Kiddos

I've spent a lot of time complaining about school, or how child shenanigans make me want to choke said children. At the end of most days I usually feel pretty useless and superfluous in the classroom knowing that most of my kids still can't say simple things such as, "This is my pencil," and they've been in English class for over three years. These crappy feelings are amplified any time I try to ask them, "How was your weekend," which is a question I pose at the start of every week to my upper grades and they still struggle to give me an answer. Tests, and grading said tests, are also heartbreaking, as it's physical proof that I really am not doing anything for these kids. It's a sneaky hate spiral where I constantly am wondering why I, an anthropology major out of school for almost five years, thought it would be a good idea to go to a country, where I don't speak the language, to teach kids my own language with it's insane rules and contradictions.

And then little things happen.

I'll come into a classroom and the first grader, who is from Russia and didn't know any Georgian so has been learning Georgian and English at the same time, will run over to me with a notebook, throw her arms around me and then show me, with an insane amount of pride, something she drew. And she'll tell me what all of the things on the paper are, in English or in broken Georgian, as well as what color they are and if she likes them or not. She's always done with her in-class work first, and it's always perfect, and I always make sure I give her, secretly, an extra sticker. Nothing big or flashy - just one of the tiny, colorful smiley face stickers they all go bananas for. She'll put it on her workbook page, and then hide it with her hand so the other kids can't see that she has a smiley and they don't, and we'll wink at each other because we know something no one else does, and then suddenly 9 am doesn't seem quite so early.

Or I'll get assaulted after a particularly trying fifth grade lesson by two of the girls - one, the top in the class, and the other her very shy friend. They'll stammer and ask me if I like My Little Ponies, and I'll exclaim happily, "I DO! I love it! It is one of my favorites!" (What? I can be a 26 year old and love the Little Ponies, dammit!). And then we will yap at each other about who our favorites are, and even the shy girl who doesn't like to speak up in class will grin and go on and on about Pinkie Pie, and they will pull out their notebooks and show me page after page of My Little Pony drawings. So now it's once a week, after class, that they will stop me on my way out of the room and show me their latest drawings, and we'll talk about how silly Spike is, or how Rainbow Dash always does the craziest things. It's my favorite part of dealing with the hell that is fifth grade.

Walking into school when it's grey and drizzling and an altogether dreary morning, one of my little fourth graders with particularly bad body odor will be waiting by the front door of the school so that he can give me a hug and a "good morning!!" before he runs off to class. There's a fifth grader who likes to lurk at the top of the stairs so she can hop over to me, arms outstretched, and grab me to give me a kiss on the cheek and say "hello" cheerfully. How can mornings be crappy after that?

I still think it's hilarious that all of my kids, with the exception of my too-cool-for-school sixth graders, love Hangman. Like, love love it. As in, beg me to play it. They come running up to me, their hands at their throat, mimicking choking (which was really startling the first time it happened, as I thought I was going to have to perform some heimlich maneuver bullshit or deal with a dead child and I was SO not prepared for that kind of thing!), saying, "Mas! Mas! Chamokchobana!" ("Teacher! Teacher! Hangman!")

My after school club originally started out as a place where kids could get help with their homework. Not many came for that, however, preferring to play Hangman endlessly on the board. They're for the most part pretty good at it, except for one girl. She is probably my favorite student of all, and she is just the absolute worst at Hangman.

What is that I don't even...

When I first started at school, I couldn't get her to talk for the life of me. She couldn't read, she didn't like speaking, even in Georgian, to the other kids. I asked my coteacher if she was alright, and was told that she is very slow. She was never called on, never offered her hand for answers, and most of the time she just stared out the window. Anna always came to English club but never participated, instead standing off to the side of the gaggle of voracious kids who all wanted to shout letters out for Hangman. And then one day, as I was walking home, I heard running little footsteps coming from behind me, and the third grader appeared at my side. She smiled shyly and said, "Hello." I was so elated that she was speaking that I may have been a little overly enthusiastic in my response of, "Hi! And how are you?" But she giggled and very haltingly said, "Fine." She giggled even more at my poor attempts of Georgian for talking about the day, and then we parted ways when she went into her house.

But the next class period, she was looking in her book and following along. The next English club I threw on a movie on my computer for the kids, and she and I went to the back of the room and worked on reading. She slowly started to raise her hand in class more to read passages or give answers. My favorite part of her transformation, though, has been her responses in dealing with the other students, particularly ones who give her crap and say she is stupid, for her to be quiet and give up trying to read. Because now she'll yell at them and keep going, and it's awesome, and I want to fucking put a million lights on her and say, "You will never be able to touch this kid as long as she wants to keep going, you little assholes!"

But I can't do that, so I just give her a lot of high fives.

She really is terrible at Hangman. Even using a book to help her with words, they always get misspelled anyway, and games always take a way long time to play. But it's alright, cause she's getting better with distinguishing between "e" and "i" (which is a super common problem across the board with most of my kids), and she'll also draw stick figures with Mickey Mouse ears. And that's all sorts of awesome.

The fact of the matter is that I will never be an effective teacher for these kids. I lack the necessary fluidity in their native language to really actually properly teach them the differences between adverbs and adjectives, or how verbs change based on their tenses. I'm pretty much demonstrative only for those things, and that's fine. But I think I'm way better for these kids than I give myself credit for (she said humbly), in that I provide a lot of positive reinforcement for them even TRYING. Especially the super shy ones. Sometimes all they need are a few weeks of friendly smiles for attempting to read, or give an answer from the book. I completely disagree with how my teachers will just write off students who are struggling, or scream at them for making mistakes, since making mistakes while speaking is a whole part of learning a language. But that's a whole cultural can of worms I can't even attempt to break into, so all I can do is work around it, offering whatever kind of support and encouragement I can to these fairly disheartened kids.

And it must be working, because sometimes I get a bunch of little flowers from my little kids.