Teaching Updates: Model School Week 2

8.26.10
In case you were wondering, there is no possible way to draw “leap frog” without it looking vaguely sexual.


Luckily, the students I’m teaching don’t think like college kids, so they learned that particular vocab word without giggling uncontrollably at my artwork. This week’s teaching was… well, it was full of highs and lows.


Two days, I was really on – I got silence when I demanded silence, the class was excited to participate, and they retained the grammar points well enough to ace that section on a quiz. Today I was off, though, and I got frustrated and flustered for a good chunk of my two-hour lesson. It was rough – I had to make them put their heads on their desks for 3 minutes just to get them to shut up – and at the end, I wanted to bury myself in a dark room and take a long nap. On the upside, today we got one of the really awful troublemakers kicked out of model school for good, so that’s one less for the next group to deal with.


Side note: always be suspicious of flattery from students. Conversation from today:

Girl: “Madame Melissa, you are so pretty. And good job! You taught a really good lesson.”
Me: “Thank you! That’s very nice of you.”
Girl: (without pausing) “That’s a beautiful pen. Will you give it to me?”
Me: “…What? No. My husband gave me this pen. It’s very important to me.”
Girl: “Oh, well, what will you give me, then?”
Me: “An education. Sit down.”


So that’s model school – lots of kids who don’t really want to be there because it’s summer, and who therefore are a minefield of discipline issues. Optimistically, I’m getting pretty good at my bitch face, and yesterday one of the volunteers gave me a stick to hold… You just smack it against your hand a couple of times and use it as a pointer, and they straighten up. It’s kind of morally ambiguous – kids here regularly get beatings with sticks when they’re bad in school, despite the fact that corporal punishment is illegal – but hey, it’s effective, and I’d never in a million years follow through on the threat.


After today, I have two more weeks and one more grade level to survive. Wish me luck!