June 4, 2010

June 4, 2010

I watched the sun fade into the horizon today. I did it after playing basketball.

I was planning on going to Hradec this weekend, but I have decided to stay in my city. A couple of weeks ago the head master at one of the schools I teach at gave me an English brochure for a nature preserve just outside of Novy Bydzov and because the weather has been so terrible and the weather for tomorrow is predicted to be perfect I decided this was the best opportunity to try the nature walk. I am not really sure how long it is or really what to expect. However, I figure if they went through the whole process of making a brochure, let alone an English version of the brochure, it can’t be all that bad. It will be good exercise and I have wanted to see more of the city I have been living in for nearly a year, what has seemed like a long time now.

The funny thing, this city is tiny, and yet I have barely seen any of it. I pretty much go to my typical spots and what I have seen of the city is what I have seen along the walks to those particular places. All the stuff on the walks to the two bus stops, all the stuff on my walk to the school, all the stuff on my walk to the Matrix, and all the stuff on my walk to the train station. I have really limited myself and I plan on taking advantage of living in this foreign land tomorrow.

Well, I mentioned I played basketball. I had a great time, got great exercise, but I played horribly. My team got creamed. The guy guarding me was much quicker than me and when I actually got the ball close to basket he would just grab my arms and call a foul. See that is the way it works here, which I do find interesting. The person who gets fouled is not the person who calls the foul, but the person who does the fouling. It doesn’t really work the best, but that is there system. Like tonight, the guy who was guarding me was smaller than me and I could have just let him fouling me go and scored regardless, but he would just instantly yell out, “foul,” and my team would be forced to pass the ball in from out of bounds. Even with my complaining, excuses and whining about how poorly I played do not let that deter you from what I wrote earlier, I had a good time.

As for the majority of my classes today that is a different story. My first class of the morning at 6:55 is a basketball course and never do I get too many kids to show up. Today I had four kids, two boys and two girls. Well, I always like to start off the class with one group competing against the other, shooting free throws and the first group to make 10 wins. I pitted the girls against the boys. The girls won in a close match. The boys had to run just a little, I just make them run the length of the court and back. Then I started a game of girls versus boys. The thing I find interesting is that they prefer to play full court. So, this was a game of full court two on two. Well, one of the boys is of one the laziest kids I have ever seen. I guess, I can’t say he is all that lazy because he is actually waking up early to exercise. However, during the entire game of he would just walk up and down the court unless he had the ball, barely playing an ounce of defense. Anyway, this lazy attitude lead to the girls beating the boys 14 to 3 at one point and it was at that point I decided to stop the game. I said I would start playing, but I would shoot. One of the girls through a hissing fit and walked off the court muttering something in Czech. I said, “Okay, okay, why don’t we try playing the four of you versus me.” The game, girls versus boys was just pointless. When I mentioned this idea, the boy, the lazy one, through a hissing fit and started walking off the court. Eventually, the whining and complaining stopped, it was decided that we would play four against me. Everything worked out from that point, at least, for that morning basketball class, but all their insentient whining had already gotten my day off to a bad start.

I have told you I have been working on getting my students to do more speaking by giving them a subject then allowing ten minutes to prepare. After their preparation I have them speak for one minute about their subject in front of the class and these are not difficult topics. I give them topics like my city, my friends, or something like my school.

In my first actual English course of the day, a sixth grade class, it is actually the group of the most advanced sixth graders, see at my school in Novy Bydzov they have split all the students for the English courses into categories based on their aptitude for learning English, and the objective worked perfectly. The kids all worked hard and actually handfuls were able to speak for a minute straight and even more. To help them achieve the goal I have been working on with them, speaking slowly. I have found when most of the kids are speaking, which I am sure even for adults around the world doing public speaking, they rush through what it is they have prepared, they speak as quickly as possible to get it done and over with.

