Day 7

January 6, 2010

Day 7:

 

Yokwe! So, I finally met Teacher Terry today. She came in at the end of my first period class. I was teaching the children about adjectives and adverbs when Principal Lennja escorted her to her own room. I continued my lesson while she sat in the back of the class. Second period is our planning bell so I was in the teacher’s lounge working on lesson plans when she came in and we figured out a system of teaching. We agreed that I would teach the grammar lessons and she would teach the reading. I had been teaching grammar anyway so that worked great for me. Plus, I didn’t really have anything for the children to read anyway. Reading was supposed to be first period but since I taught grammar we switched up those lessons for the day. I agreed to assist her in teaching some reading at times but couldn’t commit to it fully. Today I helped her in reading; we broke the class up into two groups. The group with Teacher Terry was of the kids that read at or above average. My circle had the children that were below average readers. We read a story about a boy named Tony who wanted a pet puppy but instead of a puppy his parents bought him a pet plant. He and the plant then made an agreement to grow exponentially to the point where Tony’s parents would prefer a puppy over the plant. Eventually the plant was moved outside and Tony’s parents bought Tony a puppy; so he ended up with two pets. I read the story aloud as the children followed. I then guided them through the questions most of which they understood. I employed the idea of returning to the text to find the answer and that it was okay to reread something if they weren’t sure. I ended up going back through the story again with the children and for each of the follow up questions I had them write the number of that question next to the sentence in the text that answers that specific question. It worked well for them to see where the answers came from and to understand the structure of the questions. I taught grammar for the following class and then headed over to the high school for lunch during Teacher Terry’s last reading class of the day.

            Before the day was over, Teacher Terry expressed her interest in me teaching all of her classes because, as she said it, “I could really learn from you.” Professor Garrod warned us about this. As much as I would love to impart as much knowledge as I can on the children, there’s no way I could commit to teaching four full classes a day. Without being on payroll. I told her that I would assist her in lesson planning and that we could coordinate our lessons so that we learned from each other but I reluctantly assured her that I couldn’t take on such a large teaching load. While I was teaching, apparently, she went to the principal about her inquiry. She then felt the need to speak to me before I left stating that Principal Lennja only wanted me teaching two lessons a day. Teacher Terry seemed pretty defeated by this and it honestly hurt me to see an opportunity to make a difference but I can only do so much. Plus, I’ve never really taught before.

            I say this in the most humble way possible, but I’ve become quite a spectacle at Majuro Middle School. Mostly among the students. Today, when I started my second class, all but about three desks in my class were full. The sporadic attendance of Marshallese culture explained to me why I hadn’t seen some of the children in class the previous two days. I assumed that they had just decided to come back to school and began teaching my lesson. Teacher Terry came into the class about ten minutes after the lesson had begun and again sat in the back of the class. I was writing on the board with my back to the class and all of a sudden I noticed that Teacher Terry had kicked six different students out of class. She had also made all of the students looking in through the windows and those gathered at the door leave her proximity. Apparently, about 15 other students were trying to sit in on my class and none of them were actually in that class. They were on their lunch period and chose to come into room 107. Personally, I didn’t mind. The fact that they actually WANTED to be in a classroom was a great opportunity to make a difference. If they want to spend their lunch time learning about how to dissect a sentence, who am I to blame them? I spent every lunch of my senior year in the journalism room trying to perfect my projects. And playing Tetris. But nonetheless, motivation is a huge problem on the island and if they are motivated to be in a classroom who am I to stop them? Who is Teacher Terry? But it was only my third day and Terry’s the vet so I tried to gather the attention of the students actually on my roster and continue teaching prepositions and conjunctions.

