A Day in the Life of Me...

“OHHHH, what a joy!” When most people think of two years of service in another country, they romanticize how wonderful the experience will be. People think of relationships, the reward of giving, and having your heart broken and sewn back together by the poverty. Well, day to day, it’s hard to see the wonder of service, so I’m going to take you into what I see day to day living in Chuuk, FSM.
Friday was quite a day and showed perfectly many of the frustrations I encounter regularly. I was giving 4 midterm tests to my 9th and 10th grade Lit classes. The first class started wonderfully. It’s the class that I look around and do see great relationships and enjoy. Then came the freshmen. Having 38 freshmen in a class is not ok and bad for student learning and teacher sanity. Outside of general yelling for 5 minutes to get the class seated, and then 5 more to get them quiet, all went ok. There was of course talking during the test, but for the freshmen, the period went smoothly.
After second period was my free period. Commonly, during my free period or walking past classes, I see them unattended. Friday was not unusual, but after my free period was when it got good. I went to the other freshmen classroom. 9M has been by far my biggest challenge in teaching. Well, I walked into 9M, the bell rang and I start speaking loudly to be heard over the racket of the class saying “please find your seats.” Obviously no one heard me, so I yelled, but not angrily. I did that for about 10 minutes finally getting mad. In the time of trying to get students seated, I witnessed one student literally get out of her seat and walk over to another student and stand in the back of the classroom having a conversation. I noticed other boys walk outside to a group of my students who are standing outside of the doorway just chilling while I tried to regain some kind of control. Finally, some students started to sit, only because their friends, who are good students, started to encourage them. The boys outside noticed the class was all sitting and decide maybe they’d come in.
These boys start a whole different story. When they decide to come in, I tell them to go get tardy passes because they were not in the classroom. Well, two of them push me out of the way to run to their seats instead of getting passes and the other three try to sneak in the other door. I stand firm and pull the two boys who pushed me out of their way out the door. They push me out of their way again and I just yell their name to get a pass and also say the names of the three other boys I saw sneak in. After 5 more minutes, the boys go to get their passes. Two students come back. One has a pass, the other stands smiling at me and laughing while I tell him to get his pass annoyed. Then, the three others come. One goes straight to his seat while the other two are chasing one another. They run past the first door, into the second door and straight down the aisle. The one in front runs behind me and pushes me forward to sacrifice me to the other student who stops running when he gets to the middle of the aisle and hands me the pass telling me the story. Agh! I yell at them to sit down and stop acting like 5 year olds. Finally they sit. The second boy is still standing by me because he came back with the other group as if his name was on their pass. It wasn’t. Then he pulls three passes out of his pocket and hands them to me. Two were for my class and the other was blank. ANNOYING!
Anyhow, I just need to stop fighting the students and get class going, so I didn’t do anything, plus, this is so regular it doesn’t even faze me anymore. At least they’re not saying F-you to me, I hate you, or fighting each other (today). So after about 20 mins, everyone is seated. I tell them to clear their desks and be quiet. I stand at the front of the first row to hand out tests but wait for them to be quiet. As soon as I start to think I can pass the tests out, 2 groups start talking. 10 more minutes. Finally I pass the tests out with about 20-25 mins left for them to take the tests.
They now have the tests. One would think it would be time for me to take a deep breath and just watch them go. Ha! Not in Chuuk and not when you’re a young, white, female teacher. Those three factors play against me in so many ways! Anyhow, questions start flying. Each time I answer one question, I hear students talking. Literally, every time I talk to one student, others start talking. I threaten to stop answering questions and that works for a while. After that threat I inform the students they have 5 more minutes until the bell and lunch. I said “hurry, so you can go monga(eat) meat.” Well, the class busts up thinking I said monga me….yes class, please don’t eat me! again, I want to scream my head off at their lack of respect and maturity, but know that I will regret what I say if I do. Thank God, before I can fulfill my promise to stop answering questions or go crazier, the bell rings and I get the heck outa that class. (I teach them 4/5 days a week!!!)
It’s lunch! Woosh! Thank God Almighty I have time to breath in our JV appt. We all sit down to eat, and a student walks straight into our house without knocking. He’s bleeding and needs a band aid, so he came to the “nurses office.” We have not been designated that, but if a student has a headache or injury, they send them to us. So much for quiet lunch. Good thing that didn’t take too long.
The bell rings again. Back to class. Class number 4/5, sophomores. Similar situation, but toned down and a smaller class, so control happens faster. Students still say inappropriate comments and take a while to sit, but life is not so frustrating. Then I go to my last period class, and brainstorm with English Composition Class how to make freshmen better. The bell rings and I pass my naughty homeroom. I know they’re naughty, but sometime during the day I passed them with the principal. The students were seated on the floor in front of the principal with their desks pushed back. This is a common punishment, so I was confused. I asked one of the students why they were on the floor and she said “principal said that when we don’t have teachers we’re bad so we had to sit on the floor for punishment and write apology letters.” WHAT?!?! No. So, when the students aren’t frustrating, the system of the school just plain pisses me off. At the staff meeting we discussed how it’s not fair to punish students for their teachers not being at class, and that it’s not ok that the school lets classes regularly sit alone. Well, it turned into their fault. AHHHHH!!! Yes, let’s blame the students for our incompetence instead of writing the apology letter ourselves. Thank you for the ease of blaming students….BAH!.
Day ends, I run away to do laundry so I don’t have to deal with the SCA systems or students who want to push me around and make demands of me. Then, I come home and fall asleep from a week similar to this one day, wake up and grade all weekend to turn in fourth quarter grades where most of my students will fail because they don’t see the value in education.
In conclusion, that’s what my life normally looks like; misbehaving students, not being listened to by students or faculty, and then working more on the weekend. Therefore, serving in another country isn’t always what it’s cracked up to be. So, as the end nears, I do notice wonder in Chuuk, relationships with students, friends, community and host family, God, weather and many other things, but sometimes it’s nice to just run away and fall into a bed and forget the day and all the frustrations.
Note: it sounds like I need classroom management and discipline….i promise I try. I give detentions, call students to my office, call parents, send students to the office (and then they come back to class), take points off their grades, make them do extra work, etc….it’s not effective….