Higher Obedience

Hello. Well after four long days of observation (meaning: I sat in the classroom, took notes, walked around, answered students’ questions and sat again) I finally taught. My cooperating teacher (CT) wanted me to observe for four days and I am glad they are behind me. I must say that all I learned through these days was a) The classroom routines, b) How boring the course content was to the CT, the students and myself, c) How students were immature and talked all the time, d) How my CT deals with misbehaviors. Lots of fun eh? I’m glad I’m in that school since I never really had to experience with classroom management before, it’s a good thing for me. I’m feeling a bit empty-handed when it comes to dealing with misbehaviors and I don’t necessarily agree or like my CT’s way of doing it, so it’s kind of interesting.

My first day went alright, the students were not particularly nice to me, although some were (some of them were actually hushing people saying, “Don’t spoil her first day!” I thought that was cute). What I liked most though, was to look through the door window and see another ESL teacher in the hallway looking at me with a big smile with her thumbs up “lipsaying”: “It’ll go well!”.

News News News! We just started a College and Careers group in my area (Verdun)! We were 8 people on Wednesday, but some people were “missing”. It’s nice. We’ll be going through the miracles of Jesus recorded in the gospel of Luke. It’s kind of crazy, Wednesday we were singing with a guitar, jambee, mandoline (only for a song) and the egg thingy. A girl brought her violin, crazy, I wonder about next week and how our neighbours will like us! Anyways, we’re making sure we don’t make much noise after 8 though.

Alright. Thanks for passing by. … Why do I thank you anyways?!

Well, my university courses and assignements for this semester are officially over and all handed in, which is a good feeling of relief. But the work is just starting since I’m spending my second half of the semester five days a week in a secondary school. Today was actually my first day of internship.

This year for my practicum, I have 5 of my CT’s (cooperating teacher) 6 groups, I counted and I’ll be teaching about 42 periods of 75 minutes each over the next five weeks. It’s not a full load for sure but it’s more than last year. I am quite excited about teaching this time. Last year with grade 3 and 4 … I wasn’t that into it, but now that I a with secondary school kids it’s different, I can joke around and be a little sarcastic and students like it, that didn’t happen in primary shool. So overall, I’ve enjoyed my first day, I felt much more at home with older students and on top of that, planning is a piece of cake since I must follow a book. My joy and challenge though is to make teaching interesting by adding and removing some stuff from the book. I’ll see how it goes. I feel much more confident than last year – probably because I have more experience now and I don’t have to plan 24/7 like I had to last year. I think that I’ll be learning about classroom management this time… something that I have not touched very much in the past years, so it’s good for me. My favourite threat for misbehaving students is the following: “If you continue, I’ll break your fingers!”. Actually, I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t work, most students are either my size or bigger.

Peace.

I know this is unbelievable, but it’s October 22 and I’m already done my semester! Usually I would finish around Dec. 12, but we went through our semester in two months instead of four so we could go on our iinternships in the second part of the semester.

The last two weeks have been quite hectic for me, just to give you a small example of how crazy it gets is the following fact: Yesterday I received 28 emails and sent 24 myself – for university assignments. I suppose that Internet is quite helpful when people don’t have time to meet and work together on projects. I am glad we are now done with our courses, we just need to hand in three more assignments… no wait, four, and we’ll be done. Well, actually we’ll be starting a practicum so the business will just be starting all over again.

I met with my cooperating teacher (CT – the teacher I’m matched with to teach for five weeks during my practicum) yesterday for the first time. I’ll be teaching at a secondary school, secondary one only. This year I was somehow dreading the internship since I had a tough experience last year, but it seems that everything will be so much easier this time. I really thank God for it, ’cause I was praying for better “conditions” this year. I didn’t learn much about teaching last year, I learned a bunch about planning though. This time I think I’ll be able to focus my attention on teaching rather than spending so much time planning. (…) You want to know about all that eh? Sorry.

So anyways, needless to say that I a tired, but thankful.

Oh also, my last post, the picture was taken on Mont Royal in Montréal. Thanks to all who guessed out of pity for my cheesy picture.

As some of you know, I’m starting a practicum/internship/stage in November. It’s my third one – I think I’ll be a little more prepared this time. Anyways, I’ve been sending emails back and forth to my cooperating teacher (the teacher I’ll be doing my practicum with) and she noticed my “signature” at the end of all my emails. I had almost forgotten about it… but it’s part of a poem that reads:

What did the Lamb that he should die?
What did the Lamb that he should need,
When the wolf sins, himself to bleed?
Richard Crashaw
Sacred Poems

She noticed it and asked me why I chose this particular poem as a signature. So it opened a conversation about Jesus dying in my stead. I don’t know where it’ll go, but please pray for her, that it will be a good opportunity for me to share Jesus Christ, that she’ll be receptive. I have no clue about her beliefs so… we’ll see! I praise God for this little door, I hadn’t thought about it!

