Professional Development

Lest I give the impression that I do nothing here but party and travel and get sick, I feel I must relate some recent anecdotes regarding my work situation.

I have been surprisingly pleased with my teaching in the last month. This change of heart is most likely attributed to the attitude adjustment I experienced as a result of our mid-service conference the first week of July in Santiago. Not only was it great to be reunited with the volunteers that live in Los Angeles, Chile and our program directors, but it gave me a focused time to reflect on my experiences here, both professional and personal, and set some goals for the short time I have left. It was really hard to reflect on what was not working, take personal responsibility, and ask myself, no matter the situation, what I can do to improve it. It was also nearly impossible to confront the reality of leaving here, a fact that is always in the back of my mind but physically hurts to consider seriously. However, I was able to set some clear goals, such as being braver about improving my Spanish, not letting my dread at facing certain classes doom me from the start, and being more creative and intentional in my lesson planning. I have been particularly successful in the first and last goals.

I feel like I am at a good place with my students right now. I have been here long enough now that I have gained their trust, and I feel like a majority of my students look forward to my classes. I have tried really hard to come up with lessons that will be fun, spark their interest, and inspire them to learn and use English. It is a very difficult process, especially when a lesson you have planned to use all week bombs in the first class and you have to improvise your way through it as well as quickly revise for the next class, as happened with a recent attempt to play Pictionary.

However, when a lesson goes well, you feel so accomplished, especially when your students use English and seem happy to be participating in class. For example, I invested in a bingo game recently because I realized in an earlier lesson about dates and times that my students didn't really know their numbers. I played a game with all my classes to reinforce the numbers, and they loved it, not only because there were candy prizes but because it was a way for them to test how much they understood when I spoke (the differences between, for example, sixteen and sixty is very difficult for them to hear). I was really excited because they would always ask me to repeat numbers, but I wouldn't answer them unless they asked me in English. By the end of class, they were all asking, "Miss, could you repeat that please?" and "Miss, did you say thirty-five?" It was so cute with their accents, and I was sort of stunned at how accomplished it felt to have us exchanging information in English only, even for something as inconsequential as a bingo game. If it seems like a small victory, all I can say is that it is a huge, huge accomplishment for me as a teacher and for my students as well. And I honestly think they were proud of themselves and excited to be communicating in English only. I wish every class was as successful as that one. Now, before I start some of my classes, the students start chanting "Bingo! Bingo!" which always cracks me up.

I have come to love certain students deeply and I know there are going to be small Chilean holes in my heart when I walk away from Liceo de Niñas. There is one particularly tall, goofy girl in one of my sophomore classes that is rarely on task, but she is so funny and loveable I cannot for the life of me toss her out of class. On the other hand, she is very sharp when she focuses, and is often one of the first students to understand a task and be brave enough to try it out or remember a phrase from a previous lesson. Another of my favorite students is one of those kids that needs constant attention, and she is constantly busy, yelling things out in class and getting up from her seat to look out the window and comment on the action. She enters my classroom three times a week and cheerfully yells, "Hello Miss! How are you?" and responds to my queries with equal merriment. There is another very sweet girl that, in that awkward way of teenagers that want to befriend their teachers, is always hovering around me, asking strange questions just for the opportunity to talk to me, and asking me for advice about her personal life. And there is another incredibly smart and precious sophomore that told me about a tough home situation that brought tears to my eyes. She lives with her grandmother, who apparently goes out of her way to discourage this student from seeking higher education and constantly tells her that she is an ugly, bad child. At these moments, I feel I am having a lasting impression here, and if even these four students remember anything I have taught them, about English or about life, all the struggle of teaching here will be worth it.

Of course, there are constant challenges that make me count the days I have left of teaching in Chile (61). It is amazing that teenage girls are the same everywhere in the world in key ways. Their haughtiness and disrespect mirror that of many of the girls I taught in AmeriCorps. Teenagers from lower economic classes are the same, too. They are listless and appear lazy, although I believe it is just because they do not have examples in their lives that hard work can pay off. They seem greedy, although I know it is only because when you are poor, you have to fight for everything you can get. For example, when I award winning teams candy, many of the girls beg for candy if they didn't win, or complain when I give them only one piece instead of two. I always smile at them and say, "Or, you could say 'Thank you Miss Tiffany for giving us candy today!'"

The girls that annoy me the most are the ones that pointedly ignore my activites and instead spend every moment I am not hounding them to work applying makeup or looking at magazines or text messaging. But they don't believe education will help them, and don't understand that it is up to them to put forth the effort to make it pay off. I do see their point; Liceo de Niñas is a poor, public school, and it is clear that my students do not have the same resources and opportunities as other schools. This was completely evident at our regional debate competition, where the teams we competed against were crisply attired and had folders and notecards emblazoned with school logos. My students looked shabby, with messy hair and unkempt clothing and papers or notecards that were wrinkled and stained. The contrast was clear to me, and I know some of my students noticed as well.

