Advice, please...
Trip Start
Jun 16, 2005
1
12
46
Trip End
Aug 2006
San Jose,
Costa Rica
Monday, August 8, 2005
Well, things have -- for the most part, and besides a couple of major incidents -- been going well. The English class has its first test tonight, and I'm hoping that those students who were still struggling on Friday studied (though I'm a little less than hopeful that if they haven't been studying all along, they suddenly started this weekend)... but, the majority of the class is doing really well, so that's exciting.
The program is also going really well. Today, we made cards for Mother's Day, which here is on the 15th. Of course, we were using scissors... and Argenis cut some of a girl's hair (remember Freydell, Ben?) and did it right in front of me. Of course, I threw him out, since that is the established punishment
classroom in action
. Soon, we started smelling smoke, and then it got really bad... Argenis decided to start a fire in the freshly-weedwhacked-and-now-dead grass in front of the church. Ingenious, really -- the wind was blowing in just the right direction to make the smoke come up through the place where the roof doesn't quite come down to the floor and quickly fill the church with smoke. He even thought to add some plastic to the fire to make it smell really badly, and I've got a heck of a headache now. So I had to get all the kids out because I couldn't see what was going on at first (because I still don't have windows upstairs, which today was a blessing), find a bucket, put out the fire, and yell at Argenis, who was standing there, gloating.I almost threw another bucket of water on him, but resisted the urge.
Argenis is the older brother of Luis, who you might remember spat in his cousin's face in front of me last week. Their mother apparently thinks they can do no wrong (!) and their father isn't in the picture... My guess is that he just wants attention and my question, to all those teachers out there, is this: I have tried giving him more responsibility and more positive attention. Should I now just refuse to speak to him until he apologizes, as perhaps this might make him figure out that he won't get attention by behaving badly, or will this just make the situation worse? I would really appreciate feedback from those who have experience with this
freydell
.I think I now know a little bit about what people in their first year with Teach for America are talking about.
But, the rest of the day was great. For the majority of the day, the kids were surprisingly well-behaved. The boys *love* playing with MarbleWorks, especially since playing marbles is really popular right now with them (and all the marbles I had to go with the game are gone now -- I figure they can use their own now). Julio, Marci's oldest, has been a huge help, and has been coming in the afternoon and playing with the kids, helping me set up projects, etc. I really hope he's able to pass all his exams and go to University -- he would make a really good teacher.
I got three boxes of books yesterday that apparently had been sitting in a neighbor's house for a month. I guess they thought they were Marco's or something, even though he told them to tell me they were there! But at any rate, I have a bunch more books now and that's exciting -- and so far, the kids have been really great with them.
So, progress is being made, and aside from a couple of *special* kids, it's going really well!
I will be in Michigan from August 10-16 for Melissa and Randy's wedding (for those of you who don't know, they're both old, good friends of mine -- yay!) and so I would love to see anyone who's around.
Love,
Elizabeth
