School, the actual reason that I’m here, or whatever:

            Man where do I start.  Well here goes.  High school.  You know, that super angsty time in our lives when we were swimming in the hormones of puberty (well some of us) and taking a first stab at taking a stab at figuring out who we are and what were about in this crazy world of ours.  And guess what, it’s the exact same here.  I know I shouldn’t have expected otherwise, but it unbelievable just how exactly the same everything is here.  There are the pretty girls, the jocks, the nerds, the weird kids, and the beautiful everything that happens in between.  Back in the day I was very far from the top of the social food chain so I can empathize with the vast majority of the students and what they are going through.  And to be honest back in the day really wasn’t even that long ago.

            So my job here is basically to be a cultural liaison to the kids, I’m pretty sure that I’ve mentioned that at some point.  Anyways, for the main idea is that I am not actually a teacher and as such I spend the majority of my time sitting in class observing and whenever the teacher wants me to work on pronunciation with the kids I am called into action.  Now even though I am not the primary teacher I do find myself in charge of the kids quite often inone of the teacher’s class, who I will surely discuss with all of you at some point.  I’ll talk about discipline in a second, but I will mention that I spend a good chunk of energy trying to get the kids to remain calm.  Anyways, I am in class either 4 or 6 hours a day, depending on my schedule.  This takes me basically from 7am to 130pm.  After that I am beat.  Like seriously tired.  I feel like a wimp, but this stuff is draining.  Then I go home to my angel of a host mother, who I will rave about at some point in the near future, and I eat lunch and then take a cat nap.  I’m trying pretty hard to cut the nap out of the regimen, but it just feels soooooooo damn good.  Anyways, up till now I have been teaching the English professors from 3-5 pm, which I will likewise discuss further in the future, because it is a rather interesting situation if I do say so myself.  And sometimes I hit the soccer pitch and get played the fool.  However, today I started this club, which is also part of my job description and that will last either from 3-4 or 3-5.  Twill be determined later, and then I teach the professors for 2 hours.  So no matter which way you cut it I got some pretty impressively long days, by my standards at the very least.

I really like the kids here.  They’re all very curious and fun loving and to be honest I have yet to find a true bad egg in the bunch.  However, what is quickly becoming apparent is that here there is definitely a baby bird feeding complex going on in the classrooms.  I am sure that it exists everywhere in the world, but it is the first time that I’ve experienced it, or at least noticed it.  The basic principle is that the loudest bird, which demands the most attention is the one that gets fed.  Now it is obvious that this tactic works because the teachers here, conscious of the decision or not, pay the most attention to the loud rude birds, and let the quiet polite ones sit idly in class.  Having played the quiet version of this proverbial bird I know how frustrating this can be.  In general the classroom here is a much more rowdy environment that I ever experienced in my Newton, MA classrooms.  There is literally never a completely quiet moment.  At any given instance there is a kid talking to someone else in the room or sticking a head out the window speaking to a friend outside, or simply calling at the teacher for attention.  As a result everything goes unbelievably slowly during in class.  The lessons, which last two hours, usually cover a single basic topic, and a few examples.  The rest of the time is spent in anguish trying to maintain a grip on the classroom.  For instance, in a class period last week, which again lasted two hours, we covered “there is and there are”.  Two hours to explain something, which is directly translatable from Spanish.  I don’t know if I am just unaware of the teaching / learning processes and mechanics of teaching in high school, but I feel that you should be able to cover much more than this in a single class.  I want to stress again that these kids are no morally worse off than whoever you may find in the states, but there is a certain lack of respect and discipline that seems to be endemic.  But anyways, its not my job to run the class, but I can’t help but get a bit frustrated when the teacher gets baited by the students into losing her temper.

What’s been working for me to calm the kids down is just to get right up in their face and guilt trip them into submission with overwhelming politeness.  I kid you not, but the Jewish and Chinese disciplinary guilting is strong in my blood.  It’s the whole “I’m not mad, I’m disappointed” mentality.  I guess I did practice that tactic to pretty successful ends as a camp counselor all those years ago, but I’m more than a little pleased to see it working here too.  I basically just say please do so and so in a neutral tone, which just barely leans towards puppy dog pleading.  It’s a pretty excellent tactic because it redirects all that douchebaggery the kid was spewing back at his or herself.  Its winning by not playing the game.  Take note my young leaders.  However, if y’all got better tactics lemme know.