One for the [Rotten] Books

I’ve heard horror stories about teachers’ first years in the business. I’ve been clearly cautioned and warned to expect some challenging moments. I’ve essentially been promised to have a rough first year of teaching.

I never doubted these wiser words and seasoned veterans, but you never really realize HOW challenging it is, how exhausted you feel, or how rough some of the weeks get until you take that leap of faith and dive right into that first year of teaching. After these past two weeks, I would give the same advice, word for word, to people who are training and preparing for their first year as a teacher. Those were a ROUGH two weeks of school.

Week 1: There had to be something in the water that was now running through our students veins. My third graders were barbarians. It was supposed to be a fresh start to a new partial, but it was more rotten than the swarm of fruit flies we find after leaving fruit peels in the trash overnight.

I had made a few changes to my classroom based off of some new ideas I wanted to try out. I put my students’ desks in groups instead of rows because I wanted them to interact with each other more. I wanted them to create these small learning communities where they could feed off of each other and help one another. Well, that idea backfired on me. Like the little chatterboxes that they are, I spent more time asking everyone to be quiet than actually teaching. Also, the lower students that I put in groups with some of my smarter ones, in hope that they would be challenged and ask help from their peers, ended up just copying all the work I gave them. And the two biggest rascals that I kept away from any group and had sit by themselves? bonded together to scheme against me. I swear, they all wanted to see me actually pull my hair out. Each day more and more students were ending up in yellow and my punishment system was beginning to lose its power; some of the boys actually started laughing whenever they got checks and they made the extra homework I would give them every night seem like a prize to be won. My classroom had turned into a zoo. I was changing from a teacher to a wild animal breeder.

Geovanny has been on a particularly frustrating rampage ever since school started back up after Christmas break. He managed to get himself into his third fight in three weeks, all with different students. The first week, he kicked Keidy and yanked her fingers backwards so hard until she started crying. I gave him demerits then and sent a letter home to his parents about his need to be (physically) careful with the other students. The second week, he and Elman ganged up on Rolando and bullied him until too started crying. They pulled one of those shenanigans where they pushed Rolando over and kept pushing him over every time we tried to stand up. Both of them lost their lunch recess for a week and had to sit with the principal during that time. Then, the third week, the day Geovanny was released from his week-long office punishment, he got in a fight with Wendy. However, this time he was the victim. He decided to bother Wendy, Yeri, and Hegna to the point that Wendy took action. (Basically, he was asking for it and quite frankly, I am proud of her for standing up for herself.) She decided to punch him in the back and poke him in the eyeballs. When I asked her what happened she was on the verge of crying because she knew she was in trouble, and all I really wanted to do was give her a high five for finally doing what every person had wanted to do to the boy for a long time. I sent them both of the office to sort it out, and I never actually followed up with the principal, but I do not think any consequence of punishment was given out.

Unfortunately they were academic devils as well. Here’s just one story: I had a Reading test planned on Wednesday over a story that we had been reading and working with for a week and a half. I learned quickly on that only spending a week with one story was too quick, but now I was starting to feel that spending two weeks on it was too much. Even looking back, with this particular story, I don’t know how I would have stretched it out for two more days anyways. We had read the story (multiple times), acted it out, drawn it, learned vocabulary words, answered a variety of questions about it, written sentences, and baked brownies together! (Because the story was about a girl who decided to bake brownies for a school bake sale.) I was certainly feeling confident that they would pass the test, but apparently not a single one of them felt that same confidence. The first time they took the test, every last student failed. Not a single soul got a passing grade on the test. The lowest score was a shocking 6% and the highest was a 60%. I sat in shock after grading them. I decided to review the test and the story with the students for one more day on Thursday before asking them to retake it on Friday. We walked through the test as a class for two separate periods on Thursday. We reviewed every vocabulary word I asked them to learn, every question on the test along with the correct answer, and I pointed out that almost none of them read the directions for the last part so they all got that section entirely wrong. I begged with them to keep reviewing that night and come prepared to take the test again the next day. I did very little to change the test: instead of asking them to translate the vocabulary words from English to Spanish I asked them to translate from Spanish to English, and I rearranged the order of the answers in the multiple choice section. The second time they took the test? This time five passed it, but still half of them did not read the directions on that particular section and bombed it. Oh well, I guess there’s just some things that they are not going to get.

