Who are you?

A little encouragement is always nice. This morning Grace said in her out-of-the-blue, where-did-that-come-from kind of way, that I was a born teacher. I asked her to elaborate, but I didn't get much more. They asked me about my experience and how I liked my job. I told them about my experience teaching music, and they acted surprised that I played--I'm sure I've told them that before.

Matt can be really annoying. Mostly little comments he makes about the students, or making a big deal if I have a period off during the day or if I get off before him. I've reminded him several times that I also get to work long before he does most mornings. He complained about one of his Green classes because they don't understand. Well, they're young and still learning. Then he was acting like the kids were stupid or had some kind of problem because they couldn't listen to the tape and follow the directions correctly. I wanted to ask him if he had explained the words "top," "bottom," "first," and "second" to them, as knowing the meaning of those words was essential to completing that exercise. I didn't ask him, hoping that he would have explained that to them. I did ask him their age, and pointed out to him that 2nd graders would probably have trouble following directions that specific in Korean, let alone in a foreign language. He said something about preferring older kids, and I asked how old of kids. He said that he had one class that he liked the age group. In university he was practice teaching with high school students, and everything about him screams to me that he doesn't like/wouldn't be good with younger kids. Well, he knew what he was getting into before he came--he needs to handle things better, and be more organized. I know Julian didn't leave a very organized desk, but he's had several days to do something with the mess, but it's only gotten worse, and in the meantime he's been waiting until the bell rings to figure out what class and book he has next, then borrowing tapes from me or Tanya without asking. Get with it already!!

Today was much better than yesterday, largely because I really made an effort to have a better attitude (towards the students, not necessarily towards my co-workers!). At 4 PM I had fun joking with them a bit. When I came in they asked who I was, and I said, "I'm Miro teacher." Tom told me that today was Beth teacher's class, so I needed to "go out." I went out, closed the door, then came back in. They asked me, again, "Who are you?" This time I answered correctly, "I'm Beth teacher!" I asked them how the weather was, and someone said, "It's raining!" I very visibly turned to the window, looked outside, dropped by jaw, turned back to them, and said, "No it's not!!" They laughed and said, "OK, it's sunny and hot." That's more like it! The rest of the classes were pretty typical.

From last week, I remembered Kelt and a funny exchange between us. I don't know that I can recall all the details, but he said something about a test (along the lines of they had a test recently so we should play a game) and so I replied, "Oh, you want a test? OK!! I'm excited!! How about a spelling test?? Number one: supercalifragilisticexpialidocious." He actually tried to spell it!! He got the "super" part right, then gave up. He's in Green 1, which means he's been studying for maybe a year or possibly two, he's in the 3rd or 4th grade, but progressing so quickly!!