As you may have guessed they were very excited yesterday and today. My one complaint is that the teacher for the third graders just doesn’t show up sometimes… she takes a bit of a late lunch and in that time it feels like all of the underworld breaks loose. This week one boy hit another with a rock. Then, one boy stabbed another with a pencil. Finally, some girl got pushed into the blackboard and she hit her head. You get the picture.

 I am convinced there are two things that keep me from controlling them like the teachers can.
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1. My age – I am an Akka (big sister) not a Madam. That said, at my age, I just don’t naturally command respect very easily. 
2. The fact that I don’t hit. I just don’t believe in hitting kids. Here, prefects and teachers hit to command discipline. That’s just not my style. I believe everyone should be able to be disciplined without using physical methods…

Everything went well learning-wise. We did a lesson on Fruits. Everyone loved this one. I don’t know why – maybe they were hungry – but they really participated a lot in this lesson. 

​Nothing new here. We are just trying to get through all the content. I don’t like thinking about it just because it makes me nauseous to think we won’t make it through. I guess we just have to keep pushing through!

​I think my prayers were answered because fewer kids came. That sounds mean. I am sorry. …but I have to come to terms with the fact that, honestly, some students come to just waste time. It’s one thing for a student to not want to learn but it is another when they inhibit someone else’s ability to learn. I want these to be functional classes not just a rowdy mess. I feel like this week we were a real functional class. It really bothers me when students come and just sit on their phones. I have to wonder why they are in the class. This happens at my school too (where I am a student) but the difference is that this class is not required. Maybe it is significant that they show up at all. That seems like wishful thinking though. 
So in other news, we did a lesson called Taking a Trip. They really liked it because I had a lot of activities built in. We even went outside to do some of them. That said, I actually came up with a few new activities here is one of them: 
‘Speed Round’
It’s a memory activity I disguised as a game. Basically, everyone stands up and I go around the room asking a question. The question is usually a translation one: ‘Translate cat into Sinhala’. If you can’t do it by the count (finger count – hold up fingers, don’t speak the number because then it fudges up their focus) of four you sit down. So as the rounds go on you reduce the seconds they have. The time is adjustable so if it is really new material you can give 5-6 seconds or even longer. 
The kids LOVED it. Their competitive sides really showed. 

This is easily my favorite class of the day. It is amazing! We actually work! I mean look I honestly feel like I have been complaining a lot. I feel whiney. And not to be whiney – but I hate to sound whiney. (hehe) I will say it for the last time: the last two years have not been like this. The students were loud, they had fun, and their attention did stray. However, I could handle them and we were productive. This year it feels like I am fighting a war. However, I would never, ever want to stop. It is a war I am willing and honored to fight. Sometimes I do get tired and I might complain to cope but I hope no reader takes this as a sign that I do not enjoy every moment of what I do. I do love my kids and the school. They have become an undeniably important part of my life. 
That said, I can tell you will confidence, the eleventh graders have been real champs. They show up after doing lots of after-school classes and they stay quiet when I ask them to. They do not however do any homework. I assigned an ‘essay’ (it was just a paragraph) and only two people did it. Then, on Tuesday I assigned three sentences. Actually I said they could choose to do one to three sentences. Guess what. Two people did the homework. That said, my suspicions are confirmed. There is absolutely no point in assigning homework. I have no way to make them do it. I guess I could give them a ‘reward’ for doing it…but I just don’t have the funds for something like that. I will have to consider something like that for next year. 

We had a fun time until it got too wild to control… for example today one kid BIT the another one. HE BIT HIM! I remember my third-grade class and I promise you no one bit anyone else… 
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The teacher was on a long lunch break (again) and I was left all alone. The poor kid just sat on the ground and cried. I felt awful. The other students were nice to him – one boy offered him a king coconut. (A king coconut is the sweeter version of coconut. It is orange and you can eat the inside flesh and drink the water). Being unable to control the situation I ran off to find the teacher and get her to come supervise. 

The lesson was the Natural Environment. It was fun and pretty regular stuff. Nothing much to say except this rainbow made everyone laugh...

​This class feels like it is moving slower than last year’s which worries me a tonne. On the bright side, I am teaching them the right way from the beginning. Remember my revelation about how teaching meanings of words are more helpful than treating each phrase as its own entity. Breaking the phrase to identifiable parts (individual words) makes it easier to learn other phrases with the same words. 

I just hope the pace begins to pick up soon. I hope it is my imagination but I think this year’s kids are a bit too excitable. 

​Another disaster… Everyone was so loud. In both classes I found myself going horse. I will admit this year there are waaaaaay more kids to teach. I don’t think this is a bad thing – more kids are good – I want more people to be interested. Sadly, I can’t control them all. I think next year I am going to create some kind of enrollment system so I can have fewer kids at a time. The working idea is that I would allow 10-15 kids per class. The drawback would be that I would have to host more classes – thus have shorter classes. However, I believe it would be worth it as I feel that half the time in the current class is wasted by me having to try to control the students. 

By the way the lesson was Activities. There really isn't much to say except that we had a tough time going through the material because of the size of the class. 

​This class was equally miserable. I know, I know – I am sounding really negative. Sadly, I want to document what is actually going on. There are four boys from the 10th grade that come and do nothing else but play on their phones. I don’t even have words. They won’t leave but they won’t pay attention either. It is a huge distraction for the other kids too… On top of that, the sheer number of students make it so the class gets wild pretty easily. They just can’t stop talking! It’s so strange – I beg them to stay silent or at least listen while I talk and they just do not.