Luckily for me, we had electricity when I was in the computer lab on the first day of school; my colleague Delfina was not so lucky on the second day, although we did get power back to the most of the school towards the end of the day. One of the other teachers on the 5th semester team took her students so they could work on math in his classroom, and letting kids out early and starting later than the schedule says is not really that big of a deal. The first day I was taken by surprise when one of the administrators stuck his head into my room at about 2:55 and said, "It's 3 o'clock!" (the schedule says we go until 3:10 but like much of time in Latin America, that's a flexible piece of life). Luckily for me my students have been incredibly attentive, but I have a feeling I've already been noticed for teaching "too long" - a product of my American culture's attentiveness to time deadlines. I'll work on letting some of that go.
My classes are big, but nothing I haven't seen before - 35 in each of my FIVE lower level sections (the students are the equivalent in age to US sophomores), but only 19 in my upper level class. I have students with special needs (but no IEP's), a teen mom, and the usual mix of goofy, serious, sweet, and high and low level students in one class. During the break we have at 9:50-10:10 every day (again, a time with flexibility) one of my students dropped in to ask me if I had toilet paper she could use - none of the bathrooms are equipped with t.p., like much of Latin America. I'll add that to my list of student supplies to have on hand, and our vocabulary list.
My colleagues have been great- people drop in to check on me, I have been welcomed into the morning coffee group in the academic assistants' office, and a teacher gave me two brand-new dry-erase markers today. These are prized possessions, since we have to buy all of our own materials.
One of the things that I don't know if I'll be quite able to get used to having to spend my own money to get things copied. Some teachers ask students to reimburse them, since teachers don't get paid much - between $500- $1000 a month. Copies cost about .5 each, so I think I'll probably just adjust what I usually do and shell out my own money, since it seems unfair to me to ask my students to pay for an activity I have decided they should do - and a test you have to pay for? "Here you go guys, this test will cost you 1.00" seems too much like drawing a parallel between financial means and academic success - and don't we have enough of that already? Free copies now and then might just be part of what I can offer my students during this unique year. Although as I look at my class numbers - 180 students in the first year classes alone - I start rethinking how I might give paper tests. One thing's for sure- there won't be any 6 page semester finals!
Tomorrow is my long day - I see all six classes, with no breaks, and have to change classrooms! Luckily for me, I don't have to teach on Thursday - a perk to the college model used at the school.
Posts
1 comment:
If a teacher had charged me for worksheets or handouts in high school, I think I probably would've just rolled my eyes and said, "I'd prefer not to." (I was a big fan of Bartleby The Scrivener).... mostly because I thought that the teachers were getting paid decently.
Post a Comment