No, this is not me singing along to my favorite U2 song. It is instead an accurate description of my day. Fateful Sundays... the days of P.E., blood, and 'Chase the Teacher."
Today started out well enough - fairly normally if you discount the fact that one girl wet her pants five times. Five. Before 1130 am. How big is your bladder? The size of a corn kernel? No more water for you, Aisha*. In fact by the time swimming came around, we just wrapped her in a towel in her chair because she had gone through all of her clothes and all of the spare clothes for the entire KG1 hallway.
Then came P.E. Now, P.E. is mostly an exercise in patience for me and in laughter for my teaching assistant Miss Christine, namely because the babies (especially the boys) seem to find "Chase the Teacher" to be the best part of the week. It's much easier to have the girls play a game like "Duck, Duck, Goose," which is always an utter failure with the boys. Of course today the girls had swimming, which means that all 19 boys were outside with me plus 2 girls who don't take swimming lessons. We had just walked outside and I looked up to count and make sure none had escaped in transit, only to meet about 30 little eyes. About 15 of the boys were closing in on me, hands raised, with enormous impish grins plastered on their faces.
Now, have you seen Gremlins? You know, the one starring furry mischievous creatures? The most apt way to describe the effect 'Chase the Teacher' has on little boys is to remind you what happens when you feed Gremlins after midnight. They shed all semblance of their adorable selves and wake up as reptilian demons who try to destroy the town. I started running and after a few rounds, they took me down. It finally happened. I was crushed underneath a pile of children and actually knocked to the ground. Cairo, Philadelphia, Frankfurt, of the many cities I have lived and traveled in, the first time I have ever felt in danger of a mob rush was in a Doha schoolyard. I actually toppled over on top of a child - but all was well. The only lasting injury was a minor scrape on one boy's elbow. Now I'm the teacher who sends kids to the nurse for P.E. injuries.
There is an indefinite moratorium on 'Chase the Teacher.'
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Imagine this start to my Thursday...
A young man waits outside a staffroom. He holds a single orange rose. He turns around expectantly every time the door opens. He waits nervously...with his parents. Now notice he is about three feet tall, walks up to you, hands you the flower, and says, "Sowwrrrry, miss." So what warranted this a.m. encounter?
Yesterday, I walk back into class from my lunch break and suddenly all the children are pointing at one child, whom we will call Ahmed, and keep repeating his name. Then I realize our hall supervisor is in the room too. She tells me he was running around the room, standing on the table, waving erasers and markers around in the air and throwing them at other children. So I crouch down in front of his chair to ask him why he did that and tell him not to do it again, and as I say, "Why did you do that?" He shakes his finger in my face and slaps me across the cheek. I had him out into the hallway like a shot. I gave out to him in such a way I doubt ANY child will ever try to pull such crap in my classroom ever again. They just stared at me in silence for the rest of the day. Thus his mother and father waiting in the hallway with a flower for me, making him apologize to me in English. At least they cared. And they apologized too. I have some parents who would do neither.
Then at the end of the day, I was reading The Little Gingerbread Man to them. There was total silence in the room and I had just finished reading "He ran, ran, ran, just as fast as he could but they could not catch him," when I hear one child in the back going, "Teacher, like Ahmed!" I almost DIED trying to contain my laughter. What a genius child.
Some small snippets from the week:
Miss Helen: This is Miss Patricia. Her classroom is next door. Right next door. Her classroom is the naughty classroom. She takes the naughty children. Do you want to go there? Do you?
Me: Do you want to come to my classroom? I can take you if you don't behave for Miss Helen. (Standing in doorway and looking very stern.) I will come back later to make sure you are behaving.
Three teachers have told me my kids are excellent. One came to my door today to borrow a storybook and she told me she is jealous of how good they are and asked me my secret.
The naughty classroom? Now the teaching assistants frequently bring children to my door and hold them up to the glass window. They look inside and I stare them down.
I am the teacher from the black lagoon. Full stop.
