Sometimes you smile, sometimes you cry and the best feeling is laughing after all the tears have run out.
It's funny to me how you can have a totally awesome day and then boom you have a horrible day and it just sucks!
The good day:
A few weeks ago I had an amazing day. Well, the whole day wasn't perfect but it was as close to awesome as it can get when you teach all boys in the desert. I ALWAYS am so critical of myself that I often fail to see the good things. I had a formal observation that day and went into it without a care in the world. Everyone had rushed to sign up for their preferred observation time and of course being the slow poke I am, I got stuck with the first slot on the first day of the week......To make a long story short, it went well. I Appreciated the feedback I received and had no idea my head of faculty thought I was such a strong teacher. I feel I have struggled for so long in this competitive field of teaching, that I have failed to notice that I actually get it right sometimes. So the ultimate compliment that blew me away, was when I was asked if it would be ok if a group of other English teachers could come and observe my lesson in an effort to share best practice! I am kinda of freaked out but extremely flattered!
The bad day:
Then you have those bad days.....and here in the middle east, they are not just bad, they are BAAADD! I haven't cried at school here at all this year. I cried today! It was the last period, and we were playing' sleeping lions'. This is a game where everyone goes to sleep and another child is assigned as a tiger who walks around and tries to make the others laugh without touching the other students. Well, one student started growling while he was supposed to be 'asleep' and then basically the whole class turned into a jungle of wild animals screeching, running around, throwing pencils and howling. I turned off the lights and sternly asked the students to freeze but they ignored me. As a result, I went to get my Arabic co-teacher(we share 2 classes) and explained to him that I needed his assistance to translate immediately. He saw I was fighting back tears and he told me to go take a 10 minute break and proceeded to combine both our classes in his room. I had a good cry in the bathroom for 3 minutes but was embarrassed beyond belief when one of the cleaning staff saw me in the hall and gave me this sad look of pity. I'm not a robot, I am human, I do the damned best I can do but sometimes you get so run down from trying so hard and you just have to let it out. Luckily I recover quickly. We had a boring old meeting scheduled after school and I thanked my co-teacher for his help. When I asked " Mr. Ali, what is the best piece of advice you can give me for managing the afternoon class?" he replied: " it's very simple......just glue a picture of me to your back!" I broke into laughter and replied " and you should NOT glue a picture of me to your back!"
It's funny to me how you can have a totally awesome day and then boom you have a horrible day and it just sucks!
The good day:
A few weeks ago I had an amazing day. Well, the whole day wasn't perfect but it was as close to awesome as it can get when you teach all boys in the desert. I ALWAYS am so critical of myself that I often fail to see the good things. I had a formal observation that day and went into it without a care in the world. Everyone had rushed to sign up for their preferred observation time and of course being the slow poke I am, I got stuck with the first slot on the first day of the week......To make a long story short, it went well. I Appreciated the feedback I received and had no idea my head of faculty thought I was such a strong teacher. I feel I have struggled for so long in this competitive field of teaching, that I have failed to notice that I actually get it right sometimes. So the ultimate compliment that blew me away, was when I was asked if it would be ok if a group of other English teachers could come and observe my lesson in an effort to share best practice! I am kinda of freaked out but extremely flattered!
The bad day:
Then you have those bad days.....and here in the middle east, they are not just bad, they are BAAADD! I haven't cried at school here at all this year. I cried today! It was the last period, and we were playing' sleeping lions'. This is a game where everyone goes to sleep and another child is assigned as a tiger who walks around and tries to make the others laugh without touching the other students. Well, one student started growling while he was supposed to be 'asleep' and then basically the whole class turned into a jungle of wild animals screeching, running around, throwing pencils and howling. I turned off the lights and sternly asked the students to freeze but they ignored me. As a result, I went to get my Arabic co-teacher(we share 2 classes) and explained to him that I needed his assistance to translate immediately. He saw I was fighting back tears and he told me to go take a 10 minute break and proceeded to combine both our classes in his room. I had a good cry in the bathroom for 3 minutes but was embarrassed beyond belief when one of the cleaning staff saw me in the hall and gave me this sad look of pity. I'm not a robot, I am human, I do the damned best I can do but sometimes you get so run down from trying so hard and you just have to let it out. Luckily I recover quickly. We had a boring old meeting scheduled after school and I thanked my co-teacher for his help. When I asked " Mr. Ali, what is the best piece of advice you can give me for managing the afternoon class?" he replied: " it's very simple......just glue a picture of me to your back!" I broke into laughter and replied " and you should NOT glue a picture of me to your back!"
Karl Barth has said that "Laughter is the closest thing to the grace of God." Keep laughing
ReplyDeleteIt's ok to be human. We need more real humans around.
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