he was getting married to some other woman. How terrible is that for a Father's Day presentation?
Some of the 7th grade girls came to me the day of the presentation begging for me to help them come up with something. I told them I'd try but sadly we weren't able to do it. Well I say sadly but I'm a white person therefore I can't dance (no offense to all those who can). Aside from that they decided to ask me this about 6 hours before the program so no luck, but for Mother's Day Im taking over the 7th grade and we're gonna have the most kick ass program. It'll be tough because competing with cute 1st graders when you're in 7th is rough but it's gonna be awesome.
Dale has decided on Thursdays he's gonna try and start teaching kids who want to to swing dance. I, who was born with two left feet, have agreed to help him in this venture so I guess I'll be learning how to swing dance as well. I think its good because there are really no extracurriculars here. So wish me luck.
Well I'll post more later, I've wasted enough of the day.
Thursday, March 16, 2006
Parent Meetings and Basketball
**quick note: i'm not sure what happened with the previous post but somehow the last half got deleted and some weird conversation got saved instead. So here the post is in its entirety.***
So basketball practice has definately gotten better. Around 12 girls show up and we have a pretty good time. There are still a couple that duck when the ball comes their way and scream, but we´re working on it. I now have a whistle so maybe I should start making them call me coach, but I think I´m happy with Ms. Meghan. Although the title teacher also seems to be popular.
Now back to the 7th graders, the little bastards who like to make my life miserable. I guess the question you have to ask is why are these kids such hellions? In most cases you can go straight back to the parants and it all makes sense. So I met some of my students parents last night and I was not impressed.
The first problem is the lack of administrative support. The other day I sent a girl to detention for the rest of the day and when I went downstairs later do you know what I found her doing? Helping to paint a window and having a grand ol´time. When she saw me she just smiled and waived and said, ¨Hi, Ms. Meghan.¨ If there was ever a good argument or good time to beat a child that would have been it.
I have now learned amazing screaming abilities I never knew I had but I have to yell increadibly loud to get the kids to sit down and hear me over the noise. So this week my students are of course wandering out of their desks, throwing paper, talking to one another across the room, and just generally being bad and Im feeling like I want to tear my hair out. So I yell to the kids to open their books and they´re going to have to read this story silently and we´re going to have another test like we had earlier in the week. The test I had given last time had purposely been designed so that most of the students would fail. I´m not actually going to count the test, I can´t because only abuot 3 students out of 31 passed, but they dont know that. But then I thought to myself why should I be punishing the good kids? So I split the room and put about 12 or 13 really bad kids on one side and told them to read the story and answer questions in the book and then I taught the good kids somethign else. I taught poetry to the good ones, we even did a little Alan Ginsberg, and you know what? They liked it!!!
I generally do not care for poetry myself but I do love Alan Ginsberg and there´s a lot more to poetry than crappy love poems, so we talked about the stuff I liked (dont worry parents I did edit out the bad words). The crazy thing was one of my students who is bad often but being good that day really got into it, kids were asking questions after the bell had rung and we were actually enjoying ourselves and my kids wanted to learn more. It was great!
Enter the evil parents. So we have this meeting with some parents last night and this one man gets all up in arms about seperating the class being discrimination (total bullshit) and just blah blah blah. Now these kids can work their way over to the good side. If they sit quietly and do their work they will be allowed to do the same thing as the rest of the children, but some parents I suppose felt this was unfair. Perhaps it would be had we not tried sending them to detention, sending them to the principal, sending them outside the classroom, writing papers about proper classroom behavior is, etc. but we´ve done all that and this so far is the only thing that works. Honestly, I´d rather teach to the 20 good students and say screw it when it comes to the bad students. When we try talking to bad kids parents they act shocked as though they´ve never heard that their kid was bad before. In fact I talked to a mother last week about her sons behavior and invited her to sit in class with him and she said of course she´d come and help, but instead she changed her mind and said her son wasn´t a problem that the teachers were the ones in error and she was going to sue or something.
So we agreed we´d give the kids one more chance and not divide them which really means we wont divide them today or Friday but come Monday I´m splitting the kids up. I´m not going to have parents who cant control their kids telling me how to run the classroom. There was this one pompous ass who came (the guy who called it discrimination) and asked me how his daughter was in class. So I explained that while her behavior was acceptable her work was sub-par and her English wasn´t very good. Now I´d like to add that this man teaches high school in San Pedro and is from England, I´d also like to add that he came to this meeting with his shirt totally unbuttonded (that spoke volumes to me) so for him to have a daughter that can barely write comprehensive English is ridiculous to me. And do you know what he told me? He told me I should make all my students have a folder and make sure that they write down their assignments and go around and check. I have 40 minutes with these kids and I probably spend at least 15 minutes just trying to get them to sit down some days. What a joke. Aside from that last time I checked I was a teacher not a babysitter and Im not there to make sure they write down their assignment, they´re old enough that they should be doing that themselves.
