For all those who have never taught middle school, here’s a glimpse. For those of you hearty souls who have, this is what it’s like at a tiny school in southern Africa. Please bear in mind that these students are awesome. They want to learn and have worked so hard this year. This is just that sometimes the circumstances seem to work against our progress…
A scene from Thursday:
I stand in the middle of my L shaped “classroom” (really a converted bedroom!), six 7th graders around the small table on the short side, and eight 8th graders squished around the T configuration of desks at the long side. It’s 1:45 and the students are done with my “hopping back and forth” trick as I try to teach both classes at once. No sooner have I checked in at one table and left to the other than I hear giggles and chatting break out at the first. Adolescence fills the air, thick and intoxicating.
Beyond this chatting, loud screams and cheers emanate from the shelter/P.E. room directly kitty corner from my classroom. It is raining, and the shelter is the only option for P.E. today. Being confined seems to prompt the P.E. kids to yell even louder. I have to yell myself to get any instruction across to my students, who are only half listening because they are anxious to catch a glimpse of the game.
Just as the director and board president are spotted on the porch of our upper school house, the lights go out, and several of the 7th graders join the screaming of the P.E. class next door. “Wait! Did you just do that?” one of them beseeches me. The others laugh at her gullibility. I open the curtains wide, pray that time will speed up and that the director and board president will pass by quickly. I take a deep breath, and return to the 7th grade side of the room.
My Friday:
Because I was on my own today (Jay had to take our inherited bearded lizard, who has cancer, to the vet), the plan was to send small groups to the computer lab to type the essays we’ve been writing all week while I turned my attention to the students in the classroom. The day was meant to end with all of us in the lab and 19 typed final draft essays in my googledocs list.
Five minutes after the 8th graders head to the lab, one of the girls bops into the middle of my conversation with the 7th graders. “Um, Ms. Sarah, there’s only like two computers that are working in the lab.” I probe for details, but , in typical 8th grade fashion, she speaks in non-descript pronouns: “Well, like, the ones that are like against that one wall, there’s only like some that are working. And then those other ones are saying something and they aren’t doing stuff.”
Leaving the 7th graders to ponder the list of common phrases from their class novel, I head to the lab, checking in on the 9th graders who are working on a thinksheet involving dialogue from Of Mice and Men before I leave our building. The 9th graders, of whom there are only four, don’t mind being left alone, but a glance at one person’s sheet reveals that they need significant help to be able to tell the purpose behind each piece of dialogue, so I stop to quickly go through another example. My explanation isn’t great, but it will have to do for the moment since there are 8th graders waiting at the lab.
The lab is a mess. The students did the sensible thing: they checked that all the power was on and that the computers weren’t just sleeping. Unfortunately, one bank of computers is unplugged, one set is completely unresponsive despite being on, and one set was displaying a cryptic message that must mean “show me to a professional technician!” in HTML. I plug in the bank that was unplugged and we are able to get six computers working – not enough for the 8th grade nor their 7th grade colleagues. Suddenly I’m making an impromptu plan B.
I send the 8th graders back to the classroom and brainstorm as I follow them. The 9th graders have finished their thinksheet when we arrive, so I send them to the lab to type. Then I dig out the Lord of the Flies essay assignment that we were going to start next week in 8th grade, and quickly explain how the assignment builds on what we’ve been talking about in class. I split the kids into their reading groups to create an outline with supporting quotations from the book. I let them go outside to work at picnic tables and pray that their good nature is genuine and not just a rouse.
With the 9th graders typing and the 8th graders hopefully helping each other create outlines for the essay, I return to the 7th graders who swear that they can’t figure out any more phrases and that there are no analogies anywhere in chapters 7 or 8. I review what an analogy is and still receive blank stares, so we start perusing the chapter. One student comes up with a fantastic example and all the others jump to find out which page it’s on so they can take it and stop their own searching. I put the kaibosh on that idea, and continue the search, but no sooner have we come to a quote in which the main character calls someone an angel then we are interrupted by a needy 8th grader who “can’t find anything about his character in the book.” We finish our conversation about the angel analogy, and I allow all the rest of them to use that as their answer for question two. Then I tell them that they need to finish the book for the weekend, and that they will have the rest of the period to read quietly. They seem to protest, but I don’t have time to stay and hear it, so I leave them in order to make the rounds to 8th grade groups.
Returning to the 7th graders, I find them gabbing and laughing over magazines. “Ms. Sarah, we all want to read the end of the book at home, like on Sunday night so we’ll remember all the stuff for the class on Monday, cause if we read it now we’ll forget.” I decide it’s not worth fighting them, even though I know they’re not all going to complete the reading, and head to the lab to assist 9th graders. At least they’re reading something, right?
By the time it’s 11:45 (we have 12:00 dismissal on Friday, for which I am amazingly grateful today), students have used up all the energy they can muster for independent work, and I opt to gather them early to go over homework and dismiss them to their Friday afternoon bliss. They crowd around to get their homework journals signed, but I make them sit and review the important points on the board before I’ll sign. When the last student leaves, I sit in one of the few untucked chairs and ponder what just happened. The day started out with such a straight-forward plan…
