matching tracksuits

We had the opportunity to meet two of the three first classes today—IA and IC. It turns out that there are not as many students from class VIII that I taught last year as I thought there would. I recognized a few faces, but not many. Strangely enough there are almost as many boys as there are girls in that class. That’s a shock for Lipnica, especially when one considers both second classes and third class. I began talking to them in English and then Danuta gave a few rules and regulations in Polish. I think it will be a good class, but Danuta said it would be a difficult class. “Why?” I asked. “Because they responded much like IIIB always does,” she answered. I pointed out that it’s impossible to judge them from only one short class which had almost no interaction at all.

Class IC is a different story altogether. There are twenty-eight students in that class, and not a single boy. I walked in and said, “Hello girls and girls!” I talked to them in Polish at first to show them that my Polish is not perfect but it is understandable. I made the point that I don’t really worry about my mistakes because if I did, I would never be able to say anything. I said also that they will speak English much like I was speaking Polish. “We’ll speak like children and make a lot of mistakes, but it’s not a bad thing. We [Danuta and I] will never say you’re a bad student because you make mistakes.” I tried to encourage them and show them that making stupid mistakes—even funny mistakes—is to be expected. They were fairly quiet, but I think it was simply from nerves and not really from anything else. I now have the experience of IB last year to remind me that classes that begin with such difficulty often turn out to be the most rewarding.

I had IIIA play “Taboo” today and they were really speaking a lot. I heard more English in those forty-five minutes than I’ve heard in a very long time. I was thrilled, and it seemed that they were actually enjoying it. I really don’t know what I’ll do tomorrow, but I’m not as worried about it now. I realize that they are willing to speak English if they have such tasks that allow them to make their own constructions as they need to.

Part of the problem is loneliness. I haven’t seen anyone today and I don’t know that I will. I’m thinking about going across the street, but what prevents me from doing that is the simple understanding that I still haven’t finished planning for tomorrow. I could say to myself, “You don’t have class until 9:50 tomorrow morning. You can wait and throw something together then.” But that’s exactly what I did last year and where did it get me? What did I accomplish? What did the students learn? How as my sanity? So I want to try to finish writing a lesson plan for tomorrow. But I know (or rather, “I expect”) that when I go back and sit down with a fresh outlook (as fresh as I can manage at this point), I’ll run into the same brick wall. “What the hell am I going to do tomorrow?”

That was a nightly battle last year and I assume that it’s going to be the same way this year. Every evening I struggled to come up with a lesson, forty-five minutes of business and productivity. When I finally came up with something and finished all the planning, I thought, “Whew—did it again. But I’ve no idea where I’ll get another activity from.” Yet somehow, I always managed to come up with something. It’s just that toward the end of the year, my “somethings” were turning out to be rather boring and ineffective. The students didn’t respond well at all and I was left wondering what the hell I could do differently. Part of my trouble now is that the same thing is happening at the beginning of the year. I think, “Well, I survived about four or five weeks of that last year, but I can’t do nine or ten months of it this year.”

I just don’t know what the problem is. Is it that I’m not doing enough planning? Am I leaving to much up to chance? Am I too often saying, “Okay, that’s a good idea but I’ll improvise the finer details tomorrow during the lesson”? Am I planning with the wrong objective? What is my objective? I guess if I’m honest, I’m still running on last year’s fourth-quarter improvisational objective: “Let’s fill these forty-five minutes.” I need to shift my priorities and not worry so much about filling the time as teaching them English and giving them opportunities to use the language authentically. […]

Part of the problem I have is with providing structure within the lesson. I come up with fairly good ideas for activities, but I then expect (today’s magic word) the students do come up with too much stuff on their own. I provide only the barest frame and then expect them to go out and buy the paint and canvas, think of a proper subject, and finish the piece of art. Take my last lesson with IIIA for example. I told them that since we weren’t going to be using books this year, we must decide on what we want to study and how. Now that was entirely too broad of a topic. They really don’t know what the possibilities are (both in subject matter and methodology) and so to expect them to discuss that (even with the gimick of “alter egoes”) was asking entirely too much.