Yesterday, I walk back into class from my lunch break and suddenly all the children are pointing at one child, whom we will call Ahmed, and keep repeating his name. Then I realize our hall supervisor is in the room too. She tells me he was running around the room, standing on the table, waving erasers and markers around in the air and throwing them at other children. So I crouch down in front of his chair to ask him why he did that and tell him not to do it again, and as I say, "Why did you do that?" He shakes his finger in my face and slaps me across the cheek. I had him out into the hallway like a shot. I gave out to him in such a way I doubt ANY child will ever try to pull such crap in my classroom ever again. They just stared at me in silence for the rest of the day. Thus his mother and father waiting in the hallway with a flower for me, making him apologize to me in English. At least they cared. And they apologized too. I have some parents who would do neither.
Then at the end of the day, I was reading The Little Gingerbread Man to them. There was total silence in the room and I had just finished reading "He ran, ran, ran, just as fast as he could but they could not catch him," when I hear one child in the back going, "Teacher, like Ahmed!" I almost DIED trying to contain my laughter. What a genius child.
Some small snippets from the week:
Miss Helen: This is Miss Patricia. Her classroom is next door. Right next door. Her classroom is the naughty classroom. She takes the naughty children. Do you want to go there? Do you?
Me: Do you want to come to my classroom? I can take you if you don't behave for Miss Helen. (Standing in doorway and looking very stern.) I will come back later to make sure you are behaving.
Three teachers have told me my kids are excellent. One came to my door today to borrow a storybook and she told me she is jealous of how good they are and asked me my secret.
The naughty classroom? Now the teaching assistants frequently bring children to my door and hold them up to the glass window. They look inside and I stare them down.
I am the teacher from the black lagoon. Full stop.
Thursday, October 7, 2010
The joys of teaching
Yesterday I almost snapped in a child's face. I had to close my eyes and take three breaths before I could speak to him because I was afraid I would break my pointer stick in half right there. Every vision of a teacher driven crazy that I've ever seen was about to come true. We were doing a ridiculous worksheet that was making my blood pressure skyrocket anyway and Yahya, an absolute bull of a child, is tearing around the classroom screaming in Arabic. I question whether he has ever sat in a chair before from his inability to remain in one for more than 45 seconds. He stands up, I pick him up and put him back. He stands up, I pick him up and put him back. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. All day. At least I won't have to join a gym. Yesterday I turn around and he has pulled his chair to the cubbyholes on the side of the class, climbed off the chair, onto the cubbyhole, and is purely suspended from the higher cubbyhole and is pulling down folders and throwing them on the floor. He is also trying to pull the cd player off the shelf. So I have to physically remove him from the shelves and hold him in front of me. And because this is of course the 10 minutes of private hell formally known as 'dismissal,' he goes limp and lays on the floor in front of me so that no children can get out. So today I basically trap him next to me, holding the body of his chair underneath mine with my legs and holding his back so that his chest is pressed against the side of my leg. His mother comes to the door and says, "Oh! Yahya habibi you are sitting next to Teacher!" If only she knew.
Encounters from my day:
Anonymous parent 1: Excuse me, miss, why was my son in the naughty chair yesterday?
Actual Reply: Oh well you know they are boys and they like to play hit each other under the table. I had to separate them all.
*Appropriate reply: Because he's naughty as hell. That's why.
Anonymous parent 2: How is my baby? She had fever all night last night. Is she okay?
Actual Reply: She seemed fine, a little sleepier than usual.
*Appropriate reply: WTF.
Anonymous parent 3: How was she today? Is she good?
Actual Reply: She was fine, better than yesterday!
*Appropriate reply: She flipping whines and screams for you all day, no she's not good! She's a whining baby. She isn't ready for school. I can't even teach over her screaming.
My patience is wearing thin, so these tears better stop. Soon.
Encounters from my day:
Anonymous parent 1: Excuse me, miss, why was my son in the naughty chair yesterday?
Actual Reply: Oh well you know they are boys and they like to play hit each other under the table. I had to separate them all.
*Appropriate reply: Because he's naughty as hell. That's why.
Anonymous parent 2: How is my baby? She had fever all night last night. Is she okay?
Actual Reply: She seemed fine, a little sleepier than usual.
*Appropriate reply: WTF.
Anonymous parent 3: How was she today? Is she good?
Actual Reply: She was fine, better than yesterday!
*Appropriate reply: She flipping whines and screams for you all day, no she's not good! She's a whining baby. She isn't ready for school. I can't even teach over her screaming.
My patience is wearing thin, so these tears better stop. Soon.
Monday, October 4, 2010
Old habits die hard...