            This type of thing happens all the time. All of the boys follow me with their eyes when I walk past and the girls all call my name from around corners and hide when I look their way. On several occasions I have seen people pointing at me from across the campus. I think it’s because I’m black and because I have dreads. I think I mentioned this before but one of my 7^th graders refers to me as Bob Marley, solely because I have locks. One of my colleagues, that sounds so weird to say, but  a fellow teacher asked me if my hair was real and I see people staring at my hair all the time. Also, I’ve only seen three other black people on the island. One that I know is black because he graduated from Dartmouth in 2008, Jonathan Marible. The other two could have been black and they could have been West Indian, Hawaiian or any other melanin-abundant places. I don’t mind it though. I expected to stand out like a sore thumb before I left the states. I thought being one of a small population of black people at Dartmouth was a weird situation. Here, though. I’m definitely half of the black population and could be as low as a fourth of it. No one has challenged me or anything though which is good. In fact I’ve met a few guys that spoke pretty good English who tried to talk to me in Hood English AKA Ebonics. I found that very entertaining. Mostly because two of those men were drunk at about 1:00 p.m. and told me of their adventures in America with facts about the country that were CLEARLY inaccurate. I enjoyed that. Another man is a WEIRDO!!!! I’ve seen him four times now, avoided him once.

            I first saw him outside the church. He looks to be Marshallese but he speaks flawless English. He was obviously educated in the states or in Australia or something. The first time I saw him he said something along the lines of, “It’s going to happen. I talked with the NFL commissioners and it’s going to happen.” I was with seven other people and we were right outside of church. He left it at that. The next time I saw him was outside the grocery store. I don’t recall the content of our conversation that day but id o remember that conversation confirming that this guy is a wack job. Before I continue explaining how his words confirm his insanity, I will explain how is attire confirmed his insanity. He’s had the same shorts and shirt on every time I’ve seen him on the island. It’s been almost a week now and I’ve seen him four times. On his head, he wears a headband of green, what looks like, olive leaves. Under the headband, connected to his head are four forks. Yes, eating forks. Two forks face the sky and the curvature of those forks match almost perfectly the curvature of this guy’s head. The other two face the ground and cover his sideburns. Any other physical features he has I didn’t notice because the eating utensils surrounding his cranium distracted me from anything else. Just couldn’t get past that.

            So the next time I saw him was also outside the grocery store. I was going in with Robyn before we cooked Monday. He asked me for a dollar and I told him if I had one when I came out I’d give it to him. Big mistake. When I came out I told him that all the money I had left was for cab fare. So this fool follows me all the way out the store. To the street. Across the street. And waited for me to physically get in the cab before he left. I actually expected him to close the door for me. The first thing he told me was that I was an ex-patriot. Then he went on to explain how politics should be run more like NFL commissioners run their teams than like politicians run the government. He then told me that Africa could be a thriving continent in five years if we made the right moves. I told him to go ahead and make those changes and I’ll say that I met the guy that saved Africa. He got kind of upset with me so hopefully he’ll leave me alone but I honestly didn’t have time to talk to him about all that stuff. I had some potato skins to make.

            ANYWAY….I seem to be drawing attention on the island. I went to the high school after I was done teaching at MMS. I worked on some lesson planning there and utilized the free internet in the teacher’s lounge. The internet is such a commodity for us. After that I went down the hall for day 2 of auditions. The auditions went well. We then came back to the apartment and Robyn and I had our last day of cooking. I made baked chicken with cream of mushroom soup and mashed the potatoes from the potato skins that I made on Monday. They turned out very good. The meat selection here is…okay. Not great by any means. At dinner we talked about the auditions and got into a heated discussion about whether or not we needed structure for day 3 of auditions. It doesn’t really seem like a heated topic but it became a conversation filled with passionate comments and half of us leaving the table to escape the danger of the conversation. We ended the day listening to music in the living room, going over exercise tips, giving/receiving massages, working on lesson plans, playing Tetris and writing in our journals. I’m gonna have to kick people out soon because currently there are seven people in my sleeping space and I’m about ten blinks away from being asleep.

            My lesson for tomorrow is all planned out. Being that I now have a book to work from, it’s much easier for me to find things to teach. We’re working on Unit 16. So I’m going to lead the children through the workbook and try to get a feel for what they pick up on and what they don’t. Derek asked me to come speak to his first period class about the American Civil Rights Movement so I’ve got to do that tomorrow as well. I’m excited about tomorrow though, my first full day with a set lesson plan and a mentor teacher and I can sleep with SO much less worry on my mind. Well Eric just boiled some water for some Ramen noodles and the girls are headed to bed so this is my chance to get to bed. Sorry for the lengthy entry but if you got this far, thank you for reading!! Until next time, from Majuro, barloeok.