Gangsta's Paradise

Weird,

I'm actually writing soon after a recent post. I think it's because I'm starting to get more material as I just finished class day # 5. Oh dear has it only been that many. I guess a 4 day weekend after 3 days of classes would throw any one off.

So anyway,

For those of you who didn't know I had to make a decision between New York Teaching Fellows and Peace Corps. While I knew that I was needed in both places, I thought Peace Corps would be better for me because it gave me the chance to get out of New York and see more of the world. Ok. Peace Corps won. What I really didn't take into consideration was that I well I would probably be working in a school similar to a high needs school in New York, only with one slight disadvantage: I don't speak their language and they don't speak mine. So that brings me to my Dangerous Minds moment of the day. So during one of my 8th grade classes about 5 girls come storming in. They ask to take this girl out of the classroom and I'm like no no she has to stay here. But they don't really listen to me and they take her out of the class. Thinking in my naive mind that they just want to talk to her, I figure I'll let it go since it's really disrupting my class. Then the other kids are like no no she's going to fight this other girl. Whoops a daisy. That's no good. So then I run out of the classroom and find these girls in the bathroom where I start to pull my student out of there saying that she needs to come to class. This little posse of other girls tries to surround me asking if they can just have two minutes. They even were like "Please Miss., Please" What? No. Seriously? I'm American not an idiot, I'm not going to let you jump this girl. Although I think I said after class they could fight. Stupid language barrier. I got the girl back to class pretty safely minus the sucker punch she got in the back of the head as I pulled her out of the bathroom and back to class. While I was pretty shocked that this happened, I don't know why. I took a stroll around school earlier that day and to see the kids running around the hall you would think Shredder was recruiting for the Footclan. You know I was a little disturbed but also a little impressed by the roundhouse kicks these kids have. But then I snap back into teacher mode and remember that this is school and not Fight Club so I try to break it up.

I thought this wouldn't hurt a lot I guess not

Hello Everyone,

So now that I've successfully finished the first week (ehrr 3 days) of school and celebrating by 24th birthday (thanks for all of the love) I finally have a little time to collect my thoughts. So many of you have asked how the first week went and you probably got a unintelligible rant only broken up by uncontrollable sobbing. Okay. Maybe it wasn't that bad, but I did leave school last Wednesday feeling very violated and wondering what just happened to me. So I'm teaching 3 different sections of 6th graders who meet 4 times a week and 3 sections of 8th graders who meet 3 times a week. In all fairness the 8th graders are really great. I mean I think this also because the classes are smaller and I'm not sure but I think they have a choice as to whether they want to study Russian or French. In my 8th grade classes I have about 15 students per class and they manage to behave themselves for the most part while I try to re-create some kind of cross between Mr. Belding, Robin Williams in Dead Poets' Society, and Michelle Pfeiffer ala Dangerous Minds. It's a hot mess. However the fact that the kids laugh at me means that they can somewhat understand me which is half the battle. Now onto the 6th graders. Wow I don't even know where to begin. The classes first of all are huge. At least 26 students per section so half the time I spend trying to get them not only to stay in their chairs but not to pick up their chairs and hit another student with it. The physical assault isn't limited to the students, my first day I got hit with a soda bottle and a paper airplane. I couldn't even get mad about it, I was just in such shock that this was/is my life. I didn't stop yelling for the entire 45 long minutes. It was just frustrating to me because there were about 3 kids who really wanted to learn, 5-7 who would learn if they had nothing better to do, then everyone else was running amok. Legit one boy was on the floor squirming around like he was in a fox hole. Already (after 3 days) I've noticed a lot of the students not showing up at all. It's definitely going to be a challenge but the kids seem to generally like me. Weird. They're just young and haven't been disciplined. If you have any ideas other than duct taping them to their seats I'm all ears.

Lots of love!