January 15, 2010
Day 16:
Today turned out to be a much better than I expected despite the fact that when I woke up, I realized that Derek and Eric had put my Jimmy Dean’s in the freezer the night before when they cleaned up the whole kitchen. This meant I couldn’t eat sausage for breakfast because I didn’t have time for it to thaw out. Instead I ate a big bowl of Western Family Frosted Flakes.
After compiling the different suggestions about my class I decided that I would meet with each student individually whether they did well or not. So when I got to school I typed up a worksheet for the students to work on all class. The worksheet was the exact same as the test yesterday, except I had a word bank. I also added another section to the back page from one of the worksheets that we did earlier in the week. I didn’t tell them that it was the same test but I figured they’d notice. I also had another worksheet that I had printed up from like Monday that we never got to, if they finished the first worksheet I had them do the second. The first worksheet, essentially the test again, was open note and it was graded.
So I called up each student and went over their test grades and it went much better than I thought. God just blessed me with the words to say to them I guess, but I made sure to let them know that I cared for their grades but at the same time I had higher expectations and wanted them to do better than they were doing. There were certain students who just clearly don’t have the academic gene: Henchi and Certhina in my fourth period class, Jota and Jefferson in my third period class. And then there are those who do really well. For those who got a 90% or better I told them that we would be working in pairs next week and that I would like for them to try to explain the correct answers to the students who aren’t understanding some of the material. They all agreed to help me out but only three or four seemed genuinely excited and interested in this opportunity. I also told all of them individually, especially the ones that didn’t do too well, that there was no reason that they didn’t get a 100% on my first section because all of the answers should have been in their notebooks. I started many of those conversations by asking if they studied for the test. Some said yes, to which I replied, It doesn’t look like you did because you got 2/9 on the first section. Some said no, to which I replied why not? Some people said they forgot, then I told them that I gave them five minutes before class to look over their notes before the test. That was usually when I got the salty face. For all of them I asked if they had written down the stuff that I wrote on the board most of them said yes. Then I told them that they had all of the answers because they were all the same. I then pulled out a copy of what I wrote on the board that Teacher Terry made for me. When I quizzed them there, they got it right. Then I showed them the correlation between what was on the board and what I wanted from the test. I saw a few lights go off in their heads after that, which was good. I then installed a policy of note taking in which they have to write down everything that I write down and randomly throughout the week I’ll collect the notebooks and give them grades on their notes. I’m also making up a seating chart this weekend because I think socialization is interfering with progress in my class. And it’s also contributing a lot to cheating. I just think it’s funny that a group of people will cheat off of each other and they’ll all be wrong on multiple questions. I’m making the notebook grades and also attendance percentage a part of the class competition now too so hopefully they will be more inclined to come to class and to take notes.
After class we had parent-teacher conferences. I thought it was necessary for me to be there. I learned so much about some of my students. Very few of the parents spoke English so Teacher Terry did all of my translating. The turnout was pretty good though; sixteen of the 32 enrolled kids had parents show up. And surprisingly, it wasn’t just the parents of the students that are doing well. Many of the parents of the lower achieving students came too. Turns out Jefferson leaves the house at 8:00 a.m. every morning and comes back at 3:30 p.m. so his grandmother thinks he’s been coming to school. But Jefferson’s been in my class three times in the last two weeks. I didn’t even know who he was until like Tuesday of this week. I also found out a lot about the family structure in the Marshalls. Many of the students don’t live with/have parents. So often, grandparents raise these kids and sometimes its aunties or even neighbors or family friends. Teacher Terry was telling me that Jesse was dropped off at a neighbors house at birth and the parents then left to Hawaii. Many of the kids are being raised by older siblings and almost all of the actual parents that came were single; mostly mothers. It was really good for me to see that side of my students even though they weren’t there. Professor Garrod said last night that it was important that I know what was going on in these kids lives and that I was making too many informational assumptions about some of these kids situations. He was so right. I had the option of not going to parent-teacher conferences but I thought it was necessary for the parents to meet and see me as a figure in the classroom and for me to meet the parents and show them that I care about their children’s successes academically.
