Why am I teaching?

One of the teachers has a chart for the first year teacher. There are many stages to being a teacher for the first full year. Apparently the ending step is “victory,” or something glorious like that. In the middle somewhere there’s a stage something along the lines of dismal, depressing, the great valley of doom, maybe not quite that exasperating sounding. Anyways, I’m in that valley of certain doom right now and it’s a really dumb valley to be in. I’m pretty sure that I’m wasting my students time, I think that they all hate me, none of them want to even talk to me, they make fun of me all the time (who wouldn’t make fun of their teacher in middle school?), and I can’t control anything inside the classroom. This week is exams for the second quarter, which is nice. I’m half way there, but nobody told me that the halfway point would also be the valley of doom from which I would never leave. Or at least that’s what it’s feeling like at this point. What ever happened to the library? I’d love to be sitting in the library reading with kids right about now…where for art thou library? Deny thy name, for if thou wilt not be but sworn my books. I would deny my classroom…it’s a modern teachers rendition of Shakespeare.:)
Anyways, this whole stage of dismal depression is getting a little bit depressing at school; I can’t wait for that victory stage at the end. “Chariots of Fire” will be playing in the background, my kids will all have 100% in the class, I will be schooling them all in soccer (not just math), but most importantly everything will be happening in slow motion.

Una semana terminada, millones por delante

One week of classes is down and I’m having a great time back down here in Honduras. With each day that has passed since coming back I’ve become more and more sure that I want to come down here again next year. I just had the 8th graders over tonight for s’mores and a little fire on my rooftop. Don’t panic, we have all concrete buildings here (unless they’re sticks and mud).:) None of them had really heard of s’mores, let alone tried it before. Between about 16 of us we finished about 50 s’mores, I’d say they were a smashing hit.
Here’s a pop quiz…do you know how long a teacher can have an impact on their students academic performance? In a study by the Gallup organization teachers can have an impact on their students academic performance for up to three years. This means that if you have a really bad teacher it may have negative effects for three years. But a really good teacher who cares about the kids may have a positive impact for up to three years on their schoolwork. Is anybody following my line of thought?:)

Whew...

I survived last night and am still making the trek to Copan...this is kinda fun.=)

Just When Traveling was Getting Boring…

I meet a guy named Tim, he’s far from any person that I would just strike up a great conversation with and be best friends. For starters, he’s on the plane to El Salvador and doesn’t speak Spanish very well, that’s strike number one. Strike number two is that he swears quite a bit. And strike three I learned after the flight…he smokes like a chimney, but more like a wildfire. However, he’s nice beyond all belief and I start to strike up a short conversation with him and he asks where I’m staying at. I tell him the name of the place and he says, “maybe we can take you there on the way home.” He tells his wife where it’s at and she says, “oh, the center of town, you don’t want to go there. Why don’t you stay at our house instead? We have an extra bed and would love to have you with us.” So naturally, without thinking that maybe these people are going to rob me, kill me, drop me in a ditch somewhere I say, “That’d be great!” I hop into the truck with Tim, his wife, his 11 year old daughter, and his brother-in-law Milton. Not thinking anything weird still until I realize that I’m with a complete stranger who supposedly works at the US Embassy in San Salvador, married two years ago to a Salvadorian lady, smokes and swears like it’s going outta style, and they’re telling me how you can’t trust people in San Salvador cause they will kill you and take your money.:) Anyways, we get to his house eventually and it’s really nice. It’s in a gated community and his wife just changes the sheets on the bed, sweeps the room, starts the air conditioning, and mops the floor saying, “make yourself at home!” My mom doesn’t mop my floor! Maybe cause it’s carpet…so here I am, and I just found out they have wireless internet in their house…and it’s fast…and free. This is the greatest!

