September 17, 2013

A Page of Instruction

I never wanted to be a teacher. Honestly, my sister is the one in college studying to teach Spanish as a second language. She was the one who always wanted to help out with Sunday School classes at church, and she was probably the better babysitter, too. 

So how have I ended up doing so many different teaching jobs?

It isn't that I don't like kids, because for the most part I do, I just don't like teaching. I'd much rather just lose myself in the words that I wrote and think only about my own job and then let people take the words I wrote and teach themselves- without me having to actually be right there leading the learning.

I know I sound like I'm just complaining, and maybe I am, but I just feel a bit overwhelmed by this new responsibility. It isn't something thrust upon me without any of my approval or consent. I did agree to this, and I wanted to do it. I still do, I think.

You must think I've gone crazy. "What in the world are you talking about? Teaching what?"



English classes, my friend. I am now an English teacher here in Oaxaca, Mexico, and I am somehow supposed to come up with my own syllabus that will teach four and five year olds who know nothing about English and barely know how to count in Spanish. Of course, I also have two six year olds who have taken classes and know the very basics- such as colors and numbers and parts of the body.

Oh, and did I mention energy? Because these are high-energy kids;  much more high-energy than my senioritis self. I don't know what I've gotten myself into, and I'm not sure if I can handle it.

It doesn't help that  this first week I need to teach all the kids in my group plus the older kids (ages 11-13) because the other teacher (aka: my dad) decided to agree to teach and then run off to the USA for the first week of school.

So today I had two hours of teaching English with a completely mixed group. I had planned to go over names and hobbies and then go through basics like numbers and colors. Actually, I was hoping I wouldn't even need to get to colors today. But- kids get bored more quickly than I thought, and the four older kids already knew all those basics. So they were probably bored out of their minds, but I couldn't get to anything harder because the younger kids would end up totally lost. And because I had nothing planned.

Not a complete disaster, but it's the kind of thing that I wish would just stay inside of books instead of coming to bother me in the real world.

Isn't this kid cute? Link


Oh, and the debate in my Bible class tomorrow... yeah, I'm dreading it. I hate debates with a passion, especially debates about why dating is better than courtship. (I'm telling you, there's something wrong with my school!)

I guess that's all for now. I'm praying that next time I write I will be able to tell you about something happening inside the pages of the Shadow Whispers, since I'm starting to get sick of the world outside of it...

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