After conferences I went to the high school library to finish grading papers. They were doing individual rehearsals for the play so I wasn’t interrupting anything; everyone was scattered across the campus. I was supposed to meet John, a guy from World Teach, to play some basketball at 5:00. I left the library briefly to go use the internet at the teacher’s lounge. Of course, that was when he came looking for me. I eventually caught up with him, changed and we walked about 200m East up the island to a hidden basketball court.
I definitely felt at home pretty quickly there. It was an outdoor playground court and there was quite a few people waiting on the sidelines to get in on the next game. It reminded me of the Hazelwood reunion and how everyone comes out to play ball and if you lose you could very well not get back on the court because so many people are in line. There was a game going on when I got there and we sat the next game but after that John and I got on. They play by very different rules than I do, but I got accustomed pretty quickly. My game was VERY rusty. I didn’t get take a shot until my first game of the game. I made it a point to get a shot up early just because I hadn’t taken one in a month or so. My handles were off too. Part of that was due to the fact that the ball was kind of flat. Also the traction on the court was pretty bad. I was sliding all around when I tried to make cuts. Most of the guys we played against were playing barefoot or in flip-flops. I think barefoot is probably the best way to play on that court actually. I didn’t do it though, I kept on my Pegasus running shoes. We won the first two games in ugly fashion. We were the better team but we were just rusty and cold from not really getting in the flow. Game three I was good though. John did most of the scoring from the first two games. He’s pretty good. Game three I got on, and found my handles. One play I went coast to coast and crossed three of their players pretty bad. One time John drove and tried a reverse layup, I came up for the follow when he missed and was about six inches from a SICK tip dunk.
During that game, early in the game, a shot went up and one of the Marshallese guys, he looked younger than me, grabbed a rebound in my vicinity. It didn’t even jump but he was like right by me and he yelled out “Rebele”. Rebele is the term Marshallese give to anyone from the Western world minus Asians. I got a laugh out of that but I got kind of heated at the same time. He picked a bad time to start talking trash. The next three times down the court I hit deep threes and after the last one I looked at him and said “Rebele”. The crowd loved it. By this time the crowd was pretty big. There were kids playing with some of the Mormon teachers on the field nearby but almost all of them had come to the basketball court by the third game and were chanting for John and I to dunk it. One of them was a student of mine, Isaiah from my third period class. His mom had been at conferences. We ended up winning the first five games we were on the court. We lost the last by one bucket. Everyone plays a 2-3 defense for some reason so I was the middle of a 2-3 and someone slipped behind me when I was guarding the post player. The guy I was guarding then grabbed me so I couldn’t help out on the shot. I would have surely blocked it. I laughed and shook the guys hand after the play. He and I both knew he snuck one on me but that’s playground basketball. We lost. After that the sun was basically down so we left. Right after the bucket I grabbed the ball and dunked it then John went up and did a two hand 180. The kids loved it. As we were leaving all the kids ran up to us and shook our hands and just stood by us. It was nice. It was my first real connection with the people of the island and I plan to return there regularly.
After that we had dinner at Monica’s, a Chinese restaurant on the island. I’m pretty sure the waitresses at Monica’s also double as the workers at the nearby Chinese owned brothel because their outfits were VERY risqué for the Marshalls. Short shorts, haulter tops, they honestly just looked like whores to me. Sorry. And in typical Marshallese fashion, it took us two hours to get our food. We were supposed to be at Monica’s at 7 p.m. we met there slightly after that and I was second to receive my food and it was exactly 9:00 when I got my food. I ordered shrimp fried rice and sweet and sour chicken. Both of which were not quite what I expected but I was too hungry and tired of waiting to complain.
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