Oh well, what can you do?
So basketball practice has definately gotten better. Around 12 girls show up and we have a pretty good time. There are still a couple that duck when the ball comes their way and scream, but we´re working on it. I now have a whistle so maybe I should start making them call me coach, but I think I´m happy with Ms. Meghan. Although the title teacher also seems to be popular.
Now back to the 7th graders, the little bastards who like to make my life miserable. I guess the question you have to ask is why are these kids such hellions? In most cases you can go straight back to the parants and it all makes sense. So I met some of my students parents last night and I was not impressed.
The first problem is the lack of administrative support. The other day I sent a girl to detention for the rest of the day and when I went downstairs later do you know what I found her doing? Helping to paint a window and having a grand ol´time. When she saw me she just smiled and waived and said, ¨Hi, Ms. Meghan.¨ If there was ever a good argument or good time to beat a child that would have been it.
I have now learned amazing screaming abilities I never knew I had but I have to yell increadibly loud to get the kids to sit down and hear me over the noise. So this week my students are of course wandering out of their desks, throwing paper, talking to one another across the room, and just generally being bad and Im feeling like I want to tear my hair out. So I yell to the kids to open their books and they´re going to have to read this story silently and we´re going to have another test like we had earlier in the week. The test I had given last time had purposely been designed so that most of the students would fail. I´m not actually going to count the test, I can´t because only abuot 3 students out of 31 passed, but they dont know that. But then I thought to myself why should I be punishing the good kids? So I split the room and put about 12 or 13 really bad kids on one side and told them to read the story and answer questions in the book and then I taught the good kids somethign else. I taught poetry to the good ones, we even did a little Alan Ginsberg, and you know what? They liked it!!!
I generally do not care for poetry myself but I do love Alan Ginsberg and there´s a lot more to poetry than crappy love poems, so we talked about the stuff I liked (dont worry parents I did edit out the bad words). The crazy thing was one of my students who is bad often but being good that day really got into it, kids were asking questions after the bell had rung and we were actually enjoying ourselves and my kids wanted to learn more. It was great!
Enter the evil parents. So we have this meeting with some parents last night and this one man gets all up in arms about seperating the class being discrimination (total bullshit) and just blah blah blah. Now these kids can work their way over to the good side. If they sit quietly and do their work they will be allowed to do the same thing as the rest of the children, but some parents I suppose felt this was unfair. Perhaps it would be had we not tried sending them to detention, sending them to the principal, sending them outside the classroom, writing papers about proper classroom behavior is, etc. but we´ve done all that and this so far is the only thing that works. Honestly, I´d rather teach to the 20 good students and say screw it when it comes to the bad students. When we try talking to bad kids parents they act shocked as though they´ve never heard that their kid was bad before. In fact I talked to a mother last week about her sons behavior and invited her to sit in class with him and she said of course she´d come and help, but instead she changed her mind and said her son wasn´t a problem that the teachers were the ones in error and she was going to sue or something.
So we agreed we´d give the kids one more chance and not divide them which really means we wont divide them today or Friday but come Monday I´m splitting the kids up. I´m not going to have parents who cant control their kids telling me how to run the classroom. There was this one pompous ass who came (the guy who called it discrimination) and asked me how his daughter was in class. So I explained that while her behavior was acceptable her work was sub-par and her English wasn´t very good. Now I´d like to add that this man teaches high school in San Pedro and is from England, I´d also like to add that he came to this meeting with his shirt totally unbuttonded (that spoke volumes to me) so for him to have a daughter that can barely write comprehensive English is ridiculous to me. And do you know what he told me? He told me I should make all my students have a folder and make sure that they write down their assignments and go around and check. I have 40 minutes with these kids and I probably spend at least 15 minutes just trying to get them to sit down some days. What a joke. Aside from that last time I checked I was a teacher not a babysitter and Im not there to make sure they write down their assignment, they´re old enough that they should be doing that themselves.
Oh well, what can you do?
Sunday, March 12, 2006
Girls Basketball
Well the turn out to Girls basketball was overwhelming. 16 girls came! Thats of course too many so I'm hoping that with a schedule change and time it will weed a few out. I think a lot of them think its just play half-court basketball time when of course thats not really it. Then again its going to be a challenge to motivate them to practice drills and stuff if there's not another actual team to play against so we'll see how that goes. On Tuesday I'm going to have to be tougher to try and figure out whose really interested and whose not, but I'm excited that so many showed up.
