Oops

I just realized that a post I thought I had posted roughly 3-4 weeks ago never made it because I posted it to the wrong blog (sorry APO's blog). Anyways, here it is ex post facto:

October 5, 2005 – 9:21 AM – A Story about Jane and Jean

Jane is a senior. She’s the best student I have, and probably the best student in the entire school. She’s smart, responsible, hard working, humble, friendly, social, etc. She will likely be the valedictorian and will likely attend college in the United States. Jean is a sophomore. She is Jane’s sister. She’s the best sophomore student I have, and probably the best sophomore student in the entire school. She’s smart, responsible, hard working, humble, friendly, social, etc. She could very well be the valedictorian for her class and will likely attend college in the United States.

Jane and Jean have an older sister named Joan. Joan was the best student in her class and graduated as the valedictorian for her class. I have never met Joan but I imagine that she is smart, responsible, hard working, humble, friendly, social, etc. She is currently attending college in the United States.

Jane, Jean, and Joan are not island royalty, i.e. their last name does not denote that they come from traditionally powerful (read, currently wealthy) families, or that they hail from families with foreign roots (read, their last name is not Japanese or German, and thus they do not have foreign wealth). My initial conclusion was that the parents of Jane, Jean, and Joan must be absolute superstars. With modest resources they have produced three children of outstanding caliber who are outpacing students with much more resources and who previously have had private education. I was on the verge of visiting this household and asking the parents exactly what they do with their children so other parents could possibly learn from it at the next PTA meeting.

Last week in my senior government class I passed out everyone’s grade on a small slip of paper (yeah, I get to do this now) which showed what assignments the students were missing. Jane of course had turned in every assignment and had a cumulative grade of over 100%. However, she was not enrolled in my class until the third day and thus I did not have her personal information card, i.e. her address, phone number, parents’ names, etc. (yeah, I get to do this now too). She asked me if she should make this up and I told her it wasn’t necessary because I had Jean’s information because Jean was enrolled in my sophomore English class from day one.
Jane responded indifferently that she should probably fill one out because she was adopted and doesn’t live with Jean. I was taken aback. Jane, who is the best student in the school, whose sister was the valedictorian of her class, whose other sister is also phenomenal, doesn’t live with those two? Jane saw my expression and explained that she and Jean were both adopted but adopted separately into different families… and presumably Joan too. This happens more frequently than one would expect here because families often become so large (fertility rate is a little above 6.0) that families simply have to give up some of their children in order to be able to sustain the other ones.

In other words, it’s not Jane, Jean, and Joan’s household that has made them spectacular, because they live in different households. They just want it that badly and are willing to work hard for it. Kudos.

October 9, 2005 – 9:19 PM – Manit Day

Recently the Marshall Islands celebrated Manit Day. Manit means tradition, culture, customs, etc. Manit Day is self-explanatory, a celebration of traditional culture. All the schools setup booths at the Alele Museum (culture museum) and sell handicrafts, food, etc. My school’s booth was pretty cool. It was very rushed because somehow the largest school in the country (us) were informed rather late about Manit Day. On a slightly humorous note, one of the neat little traits about living in a very small country is the complete flexibility with which institutions operate. Manit Day was actually changed a week before the originally scheduled date. Yes, a holiday was moved. The Ministry of Education sent a memo to all the schools notifying them to move the holiday to the following week. What’s really funny? Not all of the schools on the outer islands received the memo, and thus many of them had two Manit Days. Some of the really remote ones only had one, the originally scheduled one because the memo arrived after the newly scheduled date.

The first issue of the high school paper was published this past Monday. Did I mention that I’m the faculty advisor for the school paper? Well, I am. And our first issue was published this past Monday. It was a smashing success, complete with front page news, bios of the new teachers, and an advice column titled, “Ask Baby and Kim.” I’m going to try and save the paper to PDF format and upload it somewhere.

I also found out who my host family is, well sort of. Remember how I wrote previously that the PTA assigned a host family for me but my principal wasn’t sure who it was? Well, I asked her again because it had been awhile since I’ve heard anything about it and she responded that I didn’t have one. Puzzled, I told her what she had told me previously and she said, “Oh yeah, you have one, it’s Neritha’s family.” Hmm. Oh, and the host family? It’s one of my students. In fact, it’s Baby.