I also don’t have enough of a long-term plan. I told IIIA that I hope to give them a syllabus at some point which gives them at least a rough idea of what we will be doing in the coming weeks. I need also to establish a routine, a weekly schedule so that I have some idea of where I need to go with the lesson before I even start planning it. And yet I’m really not sure how to go about doing that.

Once again, I know what I need (more structure; more long-term planning; more control over the class; more enthusiasm from my students), but I’ve no idea how to go about achieving these things. It’s the seemingly unbridgeable gap between theory and praxis. Even with a year’s experience, I don’t know how to overcome these problems.

I’ve no idea.

I’ve no ideas.

I’ve no ideal.

I need to do some thinking about IIA, for I am really beginning to stagnate in there. They are bored silly most of the time. It’s fine occasionally, but it is not good if it happens all the time.

I think part of the problem is their level. It’s difficult to plan for that level because the simple things I do in IA/B wouldn’t work that well. And a bit of it is their age: a tough group at that age when they feel trapped between adulthood and childhood.

Some of it could be a lack of long term planning. I never seem to know where we’ll be going next, and I think the kids can tell this too. During the break I will to make at least a tentative syllabus for the rest of the year. I am not sure I’ll be able to make it very detailed–it problem will be a week-by-week thing. I will try to include a few long-term projects as well as a general idea of when we’ll have tests.

My water heater is gone. The drip turned into a pour last night and I actually was able to get someone to do something about it.

I just realized the extremes of my working conditions: On the one hand, I overuse the book in IIA; on the other, I don’t even use a book for classes V and VI. What i need to do is combine the two in IIA in order to find that Golden Mean. Maybe I can apply some of the tactics I use in V and VI successfully in IIA. I can use the book as a guide, but invent my own activities for practice and application. I’ll try it Wednesday for the lesson with adjectives.

I received a notice from PC Warsaw that I’ve been waiting for for months now: My diplomatic pouch is here. In other words, my computer is now in Poland, if you can believe it. And so I might have it in a couple of weeks. That is of course if someone will bring it up to Sopot, which honestly seems a little bit unrealistic.

Of course now I have to get it to work here . . .

I am thinking of those now waiting to leave for Poland to be group XIII. At this point last year, nothing was really firm (I think), but I was already sure that I would be leaving in May or June. It is probably too soon for anyone (including staff) to know all that much. Still, someone must surely get as excited as I did when I suddenly found myself pacing the hall, trying to imagine what live in PC would be like.

Now that I am here and settled, I have difficulty remembering what the waiting and uncertainty were like. And I certainly have trouble trying to imagine what my return will be like.

Lately I’ve been particularly pleased with my life in Lipnica. I am comfortable here, for a number of reasons: I feel much more confident in my teaching. I also feel much better about my Polish, and I think these two factors contribute the most to my present contentment. I enjoy what I do, and I have reason to believe that I do it well; and I do not feel as challenged by my environment. Other factors are surely my friends. I am not lonely in the way that I was when I first got to Lipnica. Lastly, I am just generally settled in, with a routine and a degree of organized regularity: I know what’s going on.

This has been the nicest day I’ve had in a very long time. Out of the blue I had this splendid day. I knew my lessons would go well but so did everything else.

I’ll begin with the lessons. In IB I did an exercise with can/can’t. I wrote fifteen jobs/occupations on the board and asked, “What can a pilot do? A dancer?” Then everyone got a card with one of the jobs on it. They had to find out who had the other jobs by asking, “Can you dance? Can you fly a plane?” To end the lesson everyone had to tell one thing s/he learned: “I know Sylwia (actually there’s no Sylwia in IB, but oh well) is a pianist because she can play the piano.” It went rather well because almost everyone was busy for the whole time.

