Smiles and tears

Today was a pretty high energetic day. My half-day class usually doesn't want to do anything but when you push them, they will actually do the work. It was a bad start though because we were playing this one game and they were just acting up. Then, during the break one, of the students threw their hotpad and it hit another one of my student's in the face. I scolded them and by this time I didn't think I would be able to accomplish this since they were extremely out of control but I miraculously got them to write a haiku. Yes, a Japansese style poem called haiku which is a 5-7-5 syllable poem. I first mentioned this poem a couple of months ago but they rejected it immediately and didn't want to do it. Today I forced them to do it and surprisingly it worked out well. I think it's amazing that these 10 year students can write a Haiku poem in English.

Moving on to my next class, they were super energetic when we were playing a review game. I started to lose faith in some of the students since they weren't understanding the material but they are finally pulling through (mainly because of my new Chinese co-teacher). This class usually never gives me any problems and it makes me happy when they are enthusiastic to play the games.

My last class however started as a mess and later ended up being okay. It was the last day of the level which means they just have to do final corrections on their exam and in the last 20 mins they can have a break and eat whatever they want. Most of the students with the exception of a mere 4 out of 17 didn't do homework corrections. The 4 students started to work on the packet while the others didn't even get a chance to start it. I pulled the 4 students out and asked if they wanted the others to do it for homework and they wanted to but they didn't want everyone else to get mad at them. So I said I will tell them that I am making them do it. I felt it was justified since I just don't think it's fair that they had to suffer and wait for their classmates without getting a nice reward. Then tonight I had to fail one of my students and he started crying. He was mostly crying because he was going to miss his friends in the class but it was still sad to see. He had many chances though to improve so although it's sad to see him be upset, he knew that it was coming and he needed to work harder. I never had to deal with a situation like this and I tried to explain to him that it's not a bad thing, you just need to keep trying and review the lessons.

It's Wed. which is my busy day of teaching and I actually had a great day. Although my students can be super naughty, I learned to embrace it rather than get angry. I used to be frustrated in the past and wonder why they aren't listening to me or why they don't understand the material. Sometimes I wonder why they are even there when they just don't want to do anything and I know the reason is because they are forced by their parents which makes it even sadder to see. As I've been gaining more teaching experience day by day, I've learned that you just have to stick with it and to know that everyday is really a new day. I'm still not a perfect teacher and I know I can easily lose my temper, but I've really built an immunity to misbehavior. I'm not stressed out about it anymore like I used to and Weds. don't make me exhausted by the end of the day. I really learned to just let it go because it will be easily forgotten by the next day and there will always be a tomorrow.

-Chihchat