The Veneer Has Worn Off
In the middle of a lesson on square roots, one of my best students said,
"Your lessons were more fun last year."
For the next fifteen minutes I couldn't help but lead the lesson on autopilot while I thought about what she said. Some things are different. Last year this time, I was teaching them comparatives and conditional statements, which are a lot easier to make fun games about than square roots. Now that I'm confident that I can create a communicative atmosphere in the classroom, I'm much stricter with discipline and grammatical accuracy, and that's not fun. Back then I had only eighteen hours instead of the twenty-nine I have now, and that lends itself to preparing better activities. I also shouldn't get too defensive - she's right that I'm getting a little complacent and not working as hard to make the students have a good time as last year.
One way that it boils down is I'm a teacher now, not an exotic American, not a wandering stranger, not a phenomenon, but just another employee at the school. And they're not a never-before-attempted challenge (the math-in-English program), my first chance to prove myself, or a brand new career, they're my job. I love my kids, and I think most of them at least like me, but now that we're a year in, our laminate of novelty is wearing off. I know I gave some terrible lessons last year (I have my old lesson plan book), but they were tolerated because of my freshness. And when they behaved badly, I similarly forgave them more easily when I was still discovering them and teaching in general.
Having thought this, I stopped the class and said, "you know, we play games when your behavior is good." Which is barely in the same area code as the whole truth. But why pass up a chance to improve discipline? And I made sure to plan extra-fun activities for the next lesson.
But our mutual banality remained. After a year here, after I've started everything I can reasonably hope to finish during my tenure, after things become routine, I have become a little indolent. Sometimes when I shop for food at the bazaar, I try to remember the wonder that I felt buying my ground beef next to sheep heads, negotiating for onions, and battling through the chaos of stalls, push-carts, and half-drunk customers, but I can't bring it back. Last year, even the onset of winter was made exciting by the fearful anticipation of the notorious Siberian winter. Now it's a time to brace oneself for the long task of completing what I began, this time without the buoancy of novelty.
"Your lessons were more fun last year."
For the next fifteen minutes I couldn't help but lead the lesson on autopilot while I thought about what she said. Some things are different. Last year this time, I was teaching them comparatives and conditional statements, which are a lot easier to make fun games about than square roots. Now that I'm confident that I can create a communicative atmosphere in the classroom, I'm much stricter with discipline and grammatical accuracy, and that's not fun. Back then I had only eighteen hours instead of the twenty-nine I have now, and that lends itself to preparing better activities. I also shouldn't get too defensive - she's right that I'm getting a little complacent and not working as hard to make the students have a good time as last year.
One way that it boils down is I'm a teacher now, not an exotic American, not a wandering stranger, not a phenomenon, but just another employee at the school. And they're not a never-before-attempted challenge (the math-in-English program), my first chance to prove myself, or a brand new career, they're my job. I love my kids, and I think most of them at least like me, but now that we're a year in, our laminate of novelty is wearing off. I know I gave some terrible lessons last year (I have my old lesson plan book), but they were tolerated because of my freshness. And when they behaved badly, I similarly forgave them more easily when I was still discovering them and teaching in general.
Having thought this, I stopped the class and said, "you know, we play games when your behavior is good." Which is barely in the same area code as the whole truth. But why pass up a chance to improve discipline? And I made sure to plan extra-fun activities for the next lesson.
But our mutual banality remained. After a year here, after I've started everything I can reasonably hope to finish during my tenure, after things become routine, I have become a little indolent. Sometimes when I shop for food at the bazaar, I try to remember the wonder that I felt buying my ground beef next to sheep heads, negotiating for onions, and battling through the chaos of stalls, push-carts, and half-drunk customers, but I can't bring it back. Last year, even the onset of winter was made exciting by the fearful anticipation of the notorious Siberian winter. Now it's a time to brace oneself for the long task of completing what I began, this time without the buoancy of novelty.