The way I deal with students that don't want to be in my classes is more passive than some of the other volunteers. I do not like tossing students out of class, especially since inevitably a power struggle ensues, and the last thing I want to do is get into some sort of power struggle with a snotty and stubborn teenage girl. As long as they are not being disruptive and distracting other students that would otherwise be paying attention, I let the students stay in class and waste their own time. At these moments, I feel all I can do is acknowledge that my job is to give them information and try to make English class interesting and fun; it is up to them to take what I give them and act on it. Especially with teenagers, it has to be their choice to do something with their education. Unfortunately, because of the barrier of language, I am rarely able to talk to students individually and discover their personal stories and tragedies, like I was able to do in AmeriCorps. What many of my students really need are social workers, like the foster child who moves from house to house and is constantly fighting with the family she stays with. Before I knew of her situation, I thought she was an incredibly rude young woman. I can only assume that many of my other most insolent students are in similar situations. Many in my toughest classes are very angry that they are poor, and thus feel they are entitled to handouts in any way, shape or form, be it grades, candy, or the chance to use their class time as they choose. I worry about these students most, even though they treat me horribly.

I had a telling moment in my most difficult class. I have to work hard to pump myself up before they enter my classroom because it is my last class on Wednesdays and Thursdays and very late in the day, so both the students and I are uninspired, tired, and irritable, and in general their behavior is worse than all the other classes I teach. I was excited to start class on this particular day, because I had a lesson that had worked well in other classes and that I thought would be particularly fun for this difficult group. However, many of the students (in this class and others) like to ignore me, and I believe they do not do it to be intentionally disrespectful. Other teachers in the school let them get away with this behavior as well. In this group of students, about four students tend to enter the classroom and almost every day turn their chairs around so their backs are to me and they can talk to their friends behind them. No matter if I am ready to start class, the message is clear: it is their time, not mine, and if they are not ready to work, they will not, despite my repeated entreaties of "Okay, class, let's get started," or, "Girls, can I please have your attention?" To be honest, it makes my blood boil and I would be lying to say I haven't fantasized about slapping the shit out of them. So, this particular day, I was doing everything possible to get their attention, talking to them, clapping, walking up to them and helping them turn their chairs around (they just turn their bodies around again anway), all to no avail. Finally, exasperated, I whistled at them. Well, that got their attention. One of the girls said, "Miss, we are not dogs," in Spanish, to which I responded in English, "Well, you are not particularly acting like human beings today." (I am sometimes grateful that they generally cannot understand a thing I say, because moments like this when I can vent my frustration through sarcasm does a lot to save lives in the classroom). In order to get my point across to them, I wrote the word "respect" on the board, since the Spanish translation is very similar (respecto) and I knew they would understand. Then another girl started lecturing me in Spanish about how I need to respect them. I nearly exploded...who is the adult in the classroom? So I just said, "Out!" and pointed to the door. She stormed off and spent the rest of class taking her frustration out in the hallway by pounding on the walls. I ignored her behavior and we ended up having a very productive class after. (The next day the girl apologized, and I explained to her--in Spanish so she would understand--that I was very sad because I had a fun activity and I had wanted her to participate in class.)

One of the problems I find here is that there is not a clear system of discipline. There are "inspectors" who are responsible for discipline, but often it seems they talk to the kids and then just send them back to class. There is no detention, and many students don't care if their parents are contacted (which generally they are not). Many of my students live in a boarding house on campus during the week because they live too far out in the surrounding countryside and making the hour or longer commute to school each day is not realistic. Thus, many students are without the influence of their family during the week. So, in genearl, there is nothing to threaten students with when they misbehave, and my only option is to throw them out of class, which I hate doing because it feels in some way like giving up on them.

Another issue that I feel exacerbates the problem is the issue of classroom ownership. In general, the space in the classroom seems to belong to the students, because they stay in the same room all day while the teachers rotate between rooms and come to them. Therefore, there is an entirely different attitude that tends to give much more power to the students than to the teachers. And the teachers, who are largely overworked and underpaid (they usually teach 45 hours a week, not including planning time, which means many teachers plan very little), rarely seem to have the energy to stand up to the students. And since almost all of them are products of this system, I am not exactly sure that they see much wrong with it. They complain about student behavior all the time, but seem sort of resigned to the reality. But for me, coming from an American system of education that, yes, has insolent, lazy, and poor students but from my experiences a far more orderly, fair and disciplined system, every day is incredibly challenging.

So yes, the last month of teaching has been going very well, but can I say that I enjoy teaching English in Chile? Sadly, no. I cannot wait for my work here to be over, which is mostly because of the terrible relationship I have with my coteacher (which I will post about soon). It is sad that every other aspect of my life in Chile has been incredible and the only complaint I have, the only moments where I feel like I am beaten, is in my professional life. I remember telling my friends and family before I left how excited I was to teach English, and how I thought I would be really good at it. I have grown remarkably as a teacher here, and am amazed sometimes at my creativity. It has been an incredible learning opportunity, and in terms of my patience and controlling my temper (two areas I know many people were hoping I would grow in!), I have made extraordinary personal progress, of which I am very proud. But, to be honest, I have had enough professional growth for now. The real challenge will be to keep up my current positive outlook and hang on to the feelings of success for the next three months. I hope I can do it with at least modest success.