So I’ve completed my first full-time term of teaching. I am currently celebrating with a box of Kleenex and some cold meds at home. I spent a long time reflecting on my students’ learning, but I should probably think about what I’m doing to. Not that I wasn’t before, but a big picture look is certainly needed. My biggest challenge, hands down, is classroom management. I am TERRIBLE at giving out consequences. I have always lived being aware of consequences and then not doing the thing that would garner said consequences. The mere existence of the idea of a consequence was enough. So I really struggle to enforce things. My students, obviously, are not the same way. If I give a student three warnings, it really turns into six. If I said they’d only get one warning, it would still be six. Not surprisingly, of course, students figured this out and used it and pushed it and then I was miserable. I cannot really blame them. I wasn’t sticking to my word; how could they take me seriously? At the start of term, I had a class that was truly a handful. Every personality was a big personality. That’s still very much the case now, though four students were transferred out to a homeroom group that only had 14 students (this class was at 30 before). I left at the end of each day feeling cranky and tired and angry at these students for being kids. I made them sit in for silent lunch minutes. I raised my voice and made grumpy faces a lot. The word “disappointed” popped up numerous times. Students figured out they could make me emotional. Eventually the other grade 9 class which was alright caught on too. It was a bit of a train wreck. This school is very discipline-focussed. When the school year began, there was a very loose detention system in place. That is, if a student did something a teacher didn’t like, they were written up for an hour after school detention (where they just sat quietly and did their homework or napped – not much impact). Some students would receive multiple detentions in a day for things like chewing gum, not tucking in their uniform, or forgetting their books. If they forgot that detention or didn’t show up, they were made to come in on Saturday mornings. I felt that detentions should be treated with gravity if they were to be in my management system at all. I’ve only ever given one out. Now, we have a system of demerit points. Certain behaviours have different amounts of demerits which are recorded on the student’s file. No one has decided how many demerits constitute a more serious response yet. In any case, I was tired of feeling like crap because of my grade 9 classes. I felt that it made them dread coming to my class too. But this whole time, I was struggling with how to fit management into my philosophy, and the school’s management philosophy. I still don’t have all the answers. But I had a long talk with a colleague of mine who has been very helpful in a number of things, Daniel. Daniel is known around the school for being quite strict, but I noticed that his students still respond really well to him. I asked him about the things that he does, and it was really no different from what I thought about doing. The difference was that he stood up for himself. He didn’t like leaving feeling like crap. And he didn’t like leaving feeling that way repeatedly. So he stood up for himself. Consequences came out right when they were supposed to, and swiftly. Consequences were not negotiated unless there really was extenuating circumstances. And very quickly, bad behaviours disappeared and there was more time for learning. I learned that being firm isn’t about being mean or negative towards students, but that it has a lot more to do with standing up for your own wellness. I believe in maintaining my wellness so that I can be the best for my kids – the old “you can’t pour someone else’s cup if you’re empty” cliché. So the next day, I filled my cup. I stood up to myself. I enforced consequences immediately. And the week went smoothly. And so did the weeks following. I admittedly had a bit of a rocky go last week, being sick and with the students coming back from break. But I’m prepared to continue standing up for me.
