June 24, 2016- Teaching…

Teaching in Nicaragua has not been like teaching in Oregon! I have never felt like such a bad teacher in all my life. My classes in the U.S. were always structured, I did my best to communicate well, and I held fast to the rule that no one talked while someone else was talking.

A few weeks before I arrived back into Nicaragua, I was asked if I would be willing to fill in for a teacher who had changed her mind about teaching. The need was for 7^th, 8^th, and 9^th grade English classes, and since I had nothing in my schedule other than Spanish and I have experience with those grades, I had no reason to say no to the request. I had been in classrooms in Nicaragua before and this is a Christian school after all.

I have now been teaching for almost five months, and I still come away from every Tuesday feeling a mix of dismay, discouragement, amazement and exhaustion. Every Tuesday, I teach 1 ½ hours in each grade; starting at 7:45 AM and ending at 1 PM. Instead of classes with Jack, Katelyn, and Megan, I have classes of Maria Fernanda, Guillermo, Luis Antonio, and Adolfo. Sad, but true, it has taken me almost all of these five months to learn everyone’s name. Many of them do not know my name either, though, so we are learning together! (See picture of student work)

Let me just say up front that the staff has been very kind to me, although I don’t think they know quite how to respond to me. I do not always have the words to communicate with the administration or the staff what I would like, and since I value communication it has left me feeling frustrated and stuck!

Individually the students have been respectful and responsive, but when you get groups of young people together who do not understand what their teacher is saying, and they know that their teacher doesn’t understand them, most kids take advantage of that (Both sides know more than we are letting on J)- these kids are no exception. I usually come away from each class feeling taken advantaged of and I really do not like that feeling!

Also Nicaraguan schools in general have looser expectations of quiet. They live in a country that is rarely quiet; there are loud announcements in the street, loud music in church, and loud noises around in the home. I feel like I have spent the majority of my Tuesday saying various forms of “Be quiet”, “Listen” “Stop Talking”, “Be Respectful”, etc…. It gets very wearing after the first few minutes let alone five hours!

Anyone who has been around kids, knows that the last thing you want to deal with with challenging students is anything that will distract them. In the course of the last few months, we have had an earthquake during the 9^th grade class, a bird fly in one window and fly full speed into a closed window on the other side of the room in 7^th grade, a six inch moth fluttering around in 8^th grade, the city fumigators coming through in 7^th grade, and intense humid heat and no fan in all the classes. To state the obvious, the distraction level is very high!

Another issue is numbers; the 7^th grade is 36 students, 8^th grade is 42 students, and 9^th grade is 25. The rooms are less than half the size of the classrooms I taught in both the US and Germany. Distraction is high, and trying to keep students from looking on each other’s papers has seemed nearly impossible.

My biggest frustration has been the limited communication that I am able to have. I know enough to know when something has been said inappropriately but not enough to call them on it. I get a lot of “innocent” looks after the fact!

The good news is that my Spanish is improving, but I have definitely been dumped in the deep end of the pool. Successes have been few and frustrations have been many. This past week, in 7^th grade, I dropped my whiteboard pen and walked out of the classroom- I needed a time out!

School here in Nicaragua runs from February through November, putting us very near the end of the semester. My commitment was for one semester, so now that I am seeing the end in sight the good things are coming in view- improved Spanish, when I walk around town I see more people that I recognize, I have received apologizes (prompted by strong Latino moms) for behavior and poor work, the 9^th grade boys can be very charming when they want something, I really do love saying the different names, I think they have all learned something, and honestly I think I really will miss many of these kids!

It is funny how even the rascals can be endearing when you know the time is short!