Good signs that money has not gotten to my head:
1. For three days after being paid, all I bought was ice cream.
2. When I did get to the store to finally buy a frying pan, which I have been dying to buy since I moved in, I still automatically picked up the cheapest one. However, I did spring for the SECOND cheapest one. Both an acceptable splurge for my first paycheck and an appropriate investment for one year of my life. (How pleased/horrified my mother will be to know I still bought generic everything. Except Oreos. I have some standards after all.)
3. I enjoyed Thursday night's free eleven floor ride in the fancy glass elevator far more than I enjoyed the expensive drinks in the fancy bar downstairs.
1. For three days after being paid, all I bought was ice cream.
2. When I did get to the store to finally buy a frying pan, which I have been dying to buy since I moved in, I still automatically picked up the cheapest one. However, I did spring for the SECOND cheapest one. Both an acceptable splurge for my first paycheck and an appropriate investment for one year of my life. (How pleased/horrified my mother will be to know I still bought generic everything. Except Oreos. I have some standards after all.)
3. I enjoyed Thursday night's free eleven floor ride in the fancy glass elevator far more than I enjoyed the expensive drinks in the fancy bar downstairs.
Saturday, October 2, 2010
In order to combat the negative energy of my last post I'm going list all the nice /funny/excellent things that have happened to me this week:
1. Most importantly, no one pooped on the floor.
2. Payday! More money than I knew what to do with. All I could bring myself to buy was an ice cream.
3. A small child came up to me in the middle of our Math class, wrapped his arms around my legs, buried his face in my skirt, and went "NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM!!!" and then just grinned up at me. It was really hard to scold him or send him back to his chair.
4. Miss Christine, my teaching assistant slash sanity keeper, brought me spring rolls that she made for lunch one day. They were so delicious.
5. I teach second grade art as well and a little boy came up to me, handed me a folded up piece of paper and said, "This is for you." I unfolded it and all it said was "I love you." Pretty smooth for a seven year old.
6. Miss Christine told me she is so happy to be with me in class because she thinks I'm a good teacher.
7. I tried to play "Duck Duck Goose" with them in PE and it was an EPIC failure. Instead we played "Mr Wolf What Time is it?" which was basically Miss Christine bringing them close behind me followed by me turning around and chasing them like Mr. Wolf at 'dinner time.' And really enjoying their little screams and giggles when I did so.
8. Realizing that when I sing the Wheels on the Bus, even the ones who don't speak or understand English know which hand motions go with which lyrics. I think I sing that song approximately 13 times per day.
9. Walking around in the mall on Thursday, waiting for the bank to open so I could cash my check, seeing one of my students in the food court with her mom. She waved, hid behind her mother, came up to me and said "Mees Pat-ree-see-a," and ran back to her mom.
10. A small child coming up to me and kissing me good-bye at the end of the day.
11. Thursday night we went to the ritziest place I have ever been in my whole life. We went to a bar at the Doha Sheraton just for fun. We walked in and there were red carpets, gold chandeliers, and glass elevators. We rode it all the way up to the eleventh floor. Just because. Even though we were going to the basement.
12. Wednesday I set up all these shapes on the chalkboard ledge and told them they had to come up and choose the red one. I turned around to get something and there are suddenly cascades of hysterical laughter. I turned back around and one yellow oval had fallen over on its side. I picked it up, put it back, and much to their great enjoyment, it fell directly over. They were practically screaming with laughter and kept trying to blow it over from their seats.
The most important thing I think I realized last week, in the midst of wiping copious amounts of snot and blood off of a little girl was that I'm making this up as I go and that's alright. Some days I have to literally climb under the desk to get and keep their attention because they think I live at school and I tell them I'm going to sleep. (My supervisor walked in at this moment, by the way). Some days I have to sing the Hokey Pokey in front of the George Clooney look-a-like disciplinarian. Some days they will all yell RED!!! when I hold up something red and ask what color it is. But then other days they will yell NO! when I hold up the same thing and ask, "Is this red?"
I realized I'm working with limited knowledge, experience (obviously) and materials. So I'm doing what I can with what I have. There are actually no supplies for art class. We have 24 colored pencils for 28 kids, so I can't even give each kid 2 colors to do their art projects with. I can't even give them all ONE at a time. (I bought some colored pencils today so that won't happen next week.) For my second grade art class, there is nothing. I had only computer paper and their pencils. So, last week we sang the Bare Necessities from the Jungle Book and they drew that, but this week, I had them draw the whole jungle. I was actually very impressed by their jungle drawing skills. They were asking me to draw all of these animals on the board. And if they could draw rainbows, and Spongebob. Sure, why not kid? If you can tell me why Spongebob is in the jungle, you can put him in the jungle. And he did. So I let him.
