Novembre 2011
There are wonderful things about teaching. And there are not-so-wonderful things about teaching. But let's start with the positive first. The other day in my 5eme class of 50-ish students, we had some free time after going over the recent tests they had taken. For the most part, the tests had been "passable". I hadn't put anything too difficult on the test; it was all content we had gone over in class or they had done on the homework (if, in fact, they had done the homework). So, for the free time, I requested that they just ask me words they want to know in English or maybe songs they had heard from nigerian-pidgin-english and didn't understand. They love this asking-what-things-are-in-english game, by the way. I try to keep a straight face during the game, because, as my gal pal who teaches elementary school always tells me, if you laugh in class students won't take you seriously. After a couple of random words and lines from a poem they were taught but never knew the meaning, one of my favorite students stood up. Everyone became very silent (for like the first time ever) and he, very officially, shouted out,
"EEF YOU LOOK AT ME, I WEELL DANCE LIKE A CHA-CHA GIRL"
I lost it. Legit. Knee-slapping rip-roaring laughter. I could not contain myself. No one else in the classroom knew the meaning of what he just said, but they all started laughing too cause they wanted to get in on the good time. When I finally wiped the tears of laughter from my eyes and composed myself, I wrote the sentence on the board and we translated it together:
SI TU ME REGARDE, JE DANCERAI COMME UNE FILLE CHA-CHA
Then they all started laughing too, now that they understood the meaning.
And onto not-so-wonderful things about teaching. There is an expression I have been taught countless times in chemistry classes through the years. The expression is about reactions and goes something like: a reaction can only move as quickly as its' slowest reagant. Meaning that something can only go forward at the rate of its' slowest part. I have developed a similar expression about the students taking tests in both my classes of 5eme and 4eme. My expression is:
You are only as smart as...the person sitting next to you
Meaning that cheating is the norm. I don't know how to win with these kids. This second test around, I tried splitting up my classes so that there would be only one student per bench, thus no wandering eyes like during the first test. However, one of the students in the first group wrote down test questions and handed it outside to his fellow classmates...and I caught him. Both he and the two boys he gave the paper to received 0. And I blamed myself at first because I should have just kept the classes together (even though there would be wandering eyes), or made different tests for the two groups. I cannot win either way. And then I stopped blaming myself, because the truth is, it is the students who will lose in this situation and not me. I gave out six 0s for cheating this time around. Also, if and when these students travel to anglophone (English speaking) regions of Cameroon, it is them who won't be able to get by because they did not study English.
There are wonderful things about teaching. And there are not-so-wonderful things about teaching. But let's start with the positive first. The other day in my 5eme class of 50-ish students, we had some free time after going over the recent tests they had taken. For the most part, the tests had been "passable". I hadn't put anything too difficult on the test; it was all content we had gone over in class or they had done on the homework (if, in fact, they had done the homework). So, for the free time, I requested that they just ask me words they want to know in English or maybe songs they had heard from nigerian-pidgin-english and didn't understand. They love this asking-what-things-are-in-english game, by the way. I try to keep a straight face during the game, because, as my gal pal who teaches elementary school always tells me, if you laugh in class students won't take you seriously. After a couple of random words and lines from a poem they were taught but never knew the meaning, one of my favorite students stood up. Everyone became very silent (for like the first time ever) and he, very officially, shouted out,
"EEF YOU LOOK AT ME, I WEELL DANCE LIKE A CHA-CHA GIRL"
I lost it. Legit. Knee-slapping rip-roaring laughter. I could not contain myself. No one else in the classroom knew the meaning of what he just said, but they all started laughing too cause they wanted to get in on the good time. When I finally wiped the tears of laughter from my eyes and composed myself, I wrote the sentence on the board and we translated it together:
SI TU ME REGARDE, JE DANCERAI COMME UNE FILLE CHA-CHA
Then they all started laughing too, now that they understood the meaning.
And onto not-so-wonderful things about teaching. There is an expression I have been taught countless times in chemistry classes through the years. The expression is about reactions and goes something like: a reaction can only move as quickly as its' slowest reagant. Meaning that something can only go forward at the rate of its' slowest part. I have developed a similar expression about the students taking tests in both my classes of 5eme and 4eme. My expression is:
You are only as smart as...the person sitting next to you
Meaning that cheating is the norm. I don't know how to win with these kids. This second test around, I tried splitting up my classes so that there would be only one student per bench, thus no wandering eyes like during the first test. However, one of the students in the first group wrote down test questions and handed it outside to his fellow classmates...and I caught him. Both he and the two boys he gave the paper to received 0. And I blamed myself at first because I should have just kept the classes together (even though there would be wandering eyes), or made different tests for the two groups. I cannot win either way. And then I stopped blaming myself, because the truth is, it is the students who will lose in this situation and not me. I gave out six 0s for cheating this time around. Also, if and when these students travel to anglophone (English speaking) regions of Cameroon, it is them who won't be able to get by because they did not study English.
Students of the class of 4eme
4eme students sitting at their desks
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