After six years I seem to know how to do this thing called teaching decent enough, yet my nerves still drench me on the first day of any class with a chilly sweat, the continual fixing of my clothes, a persistent check of my notes, and nasty thoughts of incompetence. During year one of my teaching career these nerves dilapidated my teaching and stayed well beyond their welcome. Now they start to disappear upon the first glimpse of just one student’s genuine smile, something that typically takes a week, sometimes two. This year, teaching in a new country, in a different setting, with a new subject, a few things have changed. The nerves are still there but my experience has taught me how to accept them and move on. I try to start to connect with my students and set up the structures of a hard working classroom the moment the clock strikes the hour. Wait, who am I kidding, the moment the clock strikes twenty after; we are on what my students call Ecua time you know.
The first day of my third teaching cycle, this past week in Quito, started as any other, a crazy, yet nervous, teacher in the front of the room trying to get her students to know one another and how the class was going to work. Usually there is an abundance of blank stares and glances from one student to another stating the obvious,
boy, we are in for a long ride in this class. You all know the glance as we’ve all had “that” teacher. It takes about a week, sometimes two, before I have the students on board with the operations of a lively discussion based, curriculum driven, and community building course. This time around it took less than a half hour. What I did different in those first thirty minutes I’m not even sure of but in both my classes, two very different entities, somehow I had them hooked. They were laughing as if they were the oldest of friends, a phenomenon at best. Then I started to get questions, not the, “
teacher, when do we have break or may I go to the bathroom” questions but ones about the subject matter, things you can tell they have been wondering about since the last time they took an English course. I realize that they feel safe, already, and I wonder what it is that I have done to make these first moments so magical for both my students and myself. I’d like to say it was my charismatic attitude but I think the drive of my students outweigh any teaching abilities I may have.
In my morning class most of us know each other but even the newbie’s are not playing the timid game this day, with questions flying faster than a cheetah can run. The class is comprised of the old and young, the language gifted and the struggling learner yet somehow we are instantly a group. They hang on to every word I mutter and work together better than the 1992 Olympic basketball Dream Team. I believe chance has played a card in this classroom, as personalities do not clash and the craving for knowledge is insatiable in everyone. This teacher knows what she has in front of her and begins to exploit it almost immediately. Six months ago most of these students were beginners and on this first day eight English language learners deconstructed quotes by Nietzsche (an Ecua favorite), Plato and Darwin (an Ecua hero). I’m in absolute amazement as I watch them listen, respect, perform, and question. They take care of each other, knowing full well that they are only as strong as their weakest link, which is Joseph a gentleman in his early 70’s who takes these classes to “keep his brain alive”, as he states.
My night class is different, the closest to a California suburban school as you can get here in Ecuador. There are four students that would be written off by some teachers I know within seconds. One young man wearing a permanent beanie and earphones, another larger man with a demeanor that would scare anyone walking down a street at night, a teenager with the letters PUNK tattooed on the fingers of his right hand, and a middle aged woman with the spit fire of a dragon. Experience tells me not to write any of them off; that the beanie wearing music lover most likely is an amazing poet, the large menacing man really is a gentle teddy bear, and the punk rocker just wants to be heard. And the spit fire? Well I know her needs the best as she reminds me of myself, all she wants is to be respected for what she is, an intelligent independent woman, so you boost her up and make her the classroom president (a must in any Ecuadorian classroom). Although this class does not have the ability, yet, to deconstruct philosophers nor do they have the collective curiosity for information like the other class, they do want to learn English. And, on this first day they show you the lengths they will go to do just that, by working together and performing short plays that have us all rolling on the floor laughing.
I look forward to the next ten weeks and know they will not all be as invigorating as the first. Challenges are ahead. In the morning I will push the limits to see how far the students can go in their learning, this will frustrate some. At night we will all battle the exhaustion of adding on a 2 hour English class to a full days work. I’ll pull out all the stops; work every trick up my sleeve and even so we still may get tired, frustrated or bored. But we won’t stop, not after the potential was set by smiles, laughter and questions within thirty of meeting each other on the first day of class.
