Just Your Normal Latin American Chaos...

I "started" another theatre group at a second school (about a half hour bus ride from town). 

The first day I went to teach, they were having a science fair - so I just watched that and then met the teachers when it ended.  They all seemed excited to have me there and seemed eager to participate.  I thought, well, I guess it's pretty normal to be randomly having a science fair without telling me. 

Then, this week I went to "start" the group for real.  When I got there, however, there was no school and all of the kids were running around decorating for the Mother's Day dinner they were to have that evening.  The director greeted me and told me that we were still going to do my class and that he would call the kids over.  I asked him if we had a list of participants and he told me that we didn't, yet.  I asked him where the teachers were that were supposed to be helping and he told me they were cooking for the dinner. 

He made the announcement that my class was starting and about 25 kids ran into the room, cell phones in hand, screeching, and even carrying each other.  After we started with name games, about 10 more kids wandered in through the open door.  All the rest of the kids stood outside the barred windows as spectators to what we were doing.  I can only imagine that this made the participants more nervous; maybe this is why they were so resistant to doing anything I had planned. 

Names and gestures - forget about it.  I could barely get them to say their names.  Pass the ball in a sequence to learn names... forget about it.  Kids wandered in and out of the circle (some saying they were being called by the office, but I don't know) making it impossible to keep a pattern.  "If you like mountains go to this side of the room... If you like the beach, go to this side..."  Also impossible.  They all chose the same option no matter what it was.  Only one girl seemed to think for herself.  Major mob mentality? 

We tried playing some improv games like "collectivo" and anyone who was not in the scene acted like they were on the playground.  No matter what I tried, they just didn't seem to want to be there... and boy did I try several different tactics of classroom management.  Eventually, I got so sick of them taking their cell phones off the table I had made them leave the phones on.... the wandering in and out of the room like it was a room in a party you came to socialize in.... that I told them we were done for the day. 

I wanted to talk with the director about what we needed to set in place for next time so that the situation was workable, but he had left to run errands. 

After it was all over, I stood on the side of the highway in the middle of a palm plantation... waiting for any form of transportation to pass by to take me back to town, thinking that I never wanted to go back to this chaos.  Maybe, though, it's a good opportunity to set up some structure and try again?  We'll see. 

I guess every foreign teacher in a situation like this one needs to experience this chaos at least once.... right?  As my friend Sam says, I think this was a "World Map" kind of teaching day.