a work day in the life of

Beware: this is long.

How´s the job going you ask? Well, have a seat. I´ll tell you. Teaching is fun, up to a certain point. I think that point was today. Here´s what went down. I am still subbing at the local rich private school. The kids there, though horribly behaved, tried to bribe me today to stay and be their teacher. I told them they already have a teacher and one of them pulled $10 out of his pocket and begged me not to leave after this week. I told them frankly, they are too badly-behaved, would rather through halves of limes at each other or sleep than listen to me so I certainly don´t want to stay. Though seriously, I think I could handle it. The kids there all seem to like me even though they are terrible. It sounds like the are poorly behaved in every class regardless of the subject, where the teacher is from, or how long the teacher is going to be around. After 4 hours of obscenity and utter malarkey at Iberoamericano, I had a two hour break before I had to teach at my normal school. That´s when things really got out of hand. A 6 year old in my kids class asked me to go to the bathroom today and like any other time any small child asks to go to the bathroom, I told her she could. Besides, she is normally a good student, more advanced than all of the older kids in her class, and clings to me like I´m a direct relative. Well, 5 minutes later she arrive back to the class arm firmly held by the school inspector who proceeded to tell me that she saw this little girl running back to the school from a small market two blocks away. After that, she yelled at me and told me that no one is allowed to leave my classroom and that it would be my fault if something happened to one of them while crossing the street. First of all, how was I supposed to know this little girl was going to run down the stairs, out the building, down the street to the store and run back. You´d think that with 6 year olds running around, the outside of the school would be guarded at all times. There is no possible way I could have foreshadowed that this girl was lying to me. The age of reason is 8. How did she come up with this idea to lie to the teacher and run to the store. And no one leave the room during class for any reason? You, dear reader,  try to sit with 15 six to eight year olds and see their reaction when you tell them they can´t go to the bathrom. Believe me, it´s not easy.This little pirates mutiny on a regular occassion by whispering to each other, picking up their backpacks, running as a herd out the swinging classroom door a half hour before class ends, eventually come back and do it again 15 minutes later. What part of class is over when the teacher says so and you have to obey her don´t they understand? Sounds like all of it.

 Anyway, in my next class... same old same old. I have 25 nine to eleven year olds. They´re at the age where boys still won´t do partner activities with girls and most boys won´t do partner activities with the other boys. They´d rather fight. While helping a couple students, one left the room. I didn´t know. Again, the inspector brought him back. Apparently he left because he had a headache and it was loud in the room. No one can leave this class anymore either. Hearing 10 year olds complain about how they need water or have to go the bathroom is worse than little kids because they are more persistent i.e. have less respect. I love some of the kids in that class. They are smart, super sweet, and so interested in asking me questions about myself, the USA, when I´m going home, if I like Ecuador etc etc. Though it could be a deceptive time-wasting ploy to avoid learning anything. At least they hug me goodbye every day so who can be sure?

 We´re watching a movie currently in my tween and also my teens class. The tweens class was interupted today because the inspector had to find out why a few of the 10 students in the class keep regularly skipping class. They came back from her with the attendance sheet, begged me to change their attendance record. I wouldn´t do it because if someone doesn´t come to class, I most certainly am not changing it so they don´t get in trouble. So the girls ran back to the inspector, talked to her for a bit, came back, handed me the attendance sheet and I noticed that magically, they hadn´t missed so many days.

 My teens class, well I love them. They are a breath of fresh air to my otherwise suffocatingly long day (long only because I have been working twice as many hours this past week.) I can tell them they are my favorite, they tell me I´m great, and it´s all in all a great atmosphere. Sure a few of them are super chatty, but that´s to be expected. Of course they mock me because I can´t make a rolling r sound and I´m supposed to be able to speak fairly fluent spanish. I´d mock me too. They get quiet and work when I tell them too. It´s fantastic. I´d teach all teen classes if I could, but surely not all teens are as fantastic as the ones in my class.

 In all serious though, I do really like teaching English. It´s definitely the best job I´ve ever had even though it is horrifically frustrating at times. I realize too that school children are the same everywhere and when I was younger, the kids in my class were the same. I, if you weren´t aware, was truely an ideal student. Even ask my parents ;) No, I´m not even kidding. After second grade, I was angelic.

Some days I miss home so badly I could cry. Some days I love that the sun shines so hot here, that I can see mountains in all directions, and that I am helping kids learn a possibly life changing skill. Things could definitely be tons worse. I could be working in some call center somewhere. ...ha.