My First Lessons

Last Tuesday morning, which was supposed to be the first day of school, I woke up a bundle of nerves. "It'll be OK," I told myself. "Once you get past the first lesson, you'll feel a lot calmer. You just need to get through today." The seconds ticked by like hours until the time I was scheduled to give my lesson. Finally, I put on my bata and walked over to the school... which was deserted. Not a single student in sight. I came across my pedagogical director and asked him where everyone was.

"Oh, you were planning on teaching today?" he laughed. "That's cute."

And so, still having not taught a lesson, I went home. I woke up on Wednesday morning with a pit in my stomach.

"Don't think about yesterday. Today's the day. You can do this! Just get through the first lesson and it'll be OK."

But it was not to be. A second time, I walked to school and found: not a single student. Lovely. Defeated, I trudged home again.

I woke up on Thursday, exponentially more agitated, but also determined to teach someone something. I waked determinedly to school, and -- lo ad behold!-- found a couple of students wandering around aimlessly. No other teachers were there. Not really sure what my plan was, I wandered into a random classroom. It was empty, but soon enough, a few kids trickled in and sat down, staring at me curiously. No doubt they were thinking "What on earth is the crazy muzungu doing now?" But they were smiling and paying attention to me. Clearly whatever I was about to do was more interesting than nothing.

I didn't teach them much. They were a mish-mash of students from 7th through 10th grade and I had no plan. But I did have some fun with them -- I taught them some words they could use with their friends - including 'What's up?' and it's shortened form 'Sup?' They thought it was hilarious. "Sup! Sup! Sup!" they chanted.

My mini-lesson was only fifteen minutes long, but it did the trick. I went to bed that night feeling so much calmer. I can do this!

This week started out so much better. I was a little nervous, but nothing compared to the week-long heart-attack-in-waiting that was last week. At this point, I've taught all of my classes at least once, and all of my lessons went OK! Not great, but OK. There were ups and downs:

The Downs:

• Despite the fact that most of these kids have had English instruction since 6th grade with good teachers, many of my tenth graders can barely string a sentence together.
• I really need to work out a system of remembering what I did with each class. I have seven turmas (classes) and, after the first lesson, I'm already confused. ("Uh... did we do the verb "to like" yesterday? Or was that the other class?")
• One of my eighth graders walked by my house this evening and said "That family diagram made no sense today, Professora!" all the while giving me a cheerful thumbs up. At least he was friendly about it.

The Ups:

• Most of my students were present! By my 9th grade afternoon class today, I had 53 students -- almost everybody!
• Most of them speak decent enough Portuguese for me to be able to explain exercises and whatnot to them in Portuguese. As much as I'd like to use English all the time, I have limited class time and I don't want to waste 10 minutes explaining something in English that I could do in 10 seconds using Portuguese -- most of the time, there's something more useful I could be doing with that class time.
• My students are all really well behaved! They are very hesitant to participate in class, but that will change with time. At least I don't have crazy rowdy kids! (Yet...)
• There are some really bright students in my classes! Thank goodness for that handful of students that actually wants to answer my questions and come up to the board.
• My roommate (the other English teacher) told me that one of my students excitedly told her that "Professora Helena is so clear and easy to understand!" Victory!

I sneaked a picture of my 8th graders while they worked.

But do you want to know the best part of all?

I am having so much fun!

It's been a quite some time since  I've taught, and I have a feeling that's a big part of the reason why I was such a ball of nerves last week. If teaching was just something I was assigned to do for 2 years of Peace Corps service, maybe I wouldn't have stressed myself out so much. But teaching is something I am (and have been) seriously considering as a career. I was so worried -- what if I am a bad teacher? What if I hate it? But I needn't have worried, because guess what?

I LOVE TEACHING!

It's nice to know.