It's SO frustrating!

Well…the PTA meeting officially started at 4:30. So that was a bonus I suppose; but then it lasted until 7:30. So after my speech that was in the first 30 seconds I was pretty much over and out. They talked about money for a good portion of the time and from what my dad told me after really got a whole lot of nothing accomplished. Its funny, my dad always talks about how greedy and bad and lazy Marshallese people are. I tell him he should speak up and tell people that they need to start getting stuff done and taking responsibility but he says no because they are crazy and wont listen to him. So my goal is to get him to start speaking up. He is a very knowledgeable man with good ideas – he just thinks no one will listen to him unless it is about God. I am not saying everyone will listen – but he should at least try and start planting the seed of change in peoples minds.

School this week has already been so miserable. I just want to do community development here. The teachers drive me crazy and the students do too. I’ll start with the teachers. One is an alcoholic, Tari, who everyone hates and makes fun of…but he is the only one I like. Not sure how that worked out, but he is an extremely kind man and hasn’t shown up to school drunk once. Everyone says he is always drunk and a waste, but he has been doing really well this year. Of course there is a lot of time for things to change, but right now he is my guy! Then there is Movie and Fancy. Talk about Marshallese time, these women are the definition of lazy Marshallese. They are kind people with good intentions, they just have no idea how to control a class room. Apparently the parents don’t like the teachers either because they are lazy and that is why they don’t come hang around school, because they don’t like to see them. Anyway, they literally don’t do anything. About half of their class is ALWAYS running around and they look so confused when I bring a student back to class and tell them to “SIT DOWN AND STAY” They look at my like, “Why are you bringing her back in my class?” They show up to every class at least 20 minutes late and then just sit there. Movie fills the entire chalk board with paragraphs from a history or English text book and the kids sit there and write it. There is no talking, and Movie goes to the ocean to talk on her cell phone. She is the head teacher and Principle. Then there is Fancy. Fancy gives the kids one chalk board worth of work to do, the kids do it and then she sits there and corrects it while the kids run ALL OVER the school. Literally. She doesn’t say a word and just sits in her chair correcting the kids work. It drives me CRAZY!!!!! I don’t think I would care as much if I could separate my class from the rest of the school – but there is literally no division of class rooms – just a chalk board – so when the kids are running around in one class, they are running around in all the classes.

I had a meeting today after school to discuss classroom management and lesson plans with the teachers to hopefully help them out a bit and I am anxious to see how it works out. I outlined lesson plans and offered to help them every Friday for an hour or two – so that will definitely be good. And as far as classroom management I offered some ideas for creating a fun learning environment while I subtly tried to say “TAKE CONTROL OF YOUR CLASS.” I don’t know how that went over but I gave them some good ideas that I really, really hope they take advantage of.