OH. MY. GOD. the total adrenaline and high of bouncing around in a classroom came back today and I came back to my place absolutely beaming, totally high off the energy (this cumulative energy of students that just rubs off on you). it feels freakin amazing to be in a classroom. i came back to see Suzanne, the front receptionist lady, super excited about how much i loved my first day, gave Umm Rami, the super friendly, mother figure, wonderful woman that she is, who usually tends to everyone in the office giving them coffee or tea or tang, a giant hug and a kiss and a box of chocolates, that i really just had to pick up on the way home (there's a giant chocolate shop on the walk back that i just never noticed before) and Suzanne was radiating the beam saying "wow I really envy you!". DAMN it feels REALLY good to have a job that you absolutely love. i kind of forgot that i loved it. i reeeeeeeeally love it :) i can't explain what it is, and i can't tell you what it is, and if someone saw me teaching in a classroom they probably wouldn't know how much i was loving it. but it's a pretty special job. :)
My first class had no desks, and my book that I have to use, (yay it comes with a dvd) is a conversational book for English from 1991. It physically pained me to conduct a lesson on the awfully pixalated, fro-haired, poofy skirted 90s 'trendy' girl character's dialogues and the dudes straight legged white jeaned strange pick up lines greeting. Like most of everything that happens to me these days, I had no idea what to expect. I was just nervous with the prospect of teaching for TWO entire hours, when in Ramallah I struggle with the 40 minute blocks. So this was my first class : no desks, just those white plastic chairs in a room. How many students? 42. this officially beats what I thought was the worst number of students that I'd ever seen, which was my own class back in elementary school in the inner city public schools of Brooklyn (what up P.S.152) boasting 35-37 students per class. This might be funny to some of you, a nightmarish hell to others, and just absurd to most. My youngest student in this class, is 6 years of age. And my oldest student is 24. in. the. same. class. 42. students. I am covering..kindergarten through University aged kids. in. the. same. class.
The second class, thank God, is just 20 something number of just the older kids. What's interesting is that I got the textbooks for that class 5 minutes before class and was told that by day 10 (as in 9 days from now) i have to give them a midterm exam on the first 3 units. Shock news to me that I was actually in charge of teaching a crash course curriculum, when i was getting hired yesterday I was told I'd just be teaching conversational english and that I could scare them by threatening to give a test but not really give one. well that story changed today! lol. regardless, i was thrilled to teach a class where there are no fights, where the kids are actually sitting down, and I can actually talk and teach. something that was rare in Ramallah I felt. Honestly, SubhanAllah and a thousand Alhumdullilah's for a great day.
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