I think making it up as I go is working out alright so far. Even with vomit, bloody noses, and wet pants as the extracurricular activities. Even though I definitely stand at the board and have moments of "Whaaaaat the frick do I do now?"every now and again. Rather often actually.
Miss Batty
1. Most importantly, no one pooped on the floor.
2. Payday! More money than I knew what to do with. All I could bring myself to buy was an ice cream.
3. A small child came up to me in the middle of our Math class, wrapped his arms around my legs, buried his face in my skirt, and went "NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM!!!" and then just grinned up at me. It was really hard to scold him or send him back to his chair.
4. Miss Christine, my teaching assistant slash sanity keeper, brought me spring rolls that she made for lunch one day. They were so delicious.
5. I teach second grade art as well and a little boy came up to me, handed me a folded up piece of paper and said, "This is for you." I unfolded it and all it said was "I love you." Pretty smooth for a seven year old.
6. Miss Christine told me she is so happy to be with me in class because she thinks I'm a good teacher.
7. I tried to play "Duck Duck Goose" with them in PE and it was an EPIC failure. Instead we played "Mr Wolf What Time is it?" which was basically Miss Christine bringing them close behind me followed by me turning around and chasing them like Mr. Wolf at 'dinner time.' And really enjoying their little screams and giggles when I did so.
8. Realizing that when I sing the Wheels on the Bus, even the ones who don't speak or understand English know which hand motions go with which lyrics. I think I sing that song approximately 13 times per day.
9. Walking around in the mall on Thursday, waiting for the bank to open so I could cash my check, seeing one of my students in the food court with her mom. She waved, hid behind her mother, came up to me and said "Mees Pat-ree-see-a," and ran back to her mom.
10. A small child coming up to me and kissing me good-bye at the end of the day.
11. Thursday night we went to the ritziest place I have ever been in my whole life. We went to a bar at the Doha Sheraton just for fun. We walked in and there were red carpets, gold chandeliers, and glass elevators. We rode it all the way up to the eleventh floor. Just because. Even though we were going to the basement.
12. Wednesday I set up all these shapes on the chalkboard ledge and told them they had to come up and choose the red one. I turned around to get something and there are suddenly cascades of hysterical laughter. I turned back around and one yellow oval had fallen over on its side. I picked it up, put it back, and much to their great enjoyment, it fell directly over. They were practically screaming with laughter and kept trying to blow it over from their seats.
The most important thing I think I realized last week, in the midst of wiping copious amounts of snot and blood off of a little girl was that I'm making this up as I go and that's alright. Some days I have to literally climb under the desk to get and keep their attention because they think I live at school and I tell them I'm going to sleep. (My supervisor walked in at this moment, by the way). Some days I have to sing the Hokey Pokey in front of the George Clooney look-a-like disciplinarian. Some days they will all yell RED!!! when I hold up something red and ask what color it is. But then other days they will yell NO! when I hold up the same thing and ask, "Is this red?"
I realized I'm working with limited knowledge, experience (obviously) and materials. So I'm doing what I can with what I have. There are actually no supplies for art class. We have 24 colored pencils for 28 kids, so I can't even give each kid 2 colors to do their art projects with. I can't even give them all ONE at a time. (I bought some colored pencils today so that won't happen next week.) For my second grade art class, there is nothing. I had only computer paper and their pencils. So, last week we sang the Bare Necessities from the Jungle Book and they drew that, but this week, I had them draw the whole jungle. I was actually very impressed by their jungle drawing skills. They were asking me to draw all of these animals on the board. And if they could draw rainbows, and Spongebob. Sure, why not kid? If you can tell me why Spongebob is in the jungle, you can put him in the jungle. And he did. So I let him.
I think making it up as I go is working out alright so far. Even with vomit, bloody noses, and wet pants as the extracurricular activities. Even though I definitely stand at the board and have moments of "Whaaaaat the frick do I do now?"every now and again. Rather often actually.
Miss Batty
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