On the Start of School: Lessons Learned

Well, now, the real work begins.

Nana and I weathered the proverbial storm of the first two days of school admirably, if I do say so myself, although we may be a little worse for the wear--we find ourselves completely exhausted this weekend, but (as of yesterday) still with a whole week's worth of planning to do. But we're learning (I hope) and for me at least, each lesson plan gets a little easier to write, and there is even, somewhere on the distant horizon (a few weeks from now?) the possibility of a full weekend off. By which I don't mean a full weekend without any school work to be done--oh, no--just a weekend during which we don't need to spend time at the school. (We were there for about five hours yesterday.) Oh frabjous day!

In any case, here's what I actually meant to do with this post--write a witty, insightful list of some of the lessons we've learned since the start of school three days and a billion years ago.

1. When dealing with middle schoolers, the normal rules that govern the flow of time do not apply. Say you look at the clock and it's 10:40. You start the class working on a fifteen-minute journal assignment. What time is it fifteen minutes later? That's right, it's the end of the period, at 11:35. But the next day, the same assignment could be over at 10:42. In other words, for every lesson, you have either planned twice as much, or half as much, as you need. And as far as I know, there's no telling which one any given activity will be. I've taken 10 minutes to get my ESL kids to get their notebooks and pencils out. But the fairly complicated index-and-table-of-contents exercise I did with the same class on Friday only took five.

2. Most students in domestic Asian schools go through the whole day without saying a word. This is considered a success. Talking is something you do with your tutor--and even then, you had better make sure you mumble, or even cover your mouth when you speak. (Seriously, I have a student who covers her mouth every time she speaks. I can't even hear her over my own breathing.) This has been a serious problem, on top of the language barrier. The kids who have been in American schools not only speak English better, but they're used to interacting with the teacher and with one another in class. And the kids who haven't have two strikes against them: weaker English skills and an ingrained terror of uttering anything that even sounds like a word in the classroom.

3. The same goes for note-taking, it seems. I've had students look at me funny when I asked if they brought a pen and note paper to class. I actually had to pass out note paper and pencils on Friday when I wanted the kids to respond in writing to some questions on the board. I'm told this is normal--apparently, in most Korean schools, the students sit passively and absorb throughout the day, then learn what they can at night from their textbooks and, if they have the money, from their tutors. So no wonder all the kids I see look like they've been awake since the dawn of time! They're wasting eight hours a day! Lesson learned, though: Most of us middle-school teachers have scrapped our previous plans for this upcoming week in favor of a mini-unit on active-listening, note-taking, and discussion skills. In other words, we're going to spend a week getting the kids to talk to us and to write while we talk. It's not their fault, of course--they just came into this having no idea what was going to be expected of them in an American-style classroom.

4. By the way, did I mention that almost all of our kids are Korean? And a majority have never lived overseas or studied in an American or international school. Apparently, those rules governing admission to international schools are made to be broken. Which is fine, it just means we've got a different set of challenges to face: instead of a classroom full of expats and diplobrats (highly independent, to a fault), we've got a classroom full of Koreans (highly respectful, but terminally shy).

5. Our biggest challenge this year won't be educating our English language learners; it will be keeping our (minority of) strong English speakers interested while the rest of the class catches up. I expect a lot of growth very quickly from the ESL kids--they have a ton of support, with an hour of ESL class and two hours of after-school ESL tutoring every day--but I just hope we haven't lost the other kids by the time the ESL crowd is ready to go. This first semester will be interesting, to say the least.

6. And, last but not least: It's not actually that bad to work really hard at something that interests you, or something you care about. This past week, Nana and I have been putting in more hours than we ever did last year in DC, with one particular week of my paralegal misadventures excepted. We're tired, and more than a little nervous at the prospect of keeping these kids engaged and learning through the rest of the year. But we're happy, when we have time to think about it. The work is good.

Plus, the weather is clearing up, which helps. But which also introduces a new problem: instead of crushing heat and rain, now we have searing heat and sun.

For now, all the best from the both of us. Keep the comments coming--posted here, e-mailed, or otherwise. We both love the attention! And it means a lot to us to know that we have such strong support from family and friends.