Ups and Downs at the Colegio (High School)

So, in my last post about the High School I said their would be ups and downs - right?

This week there were a bit more downs than ups.  More than half my class failed the first exam that I thought would be too easy.  My first thoughts were that it was my fault - that I was a bad teacher.  Then, I turned to anger at the students that they don't listen or work or study.  Then, I blamed the system and the test that I had to write (with no prior experience in testing ELLs like this).  Sounds a lot like the phases of grief, right?  I just realized that.

This really is true for me.  Writing helps me process life on a whole different level.  It is like having a dialogue with myself where myself tells me things I didn't know about me. 

Anyways, so after forgiving the system, and the kids, and myself... we started moving forward as a class, practicing basic skills like conjugating verbs in the present tense.  This requires a ton of planning on my part because we have completely abandoned the book and I need to learn how to teach some of these basic skills that I have never taught before.

On Friday I was teaching questions with the auxiliary verb - do - and realized halfway through that I really didn't know how to explain it.  I stopped them, explained to them that I didn't know how to answer their questions and that I would research it over the weekend and that we would try again on Monday.  They were perfectly happy with this and yelled out "bibity bibity bop!"  Haha.... which we played for the last 10 minutes of class.

*Small observation side note- when I speak to the class in Spanish they are silent and reallllly listen.  I thought it was because they understood me better or because they appreciated that I was trying to connect with them... but the director told me that it was probably because they were waiting to see if I would make mistakes so they could make fun of me.  That's one viewpoint.

I've decided to choose a different viewpoint.  I see them and feel their energy; I think I know when they are judging and when they are listening.  Besides, when I told them  - in Spanish - why I am here and that I choose to come to the HS every day to teach them, they smiled.  When they told me their parents force them to come and I said, "oh yeah.... they pick you up and put you in the car?" they laughed.  We had a good discussion about their goals and how learning English can help them.  That day, we were on the same page and class was great.

The next day felt like a fight again.

Ups and downs.

Ups and downs.

Some waves crash harder than others, but duck under them - flip over a few times - and all waves pass.