Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Monday 11/21: Anthems, Stickers, and Amazing Grace

My first class this morning went by way too fast. It was with Margot’s class and I had to finish teaching US History, have them listen to the US National Anthem, tell them about Thanksgiving, and then have them make awesome Thanksgiving cards. Yeah, all in 45 minutes (which was more like 50 mins, but still not enough time). I whizzed through US History (pretty much only talking about slavery, the Civil War, and the Civil Rights Movement), played the Anthem twice (and tried to explain the words, but found that super difficult), and then gave a super brief explanation of how we celebrate Thanksgiving. As for the cards, we only had the time to write “I’m thankful for… my family, my friends” etc. inside, when the teacher returned. So, I told them to finish making the cards at home—they have to make a hand outline turkey on the front and a pop-out “HAPPY THANKSGIVING” on the inside. Hopefully they’ll have fun doing that at home!

After my class, I came home to prepare a bit before Alison came over to hang out. She had a break from classes, so I invited her to come eat lunch with me. We had leftover zucchini and potato gratin, a salad, and then some leftover applesauce and pudding for dessert! Not too shabby.

Next I had my two classes at the other school. I was lucky again today and it wasn’t raining! I really enjoy my bike ride over there—it’s just the perfect distance, I find. Not too far, but long enough that I can appreciate the fresh air and sun! The younger kids were slightly better today because I told them I’d brought autumn stickers from the US and only those who were quiet and worked would get them. That really helped. Ah, bribes! My older students were rowdy today—about halfway through the class (we were reviewing for their test on Thursday) two dogs outside the window in the parking lot started messing around and trying to hump each other. Of course, for 10 year olds, that is the most hilarious thing in the world. It was pretty much impossible to get anything done with over half the class staring out the window and laughing hysterically. Sigh. The funniest part of the class, though, was after I let them listen to two national anthems (they chose Australia and Scotland) and they said, “Our national anthem is La Marseillaise.” I said, “Yes, I know.” They said, “Can we sing it for you???????” I had to agree and they immediately broke into song—it was rather off-key, but super enthusiastic! I did my very best to keep from laughing!

When I got home, Catherine and I had a good discussion about the difficulties of disciplining students. I have problems with the 9-10yr olds (in particular one student who is notorious at the school for causing problems in class) and it’s really frustrating to me. She encouraged me to find a way to deal with it instead of asking the teacher to stay in the room. I was all set to try that, but when I got to the school this afternoon, the teacher offered to stay in the classroom with me! Since that seriously makes them behave so much better, I said yes. I know she will only be able to stay with me once a week because she teaches the Spanish class the other day I teach. But, at least once a week I will get something done with them!

Although, today went really well—I had them take turns coming up to the board to write the months on the board. We practiced the question “How do you spell that?” and I had them write their names as well, and then say them out loud. They have a lot of trouble pronouncing “E” and “I” because the pronunciation is switched in French. Also “G” and “J” are switched. But overall, it went well!

After school, Margot and I had tea and Madelines (a kind of little cake) and talked. I wanted to get some sewing done, so I ended up watching some TED talks while doing so. I was about halfway though a talk by Christopher McDougall about running (he’s the author of the excellent book: “Born to Run”), when Margot came in to take her geography quiz. We both did the online quiz of all the countries in the world and I ended up with 194/196 (I missed Poland and El Salvador…oops!) and she got 51 this time!! Much better (last time it was 36) and pretty good for a 10 year old! Afterwards we watched funny videos and had a fun time hanging out!

We had a potato and cheese omelet for dinner with salad and a mandarin orange for dessert! After dinner, Catherine and I watched “Amazing Grace” on my laptop! It’s fun watching movies up in my bedroom with Catherine—often (since we’re watching online) it takes time to load and we just hang out and talk. She really liked the movie (her cell phone ring is Amazing Grace played on bagpipes) and I was happy to see it again. It’s so powerful—I’d definitely recommend it to anyone who hasn’t seen it yet!

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