Party in the SA: A Rougher Day- Week #2 February 8th

Today the second grade was a little bit rougher than last week was. I came in very excited to work with the learners again. I had felt like we had used what we had learned from experiencing them the first week to better prepare for our day and fix it to work better with them. When physical education started, they all circled up and listened well when we were doing stretches. Then when we moved on to our activities they started to become a little difficult to contain. We tried to explain what we were doing and they seemed to get it. However, there were a couple of learners that were determined not going to pay attention or follow directions. This week again, I was not sure whether this was because they were overly excited, did not understand us, or were just trying to take advantage of the situation. These few kids then distracted the other children and drew them out of the activities as well. Eventually, no one was following directions and it seemed like chaos that we were trying to contain.

Pumle was involved in pretty much all the trouble that happened during this period and was getting on my nerves. I don’t think that he was the instigator, but was constantly being harassed. I noticed that he was slightly disadvantage from the other learners because of the condition of his foot (seemed like it had been burned badly in the past and hadn’t healed properly. A couple of other boys would taunt him until he got angry, run away, and then since his foot was in bad shape he would not be able to catch up. I tried to discipline these boys, but I’m not really quite sure how I am supposed to discipline them. They seemed to be aware of this and continued to take advantage of the situation. I tried to have a chat with Pumle about this, but he was not willing to talk very much. Although he wasn’t talking to me, he was unable to hide the fact that he was upset by this. I’m not completely sure of what is going on, but am pretty sure that he is not completely innocent in all of this either. I have come to realize that it’s not usually coincidence when one person is constantly involved in all the trouble that is around.

Later in their reading time, we made up a lesson on the Olympics and, more specifically, skiing and snowboarding in the Winter Olympics. I learned from last week that I was not sure whether they were able to understand what I was trying to explain to them, so I made a PowerPoint presentation with a lot of cool pictures to keep their attention. For this lesson we moved to Grant’s classroom to use the projector, this change of scenery along with the use of the projector caused them to be very excited. By the time they sat down, they were already being pretty loud. We quieted them a little bit, but weren’t able to find silence. I started with my presentation and they seemed to think it was pretty cool; I was right when I thought the pictures would interest them. I felt pretty sa

tisfied because I had spent a very long time looking for interesting pictures to include. Even though they were into it, they would get very excited by every new slide and erupt in yelling and screaming. This was a bitter sweet moment: they liked it, but it was causing them to once again be out of control. I then showed them some YouTube videos of skiing and snowboarding tricks. This was the only time that I had silence all day from them. They were mesmerized by these videos and were amazed. This was an extremely satisfying moment. Then when it was over, we took them on an imaginary ski trip. They enjoyed this, but when we started skiing it made a whole lot of noise and we needed to end it very quickly. After, we did a coloring project and as it went on they again spiraled out of control. The three of us then just worked the whole time to keep them in some kind of order and prayed for the period to end soon. By the time they left, we were completely exhausted and we all basically collapsed in the teacher’s lounge. As we worked there, everyone kept on telling us that they could hear our class from all different places in the school. We were a little embarrassed and hoped we hadn’t ruined anyone’s classes with our noise. We felt like we were defeated and were a little disappointed in our efforts. We did not really know what went wrong and for the rest of the day discussed how we would be able to get them excited in a more constructive way.

These feeling of exhaustion and defeat carried on for the rest of the day. As other people headed outside during our lunch, we hid inside because of our embarrassment. Then with about 10 minutes left until yoga, I decided to go outside. I saw one of the girls in my class and went over to talk to her. She was very cute and we all joked around, laughing at my expense. A couple other girls in my class joined in and I was having a good time. This moment caused all of those feelings I had been feeling to drift away and again remember how lucky I am to be able to work with these kids and, even through chaos, how much fun it really is being here. I went back inside for yoga with a big smile on my face and one in my soul as well. This was the feeling that I tried to take with me when I left. Then when I saw Pumle at the train station, I wanted to go over and experience him without the other boys bothering him and with me in a better mood. Although he had frustrated me all day, I was able to laugh, enjoy this time, and remember that all of these children really are special, even when they are annoying.

Jeff took a picture while I was changing for yoga.