As for classes they're going ok, although my 7th graders are still little bastards. I'm going to try writing home to the bad kids and asking their parents to come sit in class with them and see if any parents will come, but I have to do something. I do know that out of my 31 7th graders I'm probably going to fail about 13 so that'll be exciting. My 8th and 9th graders are pretty good though and my 10th graders are great.
I just got back from a trip to Copan with the 10th graders where we saw ancient Mayan ruins (pics soon to come). That was pretty cool to see the ruins and its just so beautiful. We also rode horses which was lots of fun with the students and overall just had a good time. Although now being the teacher and not the student sucks a little. There are definate advantages such as being able to kick kids out of your seat on the bus and stuff but having to say things like "you can't leave the hotel and go to a club tonight" just make you feel like a killjoy.
When we rode horses we rode them up the mountain and to the man's home and it was amazing. These people lived in a 2 bedroom crumbling adobe house with dirt floors. There was of course no running water and no electricity. There were kids running around everywhere and the poverty was very shocking. In very bad spanish I asked this one little boy how old he was and I thought he couldn't have been much older than 5 or 6 and he was 11! Their nutrition is just so lacking that the children are very small.
When we were ridding up there this one little boy was helping the horses along and I asked him how old he was and he told me 7 and when I asked if he went to school he explained that he didn't because he helped with the horses. There's just not a lot of hope for these people. They live in backbreaking poverty and then their children are raised without a chance for education or anything and the cycle repeats itself. Poverty in the US is so much different. Being poor in the US means you might not have air conditioning or you might have to ride the bus to work and maybe you can't buy name brand food, but you dont have dirt floors and no electricity or running water or indoor plumbing and your children can go to school.
What was even more shocking to me was that most of my students who are native Hondurans hadn't seen this kind of poverty before. These are private school students so their families are better off, but still they are so close to it here in Honduras I'm suprised that they haven't been exposed to it before now. Then again its something hard to see and I think many turn a blind eye and maybe parents want to protect their children from that.
Its something to think about when you're upset because you can't afford some nice new toy or when you worry about money. It was definately a reminder to me that even if I think I have nothing in the States and probably no matter what happens I have had, have, and will have more than most of these people will ever have. It makes me both thankful for what I have and somewhat ashamed at the largeness of American life.
Anyways I'll write more on my trip to Copan later and post pics. I have grading and lesson planning to do. Adios.
As for classes they're going ok, although my 7th graders are still little bastards. I'm going to try writing home to the bad kids and asking their parents to come sit in class with them and see if any parents will come, but I have to do something. I do know that out of my 31 7th graders I'm probably going to fail about 13 so that'll be exciting. My 8th and 9th graders are pretty good though and my 10th graders are great.
I just got back from a trip to Copan with the 10th graders where we saw ancient Mayan ruins (pics soon to come). That was pretty cool to see the ruins and its just so beautiful. We also rode horses which was lots of fun with the students and overall just had a good time. Although now being the teacher and not the student sucks a little. There are definate advantages such as being able to kick kids out of your seat on the bus and stuff but having to say things like "you can't leave the hotel and go to a club tonight" just make you feel like a killjoy.
When we rode horses we rode them up the mountain and to the man's home and it was amazing. These people lived in a 2 bedroom crumbling adobe house with dirt floors. There was of course no running water and no electricity. There were kids running around everywhere and the poverty was very shocking. In very bad spanish I asked this one little boy how old he was and I thought he couldn't have been much older than 5 or 6 and he was 11! Their nutrition is just so lacking that the children are very small.
When we were ridding up there this one little boy was helping the horses along and I asked him how old he was and he told me 7 and when I asked if he went to school he explained that he didn't because he helped with the horses. There's just not a lot of hope for these people. They live in backbreaking poverty and then their children are raised without a chance for education or anything and the cycle repeats itself. Poverty in the US is so much different. Being poor in the US means you might not have air conditioning or you might have to ride the bus to work and maybe you can't buy name brand food, but you dont have dirt floors and no electricity or running water or indoor plumbing and your children can go to school.
What was even more shocking to me was that most of my students who are native Hondurans hadn't seen this kind of poverty before. These are private school students so their families are better off, but still they are so close to it here in Honduras I'm suprised that they haven't been exposed to it before now. Then again its something hard to see and I think many turn a blind eye and maybe parents want to protect their children from that.
Its something to think about when you're upset because you can't afford some nice new toy or when you worry about money. It was definately a reminder to me that even if I think I have nothing in the States and probably no matter what happens I have had, have, and will have more than most of these people will ever have. It makes me both thankful for what I have and somewhat ashamed at the largeness of American life.
Anyways I'll write more on my trip to Copan later and post pics. I have grading and lesson planning to do. Adios.
Sunday, March 05, 2006
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