Despair January 10, 2008

Today’s post focusses on two cases of despair. Let’s start with the first one. Today’s image is ‘Despair‘ painted by Edvard Munch in 1892. It’s actually the first painting in a whole series of paintings from the same scenery, displaying the same emotion of despair. Munch himself wrote about them in his diary in 1892:

“I was walking along a path with two friends – the sun was setting – I felt a breath of melancholy – Suddenly the sky turned blood-red – I stopped and leant against the railing deadly tired – looking out across flaming clouds that hung like blood and sword over the deep blue fjord and town – my friends walked on – I stood there trembling with anxiety and I felt a great, infinite scream through nature.”

The man on the first painting in this series resembles Munch, but the later paintings become more and more abstract, as if Munch tries to display only this one emotion: despair. The third painting, the Scream, is the most famous of all. Looking at it makes me shiver, but at the same time it’s a very beautiful scene.

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I decided to write on despair today, since I felt just like the figure in the third painting. Today was my longest day of the week. I had to teach non stop from 08:30-3:30, and even my breaks were consumed by meetings and appointments with students that needed advise on their papers. I usually try to keep my breaks to myself, but because of the holidays a lot of time passed and these students really needed some help in order to be able to move on.

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Most students were really, really hyper active. I understand. They are extremely excited because of the new surroundings they’re in. After all, they’re children. I just find it hard to get used to my new room, the new boards, the new staff room. But at the end of the day all I want to do is teach. Not them. The trailers almost exploded because of these jumping, yelling, hysterical youngsters, even climbing out of the ground floor windows and coming back with muddy shoes. I’m sure that in a week or so this will pass.

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What really made me despair today, was the fact that me and my class from hell were sentenced to spend an hour in one of the most education-hostile environments I have experienced so far. Those of you who have followed me for a while know that managing my class from hell is a huge challenge, even under normal circumstances. It took me about two months of battle in order to get myself a room in which I could put them in a (more or less) workable setting, after having been sent to the art room and technics room. It seems that I will have to start this battle all over again.

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In addition to our trailers, we use a few rooms in a near by elementary school. The rooms are bigger than the ones in the trailers, so the bigger classes are scheduled there. They put me in an art room, which had four clusters of 5 tables. All 27 students were supposed to grab a stool and gather around those clusters, basically having a teaparty there while I tried to teach. To top it of, the entire place was covered in sawdust, left after some kind of project, and the three tiny windows couldn’t open. I could not believe it. It was 50 minutes of suffering. I tried to interrupt the class in their party, by trying to prepare them for the exam that they’ll have in about two weeks, but they just looked at me, raised a brow and continued doing whatever they were doing.

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I refuse to accept such lowsy circumstances. I know that my classroom management is something I need to work on, and I do, but I refuse to teach this class again in that room. That’s what I told the principal, and that’s what I told the guy who is in charge of the schedules.

As for now: I will start enjoying my weekend. I don’t teach on Fridays so I can put my books away and relax. I’ve wanted to do that since Monday morning. Going back to school wasn’t easy. For those of you that have to work tomorrow: good luck, and don’t despair

Why today was a good day January 8, 2008

It was a bit strange being back in front of the class. This morning I taught in a tiny little trailer room that until yesterday was the lunch room of the people that were installing the toilets. Five minutes before class the last trash was moved out so I could move in. I couldn’t close the door, though, since there was no lock yet and closing it would mean being trapped with my students in a room the size of a walk in closet.

I am really satisfied with the way this first day went:

~ Right before the bell I remembered to get some whiteboard markers so that I could write on the board. I turn out to love whiteboards. I love how it keeps my hands clean.

~ My students were all excited, so I decided to just go over some old material with them to see how much they remembered after three weeks of not thinking about school. I was really surprised, in a positive way.

~ After this review I taught about Aletta Jacobs who was the first woman to go to high school and college, and the first female doctor of the country. I read some passages from her autobiography and my students, who hardly read books themselves (and certainly not books that were written at the beginning of the 20th century) listened and asked questions about it. It was really interesting to see how they were involved and how they were angry about the way women were treated in those days.

~ We finished off with a poem, written by her father upon her graduation from medical school. Each student read a few sentences, even the ones that usually don’t want to read, and even the ones that don’t master the language very well because they speak a different language at home.

~ I can really feel that this break gave me some inspiration to try new approaches and to use new material in class. I just hope I will be able to stick to that. I also used some tricks that I learned from ‘Setting limits in the classroom’. A student was continuously drawing in her diary. I gave only one warning, and told her that I would have to take it away from her if she couldn’t put it aside, and when she took it out again I took it, only to give it back after class. It sounds so simple and logical, but before winterbreak I would have probably warned a second or third time before taking it away.

First day in the trailers January 7, 2008

So today was the first day in the trailers. After the usual dressing room crisis (it’s hard to get used to wearing professional outfits again after two weeks in sloppy clothes), the bag packing crisis and the key searching crisis (so far for resolutions to be more organised) I arrived at the trailers for a general staff meeting. We went over some new school rules, we got our keys, and we received the new timetables.

The trailers are really small and there’s NO fresh air. I can’t imagine what it will be like when the classroom is full of students. I just hope the ‘building’ (if you can call it that) won’t have a negative influence on my asthma.

After the meeting the first students arrived. It was strange to hear their laughter and yelling again, but in a strange way it also aroused the wish to prepare nice lessons and projects and to inspire them. Isn’t that beautiful?

I share a room with two other teachers that weren’t there today. I decided to make it look nice, so I brought some newspapers clippings and posters to make the walls look nice. We have two bulletin boards that are still on the floor, but I hope they will be put up somewhere this week. I plan on printing a few history quotes on the computer to put up on the wall above the whiteboard. There are lots of sites with such quotes, like here and here. Reading them makes me love history, and I hope my students will be inspired by them as well. I also found a really nice site with bulletin board ideas. I just hope that my colleague, who can be very blunt sometimes, won’t take everything down this afternoon when she gets there

This afternoon I will make lesson plans for the rest of the week, and I will make an exam that my students will take on Thursday, just to have an extra day in case the xerox machine is out of order.