This past Friday I was short an English co-teacher. Due to unforeseen circumstances my school is on English teacher number three and in search of number four while number two, the permanent English teacher, heals an injury. That leaves me, the volunteer gringa, to teach all these kids on my own. It’s not an ideal situation, but as I’ve learned over and over here in Chile, you just have to roll with the punches and remember that it’s all for the kids. Normally on Fridays the English teacher and I co-teach a 45 minute 8th grade class, but because of the school’s little dilemma I offered to take them by myself.
Let me tell you a little bit about this 8th grade class. They are the class that the other teachers complain about at every coffee break. A class of 44 adolescent boys and girls crammed into a room much too small for them, they are at first glance a teacher’s nightmare. There are six or seven boys who are consistently disruptive, and there are just as many girls who have no problem chatting in the back of the room and rolling their eyes at their teachers. I struggled my first few months with this group, but after setting my boundaries and leveling with them we were able to achieve a mutual respect that, believe or not, makes this one of my favorite classes to work with. There are inevitably still some issues that arise during our classes together, but this energetic bunch never fails to make class extremely entertaining.
Now let me tell you a bit about the teachers at my school. I should start by saying that some of the teachers are great and come up with amazingly fun activities for these kids. A lot of the teachers, though, spend their class time screaming at the students and writing things on the board, and that’s that. To an extent I can’t blame them – I think a lot are just burned out after years of working with so many kids at one time. But some of the stories that I’ve been told are just inexcusable. For instance, I was just recently told that a teacher was caught sending a student to the bank during class time. Her punishment was a slap on the wrist and a warning not to do it again. Another teacher was caught out running errands during school hours, leaving her classroom teacher-less. Kids pick up on adult attitudes, so it’s really no big surprise to see the students rebel against teachers who act so carelessly. It’s so frustrating to witness, though, especially with the knowledge that a large percentage of our students don’t have any caring adults at home, either.
So back to Friday. I headed over to this eighth grade class to take on all 44 of them by myself (remember, I usually only work with one half at a time). I was greeted at the door of the classroom by one of the math teachers who had just finished her period with them. She took one look at me and said something along the lines of, “You’re going in there by yourself? You can’t go in alone, they’re such a terrible class and they’re extremely bad today.” I kid you not, as she was saying this there was paper flying through the air, a wrestling match of some sort going on, and kids out of their seats and drawing on the board. I told her that we really didn’t have any other option but that I thought I’d be ok on my own. That didn’t seem to please her, though, as she continued to emphasize their unruliness. “They won’t listen to you,” she said. At that point Seba, one of the “unruly” 8th grade boys who the teachers often get frustrated with, was standing within earshot of us. “No, tía, we listen to Miss Kelly,” he said. With her feathers all ruffled she shot back at Seba, “Good! You should!,” tossed the gradebook at me and stormed off. While I did feel sorry for the teacher, the satisfaction of hearing Seba say that was unforgettable. And to top it off, I did walk into that classroom, settle down the “unruly” students and get all 44 involved and learning for the next 45 minutes. I don’t mean to brag by any means, but wins like this one don’t come along very often, and this was a victory worth sharing!
