Due to problems with blogger, wasn't able to post this til now. Written 2 days ago...
10 months and 6 days ago I joined the Peace Corps, meaning that on that day, November 1st, 2013, I sent in my acceptance letter and was officially marked an “active” volunteer. Today, Thursday, August 7th, 2014 I started teaching. I wrote a blog post a while ago titled “Wow, we might finally be teaching” in reference to our practicum assignments, but today felt different. I’ve spent all of my summer break here in Karawang, and many days at school getting the lay of the land and entertaining myself with the school’s free wifi. I met many students that way, who apparently hang out at school even during summer break. Although “liburan” or summer vacay is traditionally a time for people to visit their families and take a trip to the beach if they can afford it, these are high schoolers so they 1. Live with their families already and 2. Would rather hang out with their friends buying es candol or bakso from street vendors whose familiar jingles (like hitting a wood block for bakso or playing a recorded tune for es candol) are now an integral part of my Indonesian experience.
Today at 6:30, when I arrived at school, the small courtyard and open air hallways were crowded with students. It felt like a time warp. Suddenly I was back at my first day of high school, amidst the noise and lack of haste, fighting against the slow-moving current of students who were in no particular hurry to be anywhere soon. It was easy to pick out the freshmen because the anxiety in their faces – from trying to decipher a cryptic schedule, to be in the right place at the right time, to not say something stupid that would make everyone laugh at you – mirrored my own.
You sort of flash forward and backward in one moment, trying to draw on previous experiences and, at the same time, sensing that you’ll feel generally the same at the end of this endeavor; the dual exhaustion of beginning and leaving.
But I was not a blank slate today; I felt at least a little prepared to wing this teaching thing. One teacher in one of my years of high school included a quote on her syllabus that learning is not passive. If learning is active then teaching is definitely so. I walked into my first class with my counterpart a few minutes after seven with a scribbled down copy of the lesson plan we had made yesterday and a mindset of walking into a battle zone. Despite having “met” all of these students already, this was the moment I was to make my first impression as a teacher. We reviewed basic introductions and gave out a pre-test. It was not the circus I remembered. I have been reading a book the Peace Corps gave us called “More than a Native Speaker” the past month. It’s really some of the best preparation I’ve received for this gig. I got the idea of giving a pre-test from it. I thought it would be cool for the students to measure their own progress by the end of the semester. I had seen and been warned about cheating. The mentality in Indonesia is that knowledge is collective; if one person knows the answer they are being rude if they don’t share. I knew this but it was still painful to witness with my own students.
After the first class my counter-part and I discussed different methods we would use to discourage cheating. She was on the same page with me at least and had several success stories to share. It made me feel better but in this area I still felt the most unprepared (discipline has never been my strong suit). We told them several times to do the work alone and explained that it was not for a grade and we only wanted to know a bit about them and where they were with their English, but they paid little attention except when listening to us. The questions we asked them were all very subjective, such as “what is your experience learning English?” and “what is your favorite movie/song/book in English?” As a class we translated the questions into Bahasa Indonesia but barely had they finished copying down the questions when they turned around to consult their neighbors. I collected their answers with a heavy heart, fully expecting 40 identical sheets of paper but was pleasantly surprised to find a wide variety of really funny answers.
Some of the best from class 12 were:
1. What is your experience with learning English?
- Not homework.
2. Why do you want to learn English?
- Because that is not too cheesy.
- Because, in order to smooth talk with people America.
- Because, learn English is so funny.
3. What is your favorite book/song/movie in English?
- Song we will not go down. Because the Struggle of life.
- Avenged Sevenfold because stay cool.
4. Tell us one interesting fact about yourself.
- My self is always happy every day because no boy no cry.
- I don’t like and hate rat. Hell yeah!
So, here’s to blank slates!
10 months and 6 days ago I joined the Peace Corps, meaning that on that day, November 1st, 2013, I sent in my acceptance letter and was officially marked an “active” volunteer. Today, Thursday, August 7th, 2014 I started teaching. I wrote a blog post a while ago titled “Wow, we might finally be teaching” in reference to our practicum assignments, but today felt different. I’ve spent all of my summer break here in Karawang, and many days at school getting the lay of the land and entertaining myself with the school’s free wifi. I met many students that way, who apparently hang out at school even during summer break. Although “liburan” or summer vacay is traditionally a time for people to visit their families and take a trip to the beach if they can afford it, these are high schoolers so they 1. Live with their families already and 2. Would rather hang out with their friends buying es candol or bakso from street vendors whose familiar jingles (like hitting a wood block for bakso or playing a recorded tune for es candol) are now an integral part of my Indonesian experience.
Today at 6:30, when I arrived at school, the small courtyard and open air hallways were crowded with students. It felt like a time warp. Suddenly I was back at my first day of high school, amidst the noise and lack of haste, fighting against the slow-moving current of students who were in no particular hurry to be anywhere soon. It was easy to pick out the freshmen because the anxiety in their faces – from trying to decipher a cryptic schedule, to be in the right place at the right time, to not say something stupid that would make everyone laugh at you – mirrored my own.
You sort of flash forward and backward in one moment, trying to draw on previous experiences and, at the same time, sensing that you’ll feel generally the same at the end of this endeavor; the dual exhaustion of beginning and leaving.
But I was not a blank slate today; I felt at least a little prepared to wing this teaching thing. One teacher in one of my years of high school included a quote on her syllabus that learning is not passive. If learning is active then teaching is definitely so. I walked into my first class with my counterpart a few minutes after seven with a scribbled down copy of the lesson plan we had made yesterday and a mindset of walking into a battle zone. Despite having “met” all of these students already, this was the moment I was to make my first impression as a teacher. We reviewed basic introductions and gave out a pre-test. It was not the circus I remembered. I have been reading a book the Peace Corps gave us called “More than a Native Speaker” the past month. It’s really some of the best preparation I’ve received for this gig. I got the idea of giving a pre-test from it. I thought it would be cool for the students to measure their own progress by the end of the semester. I had seen and been warned about cheating. The mentality in Indonesia is that knowledge is collective; if one person knows the answer they are being rude if they don’t share. I knew this but it was still painful to witness with my own students.
After the first class my counter-part and I discussed different methods we would use to discourage cheating. She was on the same page with me at least and had several success stories to share. It made me feel better but in this area I still felt the most unprepared (discipline has never been my strong suit). We told them several times to do the work alone and explained that it was not for a grade and we only wanted to know a bit about them and where they were with their English, but they paid little attention except when listening to us. The questions we asked them were all very subjective, such as “what is your experience learning English?” and “what is your favorite movie/song/book in English?” As a class we translated the questions into Bahasa Indonesia but barely had they finished copying down the questions when they turned around to consult their neighbors. I collected their answers with a heavy heart, fully expecting 40 identical sheets of paper but was pleasantly surprised to find a wide variety of really funny answers.
Some of the best from class 12 were:
1. What is your experience with learning English?
- Not homework.
2. Why do you want to learn English?
- Because that is not too cheesy.
- Because, in order to smooth talk with people America.
- Because, learn English is so funny.
3. What is your favorite book/song/movie in English?
- Song we will not go down. Because the Struggle of life.
- Avenged Sevenfold because stay cool.
4. Tell us one interesting fact about yourself.
- My self is always happy every day because no boy no cry.
- I don’t like and hate rat. Hell yeah!
So, here’s to blank slates!
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