Usually my 9^th grade math class offers some kind of relief for me when I am frustrated with my little ones, but they are the ones who actually broke me that week. Monday was a review day where they worked in groups while passing around note cards with practice problems on them. As soon as they started working, it was like they had never seen this math a day in their lives. May I just say that the problems came from Chapter 8 section 8 which means that we had spent a solid seven previous lessons working up to this point AND the chapter is on fractions which they have been learning about since at least 5^th grade. I could not believe their questions and blank stares! Is it bad to admit that it took every ounce of my self control to not swear in front of them? I could not believe it! They made me feel like such an awful teacher and that they were not actually learning a darn thing from me! Then after their quiz on Thursday I was completely defeated. The highest grade, coming from my best student, was a 75%. They could not even do the simplest math and were making the most basic mistakes on their quiz. I went into Jake’s office to ask him for advice because I was completely lost. In fact, I cried because I genuinely had no idea how to teach them anymore. I was 100% defeated by those students and had been sucker-punched in the gut.  

Week 2: This one was hard on one’s soul. Monday was no better with my little monsters than the previous week. I had decided to move their desks because the groups were clearly not working out, but the fengsuay of the room did nothing to change their individual auras. Gabriel had a terrible attitude all day and flat out refused to do his work. He even challenged Harriet while she was teaching them by telling her to just keep giving him more and more checks because he was not going to do his work. Darwing, Geovanny, and Juan were being their usual obnoxious selves which won them a spot in red for the day. All four of those students received demerits, which is a new record for me. I knew I had to change something because the current system was failing miserably. I now have a new rule in my classroom: for every check you have next to your name, you owe me five minutes whether that time comes from your recess, lunch, or after school. I don’t generally like taking away time from students’ recess because I think they desperately need that time to let all their energy out, but I had to hit them where it hurts. Since then, I have had two straight days of no one in yellow (yay!), and only one student in yellow on the other days.

The school as a whole suffered twice this week from the deaths of cherished loved ones. On Monday the mayor’s wife passed away. It was clear early on in the day that she was very sick and needed immediate attention, so they called for a helicopter to come get her out of La Unión and take her to a real hospital. Unfortunately by the time the helicopter arrived, it was too late. Not only was she a prominent figure’s wife, but in a small town where everyone is related somehow, she was the grandmother and aunt of many of our students and staff. Monday night we went to the wake to pay our respects to the woman and her family. It was the first time I had personally ever seen a dead corpse. Tuesday, half of the secondary students were absent for the funeral service because they were either personally affected or supporting people they dearly loved who were. It was a weird day at school with a very solemn atmosphere in every classroom.

Then Wednesday, after school, we caught wind of the sister of one of the 11^th graders dying. She was brutally raped and murdered, which made the news of the death even harder to bear. (She was living in a different city a couple hours away from here, so please do not worry about my own safety.) Thursday night we attended that wake to show our support for the student and remind him that he is surrounded by people who love him. That was particularly hard to stomach when we realized that they too had an open casket for viewing. On Friday the 11^th grade students were told that only five of them would be allowed to miss part of school to go to the funeral service. After spending about an hour fighting and crying over who would get to go and support their friend, they all decided to just leave. After Jake took the chosen five, they all walked off of campus and decided it was more important to show their friend support than to follow the rules. All of us teachers were cheering for them the entire time and will continue to back up their decision without hesitation.

There was a bit more of drama poisoning the school this past week, but we are starting a new week and I don’t want to take it with me. It primarily is concerned with everyone’s decision to come back for a second year of teaching here or not. Tomorrow Jake will be sitting down with each one of us individually to hear our answers. If you are reading this before Tuesday, please pray for me that I make the right decision. I was pretty sure I knew what I wanted a few weeks ago, but now I am having my doubts. Pray that God makes it clear which choice I need to make.  If you are reading this after Tuesday, please pray that I am feeling confident in my decision. Of course I do not want to regret my decision and let that worry or pain rot in my heart. Please also be praying for every student who was affected by the deaths last week. Both were heart wrenching to witness and to see our students bear. Pray that every single student finds comfort with the death of their loved one and remembers that greater things wait for us after our lives here on Earth. Pray that they never feel alone or without support from the community of our school. Thank you for your support!