Heart of Darkness

This is going to be a bit of an amalgamation of thoughts and events. But mostly this one will be about school.

Several weeks ago marked the arrival of the second trimester and with it an inevitable schedule change. I wasn’t too worried since the teacher making the schedule change is a good friend of ours, so I was confident I would still have my four day week. However, when I looked up my schedule, not only had my free Fridays disappeared, but I had also be awarded 3 streams of 9^th grade chemistry. To say the least, I was not pleased. Adding the 9^th grade classes gave me nearly half again as many class hours, doubled my workload outside of class, and brought my student total up to nearly 800. I talked with several other teachers to ensure that my 9^th grade streams transferred to someone else. But because things take time here, I have been left with this augmented schedule for two weeks. Not bad, I don’t mind teaching for a couple weeks. I just don’t want it forever.

But a strange thing has happened. These 9^th graders were my students last year, and I do have an invested interest in them. Teaching these kids for two weeks (well, I’m in the midst of the second week) has been nice. They know my style of teaching, they know what I do and don’t allow in class. And they seem to want me to teach them. Last year, I thought these very same kids had learned nothing from me, had been completely uninterested in chemistry. Perhaps they still didn’t like it, maybe they still don’t. But for all appearances it would seem they want me as their teacher.

It might seem like nothing, but that makes all the difference in the world. Already this year I am beginning to feel a little hopeless about my kids. 8^th grade is a difficult year for everyone involved. But I often feel unappreciated, that my kids don’t understand how much I work to make class interesting, to make chemistry comprehensible for them. With the 9^th graders, I’ve already felt that appreciation. They’ve seen the difference between my teaching and how most professors try to teach chemistry here: writing notes on the board, reading it once, and leaving.

 I’m sure if I were to continue teaching them for the remainder of the year that I would still have frustrations, would still yell, would still piss and moan when I got home. But at least I experience appreciation. How much easier is it to take interest in people when they take interest in you?

In other news, I have approximately six months left as a peace corps volunteer. Some days I think the time has flown by, my 20 months in country. Other days I think time has dragged along. But I do know that these six months will fly by.

In other, other news, check out the disgustingly large millipede that wandered into our house. Don't worry, we killed it before the pictures were taken.