The lesson for IA, though, was even better. It is the best lesson I’ve come up with thus far. I prepared a word search with irregular verbs in the past tense. Once they found the verb (“gave” for instance) they took a small slip of paper I’d given them and wrote the base form on it (“give” in this case, of course). They wrote each base form on a separate sheet, and I gave them about twenty to twenty-five minutes to work on the puzzle. After that they took the verb slips and got in groups of three or four and played a game. Each player, one at a time, put a verb slip on the table and challenged anyone at the table. The challenged student had to say the irregular past tense of the verb and write it on the slip. If it was right, s/he got the slip; if wrong and the challenger corrected, s/he got the slip; if neither noticed and and a third player noticed it was wrong, s/he got the slip. Most slips=winner. It went perfectly. And they loved it.

After lunch, I went on my walk. And it was very relaxing and rewarding. I took about ten pictures, mostly (maybe exclusively, but I can’t remember) of children playing. I found a group of boys from sixth class (and Piotrek from eighth class) who were sledding and I took several shots of them. Then I went for one run. They were flying down a short but steep hill then gliding onto the frozen stream. I made it to the stream but for a moment feard I wouldn’t make it back–the ice cracked and moaned under me. One of the boys showed me the safest path and I was very thankful to make it back to solid ground.

I also finally got some shots of the sled-strollers that people use to haul kids on. It was Beata (IA) and her niece Claudia (Klaudia po polsku, chyba). Klaudia was wrapped like a mummy with only her face showing. She made some gurgling sounds at me as I took the pictures.

I felt more comfortable taking pictures today. The more I do it the less conspicuous I feel. Perhaps by summer (or even spring) I’ll have done it enough that everyone pretty much ignores me.

Taking pictures of kids is particularly enjoyable. At first they act and pose for me, but then they ignore me and I can get the shots I am really looking for. I’ve a feeling I”ll take pictures of kids more than anything else.

I was thinking about IIB today and I came up with a strategy to get to Zbeszek. I’m going to ask him to teach me to play ping pong. Or at least try. Perhaps that way, while spending non-academic time with him, I can get to know him on a more personal level, and this should help in class too.l

I had a wonderful afternoon. To begin with, I repeated my performance in IIB. I walked out feeling that I had taught them a little, and I left (most importantly) with my sanity.

It was glorious and so very sunny this afternoon, so I took my camera and a roll of twenty-four and went for a walk, talking all twenty-four pictures in the process. I took a shot of chickens that I can’t wait to see, as well as one of a little boy struggling to sky.

I encountered Adam M. from VI as I was heading home. Gdzie byłeś? he asked, and I noticed that he had used the familiar voice. That I noticed was a little surprising. And once I realized it, I didn’t know what to do. “Pan” is more appropriate in the classroom, but I am pleased that he felt comfortable enough with me to use the familiar form. I knew he wasn’t testing me to see my reaction (like someone from II might); he probably did it without thinking.

The other day–yesterday, I guess–Danuta made an interesting request. “Make them take off their coats in IIB,” she asked.

I asked her why.

“Because it looks stupid!” she replied, as if that was the obvious answer.

I told her, “Look, I don’t care if they look stupid or not.”

“Well, you’re responsible for how the class and classroom look, and if the director comes in and sees it like that, he’ll talk to you about it.”

It is just that kind of arbitrary exercise of power (abuse, rather than exercise) that pisses kids off, and rightfully so. I don’t care what the kids look like; it’s not my concern as long as it’s not disrupting the class.

“They don’t think about the lesson when they have their coats on,” she contended, as if taking their coats off would be a magic switch that gets their minds on the lesson. if they’re thinking about going home with their coats on, they’ll be thinking about going home while not wearing their coats. It’s a trivial matter, and it is only disruptive if you let it be.

This is another illustration of the fact that Danuta wants only their undivided attention. She is never going to get it, and neither is any other teacher. The only thing she can do is accept that and work within that limitation. No teacher ever has the attention of the whole class; Danuta is just really sensitive concerning IIB