Saved by the Bell

Today was my first day back at Stephen Hawking High School teaching English classes. I had a mountain of homework assignments and quizzes to grade over the last few days, and now I understand more of what my high school teachers had to do to prepare for class each day! At the start of the quarter I had prepared 8 weeks of lesson plans and written the mid-quarter quiz and the end-of-quarter exam. I was so proud of myself to have had everything prepared, but of course like most things in Peru, my lesson plans didn’t go according to plan. Another new understanding and appreciation of my own high school teachers, I am now appreciating the frustration of that dreaded cycle of “falling behind”. After the first three weeks of class I was already recognizing that we would not complete the material I had laid out for the quarter, and my being gone from Tarma for three weeks didn’t help much. Meredith was wonderful and substituted for me for two of the three weeks, but due to no English teacher for that third week, classes were simply canceled. This then put me and my classes two weeks behind schedule, and I was realizing this morning, that next week will be the end-of-quarter exam! Oops. There went my last few lesson plans. Instead we spent the class reviewing the quiz the students took two weeks ago, as well as all of the material we have learned up to this point. I gave them a review sheet to take home for homework, and hopefully the kids will be diligent enough to study.
Being a teacher has been a very fascinating experience. First, like I’ve mentioned a few times already, I am gaining a new appreciation for my own past teachers who had to put up with the antics and immaturity of middle and high schoolers. I’m appreciating all of the “behind-the-scenes” work that they have to do in order to have classes ready. I’m appreciating the discipline and the reason so many of my teachers insisted on seating charts. Another interesting thing I’ve been reflecting on during these weeks of being a “real” teacher is that in being my age (24) and teaching kids that are 10 years younger than me, it is really hard for me to remember what it was really like to be in their shoes. It has been so frustrating to me to watch my kids not study and not do their homework, and try every trick in the book to get out the door during class. And my first thought is, “I was never so undisciplined”, and my second thought is, “I must have been just like these kids when I was their age”. I look back and remember how much I hated studying my Spanish vocabulary lists, and thinking how much it sucked to have lists every week. And now here I am 10 years later giving my own students weekly vocabulary lists and insisting that studying vocabulary is key to learning a language. It is somewhat laughable the process we go through in reaching adulthood, how perspective and priority changes, how focus and discipline can become easier and how remembering and relating to kids can become harder.
Anyway, I was just reflecting on the fascinating experience of being a high school teacher in Peru. I wonder how different it would be to be a high school teacher in the States. Maybe one day I’ll find out.