The “Famous” Salvadorian Band

Did any of you hear about this group from El Salvador that was coming up for the Rose Parade but couldn’t raise enough money for the flight so they drove 5 buses up from El Salvador? Well, my mom told me about this group on New Years day and I remember thinking, “Great mom, big deal…it’s cheaper for them to take a bus, big whoop.” Although I really did care a little bit and I thought it was cool that they drove 5 days in 5 buses to get to L.A. for the parade. Anyways, our flight from Houston to San Salvador was supposed to leave at 5:45 but it was delayed to 6:05…we get on the plane at 6 and they announce that we are waiting for 47 students who represented “nuestro amado pais” (our beloved country) in the Rose Parade. I was thinking, cool, this will be fun to have a bunch of little kids on the plane. Well, as it turns out, this was part of the 200+ students that drove up from El Salvador and they had gotten the money to fly back down. One of the girls, Jenny, sat next to me and I got to talk with her throughout the flight. It was super great to get to know her and meet the “Famous Salvadorian Band”! I told her that my mom had told me about her group and asked about them driving up, for her it was her first time flying as well. She just laughed when I told her that they were famous now for making the 5 day drive just for the Rose Parade. I’m so excited to be able to say that I sat next to one of them! They were all over the plane, kids from 14-21 years old she said. She just played the cachiporra which is…I have no idea…I need to look that up. Sounds fun though.:) Anyways, other than that the travel down was fairly uneventful…just me and my famous Salvadorian friends.:)

Christmas Break

I figured that during this three week break I would become more sure about wanting to stay a second year or more at Mayatan. All of these things that I have been plagued by in teaching I'm beginning to learn are just the hazards of being a teacher. That has helped me to not get as down on myself if I have a bad day. However, this has also contributed to my thinking, "do I really want to go through this every day/week/month/year?"
I have become more sure of two things this break....I for sure am in love with Mayatan, Copan, and my students and want to stay longer for them. I am also more sure of the fact that I am not going to be a teacher for life (I also said going into college teaching wasn't for me...I'm opening my mouth so there's room for my other foot perhaps). I love the town, the school, my students, but I can't see myself as a teacher for my life. It's such a hard and draining job. It's been getting better slowly as I've become more and more accustomed to the job...but still..it's draining!:)
There are days that I get along great with the kids and I think that they all love me and love class and it's just a great day. But then there are still those days in which I come home and I'm pretty sure that my students don't like me at all and hope that I just stay home instead of coming back at Christmas. I think that both those extremes are foolish, but I feel like the life of a teacher combined with my life is a life of extremes. Extremely bad days, extremely good days, and extremely interesting days.:)

Lo que extrañaré

Lots of other teacher have been getting really excited about going home for Christmas and the prospect of all sorts of things, ranging from carpet to friends. I was super excited about going home like a week ago, but over the course of the past week I have been almost dreading leaving Copan. I really like it here! I can’t help but compare it to how I felt about Spain. In Spain I had a list in November of things I wanted to come home to. Included in this list was; chocolate chip cookies, chocolate balls, carpet, no more ugly dogs, being able to drive, having lots of different friends around all the time, American traditions, American culture, not having to order things in Spanish, etc. But here those are all things that I wouldn’t even include in a list if I were making one. I haven’t even thought about making a list of things that I miss because for everything that I miss about the states I’m going to miss at least one thing (if not two) about Copan.
What I won’t miss is “lucha libra,” also known as WWE. Today I found two kids fighting in the hallway, let’s call them boy 1 and boy 2. I called them over and boy 2 explained that boy 1 was picking on boy 3 so he stepped in to break it up. Long story short, I took them to the office and had Norma (who was just there for today) talk to them about why they were fighting. Boy 1 has now been to the office 3 times for fighting, boy 2 five times, and boy 3 three times. Norma let boy 3 go cause he was the “victim” but called the parents of the other two. Come to learn that there’s been a fight between them for some amount of time now. Boy 1’s mom had this response to her son fighting with boy 2, “good for him! I’ve told him that he has permission to hit that kid! I’m tired of him being picked on and he can fight back when he wants to!” In fact, boy 1 has done just that, one time he got a bunch of his friends and went to find boy 2 to beat him up, luckily they never encountered one another. I can’t believe that this kids parents have given him permission to try and beat up another kid! It’s freaking ridiculous! And I wonder why some days I have trouble with kids fighting in my classroom….go figure. So on the list of things that I miss, the top ten list just has one thing on it, “lucha libre.” Oh stupid lucha libre…