It Pays to Plan

You know that something that I was talking about that I thought changed in school last week…that was just a fleeting illusion. Things are back to their exasperating ways. It may be that I am probably not as prepared as I should be because I was so focused on my grant stuff this weekend that I neglected my lesson plans a bit…but it’s still driving me crazy. Sometimes the kids will have flashes of brilliance and you think they understand it – and two seconds later they will write down what they just told you and you realize that their previous statement was just a lucky blurb that happened to come out of their mouth at the exact right time and answer the question you had posed. You will think they understand what an adjective is – because they happen to say 2 in a row (after doing it for over a week) but then you play a game and realize they have no clue. This week is definitely teaching me to always put the extra effort into planning the whole week, because it can only make things easier for you as the week goes on! I understand now why the teachers here don’t like teaching. If you are imprudent, like many are, you are certainly going to go crazy and hate every second of it. The kids don’t know how to be productive during unstructured time – and 50 out of 60 minutes in a Marshallese classroom is unstructured time. No wonder their teachers are ‘sick’ at least twice a week.

We are still doing lesson plan checks on a weekly basis though – so hopefully structure may begin entering some of their classes and a bit of accomplishment will inspire them to continue planning and putting effort into their job. Right now, even though we are writing lesson plans they still don’t use them, so my next goal is to get them to actually use the plans they spend time writing!