In the beginning, I all but HATED my 3rd grade class. On the first day of teaching, when everyone else from my cluster was team-teaching – it somehow landed on me to teach by myself and to 3rd graders, no doubt. Of course, my class was the first one to be viewed by our TCF and… I was practically the premier example of everything NOT to do. I mean, I was teaching the “Present Continuous” to 8 year olds who are only supposed to be spoken to in Ukrainian. I've been learning Russian and I don’t even know how to say “hello” in UA… although, I do know how to say “police”. Regardless, it was only my 3rd week in Ukraine, so even if I had been able to speak better Russian… it didn’t really matter.
… more detail, I can’t help it. (Now that I'm remembering that first class... I have to explain how terrible it was... Those first 45 minutes were incredibly painful. My TCF was glaring at me, the regular English teacher was trying to avoid eye contact from the back of the classroom because she felt so bad for me. And my students were incredibly lost and totally out of control. They wanted to please me, but I was making it way too difficult for them.
After that class, I was sure that there was no way I was about to spend the next two years of my life teaching complex grammar rules that I don't even know the names for myself to Ukrainian oocheniks.
BUTT although that class was an epic fail, it was also a HUGE learning experience. Lesson #1 – avoid explicitly teaching grammar at all costs.
AND Hindsight is always clearer than foresight. Now, I see that that huge flop made me work harder and it has also made me appreciate every successful class that I teach where students don't throw paper balls at eachother or pull eacother's hair. Seriously though, every class after that, I’ve had those little dears eating from my the palm of my hand. (I also have a growing bag of secrets to help me out with this feat... feel free to email with questions).
How do I feel, now ?? Well, Yesterday was my last day of teaching at Boguslav School #1. I thought that I would be rejoicing to hit this milestone, which I am, but I’m also surprisingly sad. I’ll miss my little 8 year olds who tackle me with hugs when I walk into the classroom and carry all of my pencil bags and books for me down the halls. And erase the board for me before class starts. And correct all of my Russian spelling errors on the board. And hang all materials on the board for our lessons. And ask me 100 times/ day, in this exact dialogue, no varitions, ever.:
3rd Grader: Hello!!! Mmyyyy nammmeee isss Vanechka… wwwhhhaaattt isss youurr nammeee??
Me: My name is Whitney. It’s nice to meet you, Vanechka. How are you, today?
3rd Grader: IIIII AAAAM FIINE.
(repeat at least 3x for each student before I’m saved by the bell and class begins)
And I’ll also miss my 7th grade boys who scream “Sexy are you! Sexy am I! You are Sexy!... Sexy! everytime I see them in school and around town. At first, I was really disturbed by this, but I’ve come to embrace the fact that they can successfully conjugate the verb “to be” (a pretty crucial skill for speakers of English). And my adorable 7th grade girls, who have begun to imitat my gestures…. Now, they like to make their eyes get really wide when acting really interested in what someone’s saying during class, or putting their hands on their hips when they’re waiting for an answer from someone during a dialogue, or clicking their tongue when thinking out loud for a word in English.
And of course, I’ll be slightly thrown off with out my students screaming from across the hall in school or across the road in town, “HELLO Ms. FARMER” (I haven’t actually decided if I’ll miss that or not)
So Despite my initial classroom culture shock and related qualms, I have decided that I really love teaching especially when I have those (more-often-than-not awkward) bonding moments with my students -- even when it’s a two line dialogue, the truth remains: … It really IS/(WAS) a pleasure to meet you, Vanechka.
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