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Hi all,
October was a really busy month, and now, somehow, November is halfway over. For the most part, the days don't feel too long when they're happening, and time is going by maybe a bit too fast. October was spent doing three things, and only three things:
All of those things were tedious and terrible and I'm glad they're over. The IB training began at the start of October and finished the day after report cards were due, and while I think it could have been much more valuable than it was, the simple fact was that all teachers in this training were in the middle of report cards. No one had the time to really dig in to the course (or at least, to share their learning with the rest of the online community). As such, everyone waited to the last minute in group assignments or just discussion forums. Also, as I was unemployed the summer before coming here, I spent a ridiculous amount of time researching and preparing for the IB course. For the most part, the planning and conclusions I came to were already fine! So this training felt to me like a lot of busywork. However, I did my best in spite of it to add to discussions, because it didn't hurt to think through it again when I wasn't under huge piles of writing waiting to be marked. Three days after report cards were due, we had parent-teacher open house from 7:30 AM to 5PM. I was admittedly dreading this day. 50 teachers, each with their own table in a crowded room would be talking with parents all. day. long. I was feeling overwhelmed by all the people I thought would be there. I was concerned about angry parents (all my classes sit around a C average, for various reasons, but nothing to do with placing marks on a bell curve). It was coming at the end of a very long month. However, I left that day feeling really great. While a lot of parents came, not as many came as I expected. In any case, every conversation was generally helpful in understanding the student. In most cases, the student came along with the parent (and in one case, so did her 13 siblings!). While most conversations were more or less positively centered around personal growth towards goals, there was, of course, some frustrating incidents. With some parents, I struggled to show how, even though their son/daughter was not performing to the parent's expectations, they were attentive, worked hard, and just needed a bit more support to get to their goal. It was difficult for parents to understand, sometimes, that there is more to it than doing more work to build the skill -- if they don't know how to do something, giving them more work in it will not help. One parent came to talk to me about a detention one of my students had received for being repeatedly disruptive in class. I thought for sure this conversation was going to be ugly, and it was, but for very different reasons than I expected. The parent had come to hear my side of the story so he could decide how much to beat his son, as he had a "system of beating" in place. I knew this to be not uncommon here, but it was difficult to tactfully share the story knowing what was on the line. I had many students leave my interview giving me a hug or a handshake, and a few sat quietly by as parents revealed I was their favorite teacher. After every interview, I was able to tweak my questioning process to ask questions that students and parents would most urgently want to answer. Most of it was focused on the student sitting there. For instance:
One thing that made this month bearable was the long walks that my friend Leith and I would go on after school or on weekends. As mentioned before, she, her husband and their relatively new daughter all moved out here this summer and live in the boys boarding house. She sometimes needs a break from the boys boarding house, so we've walked all over town. We talk about life and stories and pedagogy. I think it's pretty special. I've learned a lot from her. The weekend following the week from hell, I went to the town of Gisenye on Lake Kivu with Leith and 14 boarding house kids who hadn't gone home for the short break (Monday and Tuesday were public holidays). The reading I had done about Gisenye was that it was a bustling tourist town, but that was not the sense I got from my visit. It seemed very quiet and low key. There was a brewery there that wasn't open to the public. Lake Kivu is the source of a methane gas plant which floats on the lake harvesting methane gas for power generation. Some weird science I don't understand means that methane gas, in large quantities, is at the bottom of the lake. The plant itself is quite small, and lit up at night it looked like the Eiffel Tower. We were within 1km walking distance to the Democratic Republic of the Congo. That walk was also uneventful. There was a set of hot springs which hadn't in the slightest been commercialized. We walked to it through a small village, little children holding our hands the whole way and chanting "massage, massage" and squishing our hands and arms. When we got to the hot springs, it was literally a few small holes in the ground with really hot water that flowed into lake Kivu. Some people were cooking fish in them. I eventually went in for a swim, and was accosted by three children swimming around my legs and squishing my body parts chanting "massage, massage." When I got out, they took me to the hot pools, splashed really hot water on me, and squished me some more. It sounds kind of awkward, but I was one of the only of my group remaining behind, and it was actually a really nice quiet moment to spend with these kids. They weren't expecting money, at least as far as I could tell (usually they're quite vocal about it), and I think they were genuinely happy to see me. Later that afternoon Leith and I walked back to the hotel, maybe a 3 or 4km walk, in the rain. We went atop a really nice lookout and then descended down to the lakeshore. Between that lake town and the first one I visited, Kibuye, I prefer the first. It was a lovely holiday nonetheless. However, this week, I suspect one of those little children got me sick. I've lost my voice and my throat is the sort of sore burning that goes up into your ears and your nose. It's been very frustrating, and hasn't healed over the weekend. Michelle has been helpful in making soup and other hot dinners, as well as giving me extra vitamin C. I'm very grateful. Some stores are starting to decorate for Christmas here. It feels weird going into the Christmas season with no snow. Today I turned on my Christmas playlist, and it didn't feel quite as cozy in the sunlight. It made me homesick, too. Christmas has always been a really big deal in my family, and we have all these nice traditions that I'm missing out on this year. I logically realize that this is one of many Christmases, and I'm in Rwanda which is pretty freaking cool, but still. There's something about being home for the holidays. In any case, I know some of you send Christmas cards, and there's about a month's time in mail getting here from what I hear from other expats, so here's my address again: Meagan Fullerton-Lee c/o Green Hills Academy P.O. Box 6419 Nyarutarama Kigali Rwanda Send me yours and we'll see if the outgoing post works! |
Meagan Fullerton-LeeMeagan is an aspiring teacher, voracious reader, tentative motorcyclist, and passionate gardener. In all things she sees education. Here she shares her passions. Archives
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