The second English course was a completely different story. This was a seventh grade class and it is full of some of my worst behaved students. They are not bad at English, they actually pretty good. They are just a large group and tend to carry with them a, I just don’t care kind of attitude. I handed out the topics and set the timer for ten minutes, I spent the entire ten minutes going from one child to the next attempting to get them to prepare something for speaking. Not one of them would take the activity seriously. I was getting completely and utterly frustrated. At the end of the ten minutes I collected their work and started calling students up to speak. Each student would talk for maybe 15 seconds and say, “finished.” I would then signal for them to continue and they would just set their paper down and walk back to their desk, it was infuriating. I eventually lost my temper and through two of the kids out of class. I will not go into details of how I went about throwing these kids out of my class, but I will say I went way beyond the limits I should have.

First, I was angered at the fact this class takes nothing I say seriously and second none of the kids would be quite while one of the kids in the front of class was attempting to deliver their speech, it has been this way with this one class all year long and it does not help that I have this class on Friday, I am one of their last courses before the weekend. I almost forgot, there is one exception to the rule of this entire class. There is this one girl, who just started at the school about two weeks ago. She was going to the other elementary school in Novy Bydzov, but for some reason, I have not been told why, she switched schools. She is the sweetest girl, always trying to help me out in the class and stays completely silent through the entire class. She even put in a great effort on the assignment I gave. She doesn’t have any friends at the school yet, which may attribute to her being so well behaved.

The odd thing about it is, she doesn’t know anyone at the school, and considering these elementary schools literally are about a football field away from one another it baffles me. It is as though she had moved into a new city from 1000 miles away. But, that is the way this city works, oddly enough, if you go to one of the schools you don’t socialize very often, if ever, with kids from the other school. I had to write about her because I believe in nearly all things in life you can find a bright spot, no matter how small it may be, and how devastating it may be, she was the ray of light for me during that class. Even looking back at it right now, I feel sorry for her lack of friendship at the school, but would like to acknowledge what her manners and effort did for me today.

I did still leave for my class in Nechanice in the foulest of moods. I was just not in the right frame of mind to teach another class. I was tired, angry at myself for losing my temper, something no one should do let alone a teacher, and I was frustrated at the entire situation. I was lucky though, the woman who greets me at the school in Nechanice is one of the friendliest women I have ever met. She is a teacher at the school and speaks a little English, but is also trying to improve her English. So, she seats in my class with the children. I even assign her the same homework I do the children.

I still remember the first day I had in this village; this is a very heartwarming story. I was getting off the bus from Novy Bydzov, no one had told me where the school was and to was lost as what I was going to do. This is a village the same size as Smidary, very tiny, about a thousand people, maybe, a little more. As soon as I set my foot onto the pavement of this village I saw her, she wasn’t hard to miss. I am not sure if the children or she who had created the sign, but there it was my name written in a wide variety of colors and about a pound of glitter. It was as if I were getting off a plane and being welcomed into their village like a celebrity. She then walked me to the school, trying her best in her broken-English to ask me all types of question and tell me how excited they were to have me. Next week will be my final week at that school and it is very disappointing because it has been one of my favorite classes to teach sense I have been here. I didn’t begin teaching this class until the second half of the year, but I wish I would have had it since the beginning. It is so refreshing to have a class where all the students no matter their level are completely engaged and show a true enthusiasm to learn.

Today, the class was just sharing the assignment they had been given, which was calling their Grandmother or Grandfather and asking them about their experiences in school. The class was refreshing, as it always is, and went by quickly. I was instantly in a better mood upon stepping into the school.

When I returned to Novy Bydzov I went to the café quickly to check my email and finish the blog I should have written last night. I then went home ate a little lunch, watched one of the movies my parents sent me, and fell asleep until basketball started.

I almost forgot, before my game of basketball started, there was a game of basketball between the school I teach in Smidary and some kids from Novy Bydzov. Some of the other students from Smidary had travelled to watch their friends play and when they saw me they got all excited. It was rather funny; they even wanted to take pictures with me. I felt like a celebrity. I always find it funny that if you keep your eyes out for them, how little things can make you smile and realize this world really is a beautiful place to be. I even got to speak with Andrea briefly as she walked down Michigan Avenue in Chicago doing some shopping. Her phone ended up breaking up, but it is never a bad thing to hear from her and know she is safe. She has her test tomorrow and I know she is going to pass it with flying colors. Then it is just a matter of finding a teaching position in a city a city where those opening are depleting like my days here in Novy Bydzov.