Today’s highlight story isn’t of the heartwarming variety. It’s simply funny. In English class we were working on the progressive tenses and my kids were having trouble envisioning how many things could happen at once, i.e. Mrs. Wilson is sitting a table; she reads the newspaper (instead of is reading). So we acted it out in class. I asked for a volunteer to be Mrs. Wilson and a girl named Roseann raised her hand. I had her sit and read at the same time and emphasized that she was doing many things at the same time and consequently we would use the progressive tense to describe both events. On the worksheet, Mr. Wilson was supposed to be pouring coffee (they all said pours). Now I needed a volunteer to be Mr. Wilson while Roseann sat and read. I asked the class who wanted to be married to Roseann. Simultaneously, 25 students pointed to this one guy and yelled his name. Yeah.

And get ready for hell to break loose in 3 weeks. Why? That’s when Richard Li distributes the Communist Manifesto to his senior government class in a 3rd world developing nation.

The national communcations authority's internet cafe is broken right now so I don't have the capacity to upload pictures. I'll do so when they're back up.

Yeah, I'm here

October 26, 2005 –- 10:23 PM – I failed my first student

Yeah, I know, it’s been awhile. I apologize. I’ve been dreadfully busy as of late, but busy is good. I like being busy. It keeps me from being bored.

First quarter just ended. This means a few things – one, I’m ¼ of the way done with my teaching stint here. Whoa. Two – I’ve been working like crazy trying to finalize grades. Three – I GET TO GIVE GRADES TO STUDENTS. Have you ever been on this side of the equation? It’s nuts. The number one myth that I have personally debunked as a teacher is that teachers don’t want to see some of their kids succeed. That is absolutely false. Nothing would make a teacher happier than to watch their students succeed. Not only is it heart-warming on a general level, but it vindicates who knows how many hours of toil and effort. And a successful student indicates that I have been successful in teaching him, and of course I like that.

Unfortunately, neither the world nor I am perfect and not all my kids are achieving equally. Some are flying off the charts, and it gives me great pride to give them a high grade on their report cards. But alas, some are not flying as high, and it pains, PAINS me to give them low grades. It’s almost criminal how many times teachers fudge grades just so they don’t have to fail a student. I will even admit that I am still holding one student’s final exam because I can’t bring myself to show him how he did (not well).

Forget patience. Forget diligence. Forget sincerity. If anyone ever asks me what it takes to be a teacher, my immediate response will be ice in one’s veins. The hardest part of my teaching experience thus far has been coming to grips with the fact that some of my students whom I see on a daily basis and of whose education I am personally in charge will not graduate from high school, will not attend college, and will not become socially mobile. Regardless of what I do, even though it’s my responsibility, I am not going to be able to change all my students’ lives for the better. That is a very daunting reality to accept, and it’s very easy to doubt yourself as a result. This job requires ice in one’s veins. You have to accept it, be unfazed by it, and move past it. I’m not sure I’ve been able to do that yet.

In other news, I’ve managed to land a permanent spot for my high school’s newspaper in the local/regional/national/only newspaper of the Marshall Islands, the Marshall Islands Journal. Every other week a few submissions from my newspaper club will appear in the weekly issue of the Journal. My kids were pretty excited. The article that drew the editor’s attention? The advice column, a.k.a. Ask Baby and Kim. Go figure.

Also, I’ve latched onto the college preparatory activity at the high school. It was started last year by a volunteer teacher and this year a full-time school counselor is leading it. By pestering him enough I’ve managed to firmly insert my foot in the door and have already interviewed a few students, administered a practice TOEFL exam, tabulated the results into Excel and analyzed it, and am about to begin teaching TOEFL prep. Full teaching load, debate, newspaper, college prep, TOEFL prep, weekly radio show, hmm… I should probably slow down. I’m not at the U of C anymore.

This weekend I’m going on my first SCUBA dive that’s worth writing about. It’s another volunteer’s birthday and we’re going diving on an outer island. That means pristine conditions and in upwards of 200 feet of underwater visibility. The divemaster’s specialty is shark calling (meaning he crinkles a plastic bottle underwater and sharks are attracted to the noise) and we expect to see some big ones. Definitely excited about it.

Alright I should write a lot more given how long it’s been but I have to end it here and go back to agonizing over grades. I’ll leave with an excerpt from a piece of writing by one of my 10^th graders. Phonics is often difficult for the kids here because many English sounds just don’t exist in Marshallese, so they are unable to correctly pronounce some letters/sounds which leads to synonymous usage of those same letters/sounds when they write (think “r” and “l” from east Asians who speak English). Anyways, “g” and “c” are often confused here along with “b” and “p.” This resulted in the following masterful prose:

“Yesterday my friends and I were walking. I snapped my friend on the forehead so he crapped my skirt. It fell down so I quickly crapped it.”