HAPPY BLOGTOBER EVERBODY!!! This One Goes Out Special to Bobby and Yvette (and also Aleeza, of course:-))

     I have alluded to life here being very structurally simple and full of free time, but I realized I haven’t really described it in detail.  Well, I’m still not going to! Mwahahah!  Just kidding, I am going to in the next post, but I wanted to preface this post with that to just give you a little nibble in the form of my former (thankfully it changed) teaching schedule.  From April – August, I taught 1^st, 2^nd, 3^rd, and 4^th grade from 10:00 -- 11:30 and then 5^th and 6^th grade from 2:40 – 4:00 everyday…and that was it!  After much debating and bargaining with my school director, it became apparent to me that as discontented as I was with the schedule because of how little time I got with the students, it was how it was going to be.  Therefore, I decided if I can’t beat ‘em…uhhhhh…I’LL BEAT ‘EM!!  Hence, based off of the model set forth to me by my Kindergarten Graduation Ceremony from Jewish private school (we presented an hour long play in English and then again in Hebrew…yes, it’s true, my intellect peaked when I was 5) , I wanted to try to teach my kids a small play/presentation that they could ultimately present to all of their parents in both English and Spanish.  I figured it would not only be a great way to increase my time to work with the kids but would also give them something to present to their parents and families.  I was feeling extra ambitious when I wrote out the first script with the first schedule, hoping to get permission from all of the parents to hold 5 total hours of class with different grades coming in shifts in the town salon on days when the director cancelled class so we could practice.  The 5 hours quickly became 2, but I was cool with that because A) I felt pleased with myself simply being able to hold a meeting with all of the parents at once and actually communicate with them fine in Spanish and B) with the 2 hour practices on no-school days, I would also get 45 minutes extra every day to work with the kids.  My script was such that I wanted to teach the 1^st-3^rd graders a skit, the 4^th-6^th graders a skit, teach all of the kids “Imagine” by John Lennon (has a nice message I thought, right???), and, teetering on the thin tightrope that separates ambitious and just dumb, I planned to teach the school “choir” an a cappella version of Stand By Me”.  After a few hours of arranging it (my first a cappella arrangement…yeehaw!), I presented it to them and was reminded of a fact too obvious for me to have seen before: a cappella is only cool to me.  I told them that if they tried and after a few practices didn’t like it, we would ditch it…well, they tried it and I am regretful to announce that “Los Medianoche Rambladores” has officially and indefinitely disbanded.  Luckily, they are still psyched about learning the song and performing it, but I simplified it into a straight 2 part harmony and I will play the piano as the background (which actually kind of terrifies me since I don’t really know how to play piano that well and the last time I played any musical instrument in a performance setting was butchering a saxophone solo to “My Heart Will Go On” in 6^th grade).  Anyway, long story short, the process of just getting kids to show up to rehearse and getting them to behave while trying to practice has proven much more challenging than I anticipated given their overall manageable behavior this year thus far.  In their defense though, I do often find myself getting frustrated over absurd things.  For instance, on the first day of trying to start teaching the choir Stand By Me by first just going over the words one time to work on pronunciation, they all started complaining because we had been there for all of 3 minutes and weren’t singing yet and I found myself thinking, “Well these amateurs just have ZERO appreciation for the artistic process!”, at which point I flung my cashmere scarf right over my v-neck cardigan and turtleneck combo, thereby almost knocking my thick-rimmed hipster reading glasses right off of my botox-ed face.  Needless to say, I adjusted my biuret, took a sip of my non-fat organic free-range cage-free seaweed soy latte, and walked my Italian leather boots right into my trailer for some “me time”.

….At this point I just laughed at myself and readjusted my expectations and goals.  The kids all pretty much hated “Imagine” but have strangely taken to Michael Jackson’s “We are the World” so now I am trying to teach them that.  I think ultimately, my biggest problem with this is that I am flip-flopping between creating a little democracy and then being a complete authoritarian, each one trying to compensate for the faults of the other.  I ask the students what they want and what their opinions are because I don’t want to force upon them something none of them are enjoying, but then they all just fight over what to do and I end up ending it by just telling them how it’s going to be whether they like it or not.  I think I am realizing that in teaching, fairness is defined by consistency.  And now, after writing this, I am immediately realizing that, in any context whatsoever, the word “democracy” is kind of a funny word to apply to a group of 6 year olds…then again I did just finish reading “Brave New World” and ”1984” so I suppose my head is in a funny place.  Ultimately, I guess it is just funny how when it comes to the really big snafus and curveballs here that ostensibly should trip me up, I’ve been pretty proud of my ability to just roll with the punches and let things slip right off of my back in the name of this adventure, but then when it comes to the tiniest little things in the classroom, I find myself easily frustrated and often inflexible. In the meantime, on a totally different note, I wish a Happy and a healthy New Year to all of my Hebrews and Shebrews!  I hope everyone had an easy fast, a great time getting together with family, and a bounty of apples and honey (I ate guayaba and sugarcane here…still counts!)