Madame, may I?

We're entering into the homestretch on the school year. We are 2 weeks into the final trimester, and there are only 4 more weeks of classes until it is over. The approach of the end of the school year has brought with it a crisis of faith for me in my teaching. What am I doing?

My biggest issue right now is classroom management. I have 2 classes of 82 students, and one class is generally reasonably good, but the other class is consistently out of control. Within 2 minutes of the beginning of class, they are causing problems. Nothing that I've tried seems to resolve the problem, be it docking points from les bandits (troublemakers, pronounced bahn-DEE) or sending them to the office. They keep doing it. Not yelling, not anything shuts them up.

Ultimately, the thing that troubles me the most is where the responsibility for student learning lies: with me or with my students? If the students don't study or pay attention during class, is that because it was my fault for not making the material engaging and understandable enough for them, or was it because they really don't care? Is it that they don't understand my French? (I know that's definitely an issue.) And if the average on a test is 6 out of 20, was it because of my failing as a teacher, or was it because my students didn't make an effort? If 5 people in a class got over 18 on that same test, does that change the answer to that question?

Last Wednesday, I gave a test to my students. We were a little rushed through the material, both because indiscipline slowed us down and because of missed classes for other reasons. After the last class before the test on Monday, I announced that we would have an optional 2-hour problem-solving and review session on Tuesday. We had barely had time to finish the material at the end of class on Monday, and we really didn't have time to go back over the other things we had done, so I wanted to give them the opportunity to practice.

On Tuesday afternoon, then, almost all of the 2 classes came, meaning well over 100 students. As if getting 82 students to pay attention wasn't difficult enough, having over 100 crammed into one classroom with students overflowing and peeking in through the windows was WAY too much. They talked constantly, but when I tried to spot the perpetrators, it was impossible to tell who was talking. There were too many people squished too closely together. Yells for silence only increased the volume. I sent a few students out of the classroom when I managed to catch them talking, but then they just stayed right outside of the door and kept talking. And when I sent them out, they protested and sometimes refused to leave until I had to stop the entire class for 5 minutes to get them out. It was incredibly frustrating. This was an entirely optional review session that they had NO obligation to attend, that I was doing voluntarily purely for their benefit. If they weren't going to pay attention, why did they come? I don't understand, but thinking about it still makes me so angry. I had to shout the entire time just to be heard, and I know there were a lot of students who really wanted to learn but were unable to hear anything. And we didn't manage to do half of the things I wanted to do because so much time was wasted. And the grades on the test? On average, terrible.

There are a lot of challenges for me here. This is my first year of teaching; I don't have a degree in education; I'm teaching in French; I'm teaching to classes of 82 students who hardly understand French; I never even really wanted to be a teacher in the first place. I don't have a commanding personality, and I don't like dealing with discipline issues. But if I let myself off the hook for those reasons, then I could get away with anything. I know that I could be doing better than this. The question is, how high do I set the bar, and how much should I beat myself up for not reaching it?

Most of my colleagues at school assume that I'll go back to America and continue as a teacher, and they're confused as to why I say I would never want to continue teaching after this. I recently read an interesting NYT article that made a lot of good points about the problem with teaching in America. We in America do not see teaching as a particularly prestigious profession, and hence we're not drawing the best people for the job, nor are we encouraging them to strive for excellence once they're tenured.

In top-achieving countries like Japan and Finland, most teachers come from the top third of their university graduating classes, whereas in America they mainly come from the bottom two-thirds. It's understandable; if you're an outstanding lawyer or doctor, you have huge opportunities for career advancement, recognition in your field, and commensurate pay increases. But if you're an outstanding teacher, what do you get? Where can you go? Nothing and nowhere special.

If these were all the questions that were going to trouble me to be in a profession with middling pay and of middling prestige, why would I even bother?

Not in California anymore

We're about halfway through hot season right now. I've started using the thermometer from my medical kit to measure the temperature of my house because it's the right range. Right now, at 8:30 pm, it measures 97.4 degrees. I think I'm starting to get used to it--I don't feel quite as exhausted all the time anymore, and my heat rash seems to have gone away. Sleeping outside at night has probably helped.

I'm not sure if it's the heat, though, or if it's just me, but I've been losing all patience with a lot of the things that I used to tolerate. For example, when people blabber at me in Mooré knowing fully that I don't understand what they're saying, but they just keep going like I should know what they're saying anyway. (It's more annoying when they speak French but they keep going in Mooré anyway just because.) Also, the kids who still scream "nasaara!" ("white person") at me and run after my bike every time I bike past. I've been here for 8 months already--get over it. Or how they inevitably follow "nasaara" with demands for candy or money. I've never given them anything. Why do they think I'll start now? My gas tank ran out yesterday, so I had to take it over to a shop to replace it with a new one. Those things are big, and they weigh at least 50 or 60 pounds. On my way home with the new one strapped to the back of my bike, two 3-year-olds started running after me saying "nasaara! I want your gas tank!" For real?

Sometimes you have to laugh at the things people say, though. In my English club last week, we had a discussion where we practiced talking about our families. The students have a difficult time formulating questions, so we spent some time trying to ask questions about the members of each other's families. One question that was posed to the class was "how many brothers do you have?" One kid raised his hand and said "39." Apparently he is one of over 100 of his father's kids. His answer to "how many wives does your father have?" was 20. We're not in California anymore. I think his dad is a village chief, hence the excessive spousery. Still, he must be pretty busy having all those kids. Then, another kid asked what the word in English is for your father's other wives who are younger than your mother. Uhh. ?? (The title in French is "petite maman," in case you ever find a need for it.) Finally, the first kid started asking me an uncomfortable number of questions about my younger sister, until I finally said that she was 9 and that there would be no more questions about her. (she is 9, right?)

I guess the weird comments are easier to deal with when they're coming from someone who is at least making a vague attempt to understand where I'm coming from, instead of someone ramming their own ignorance in my face. Is it my own laziness and lack of patience, or is it just the heat that makes me so annoyed? They don't know any better. For now, all I can do is hide my candy and wait for rainy season to cool us off.