End of the Week

The week ended on a high note. All my classes are pretty much filled; I have at least 13 students per period and some have as many as 22. On Monday I can finally start teaching them about architecture, too! I can’t explain how excited I am for the school year! After only teaching a week, I can tell that I am totally in love with it! 

The kids aren’t nearly as troublesome as I expected. I have been really strict with them, and as long as I hold my ground and enforce the rules and consequences, they behave fairly well. We were warned that they are going to challenge us to our wits ends, but I think as long as I keep up with good classroom management, they will be no problem. 

Dealing with the cultural differences will be a challenge. Samoan kids are taught to be seen not heard; therefore, they have a hard time speaking up in class. As part of an introductions game, I had each student share one positive thing about themselves, and so many of them drew blanks. Few are taught that they are smart or special, and the culture rewards staying part of the mainstream mediocrity. If I can teach them anything this year, I want it to be that they are bright, talented young students and they should be proud of themselves!

We were also briefed during orientation about the very low academic level that many Samoan students are at. It didn’t hit me, however, until this week. Several of my students, I believe, are almost entirely illiterate. Most read at a 2-4th grade level, and (while they have beautiful handwriting!) most of them write at a 2-3rd grade level. I’ve been struggling with ways to teach them in my own class if they are suffering so much in all the other basic areas. Most kids have trouble with the most basic sentence structure and several digit subtraction. These are high schoolers! I was trying to give them a reference the other day, and I  first used the letter format. But none of them have ever written a letter (never in a single english class)! Then I tried to refer to the scientific method: objective, hypothesis, procedure. None of my high school seniors had ever used it -much less performed an experiment. It’s after truly seeing this first hand that I understand why we were brought here! In an American territory, we have a majority of high schoolers that can barely read or write! 

But all of this, of course, encourages me more. As part of a short writing assignment I had the students write their expectations for me! I had gone through my list for them (work hard, try your best, be creative, be polite, etc) and so now it was there turn. I had several students write things like, “just please don’t give up on us. Even if we frustrate you or can’t learn, just don’t ever give up on us and quit.” These messages broke my heart, because it meant that year after year their teachers do give up on them!