It was around 11:00am. I had spent 1:30 of my life sitting at a desk among frustrated colleagues and a teacher who seemed to think we spoke a different language. It was break time, so I got up, needing some fresh air. And since I had eaten all my peanuts (yes I do eat peanuts during class) I left the classroom, heading for the Christian group’s booth. Every fall, there are all sorts of booths at university, advertizing all sorts of things and the Christian group has one. Neat eh? So I went there and found the Christian group leader sitting at the booth, talking with a lady. There was a chair behind the booth, beside the leader, so I sat there, waiting for the lady to leave so I could chat with him a little. She was a peculiar person. She asked about the activities that were happening with the Christian group. She noticed that the time for the activities were written on a sheet where new contacts wrote their names and email addresses. She then noticed, that the time for the meetings were not written on the pamphlet we’d given her. So she asked if she could have the contacts sheet. Obviously, we said no – no distributing the contacts info, c’mon. So we said she could photocopy the sheet under that one, which did not contain any contacts’ info. All of the sudden she got mad – real mad. She said, “You guys aren’t organized and I am a very organized person!” she started drawing lines over her own name and phone number on the contacts list that she’d written while talking, like, big lines and then circles so we wouldn’t be able to read anymore. She continued lifting her voice and telling us how disorganized we were for not having the meeting times on the pamphlets. My friend tried to explain why they weren’t on there, but she wouldn’t listen. So she finally took the sheet and tore it apart (!!!), then threw it on the table. Nice. She left. My friend and I looked at each other. We couldn’t believe it. The lady obviously had some problems. I felt bad for my friend who had his contact list in pieces. So we put it back together on the table. Then I had to leave for class. I said I was sorry about the torn sheet, but he said, “You know, I don’t have anything to do, so I’ll just copy the names and contact info onto another sheet. It’ll give me something to do.” With a smile.

Yeah. Some people are interesting.

I was at university tonight, sitting in a narrow and long classroom and it was getting a little cool so I put my grey jacket on, a little sad to hide the red letters on my tshirt that said, “Meat is Murder, Tasty, Tasty Murder”. But eh, I was getting cold.

The teacher was talking about socio-constructivism and how it works in an ESL classroom today. He talked about how it worked before, without the socio-constructivism philosophy. And this is sort of how he expained it; “Teachers used to be God, giving knowledge to the students. There was no interaction between the students, only the teachers gave knowledge, they were above the students.” (my words, not real quote). And the idea of teachers being “God” really stuck with the people in my classroom. They thought it was funny.

A little later on, a student asked the teacher if God (the teachers) could exist in the socio-constructivism philosophy in the ESL classroom. The teacher said that now teachers were no longer “God”, but rather, omnipresent, everywhere in the classroom, not above the students anymore, but helping students learn together and from one another. The girl then said something like, “Ah, it’s like, teachers are not God anymore, they’re Jesus!”

I thought this whole thing quite interesting. Just to see that the girl understood, at least to a certain extent, that Jesus was God who came among us.

I left the classroom. Walked down some stairs, then more. I walked in a tunnel, on the wrong side. I passed pop machines and mars bars, I turned left. I walked up a few stairs and noticed there was -again- something going on at the auditorium. I got through the university doors and turned left. I got my metro pass out, swiped it and got in. I walked to the other side of the rectangle, walked down the stairs, then some more stairs and turned left. I stopped and opened my book. Oh, I looked at the giant screen. 3 minutes before the next metro would be in. I got in the wagon (well, 3 minutes later). I looked around me. Again there was a grandma looking pretty … “sharp” dressed in the height of fashion (well, stuck in my generation’s clothes). And again there was someone talking to an imaginary friend, walking up and down the wagon. We stopped at one station. Than another. Until we reached the one before another one. I got out and walked the stairs. I noticed the yellow raincoat girl. I had seen her a week ago or so. She again seemed in a deep conversation with someone. But I was never able to see this “someone”. And I will not write about the … well, the rest.

I enjoy living in the city, but it feels so good to get out at times.

Well, it seems that I speak in the language of Burgess’ A Clockwork Orange.

You see, because of the strike that was ended two weeks ago, I had to spend my Saturday at university, spending eight hours in the same classroom (although we had breaks and lunch and the last one and a half hours were overtime we put in to work on a team project).

I have been quite frustrated with a project we’ve been putting together. Working with a team is never easy stuff when you’re building an LES. Ah, you don’t know what an LES is eh? Don’t worry about it. But anyways, lots of misunderstanding, immaturity, pride, selfishness, tears, bitterness and a lack of good leadership were involved. I’m glad that after a time we all resigned to simply start working as a team and humbly do what had to be done.

I am tired and sick of this project that I find somewhat uninteresting and not engaging. I’m tired of the pressure and the mending that constantly needs to be doing. People are so easily upset and bitter. I’m at a point where I don’t really care about the end-product and the grade we’ll get, I just want to be done, done with it all.

I knew you would enjoy such an entry. Sorry. The good thing right now is that my roommate is playing some nice guitar, which makes me feel like day dreaming for the rest of my days.

You remember this prophet of God in the Old Testament, he was riding his donkey and all of a sudden, his donkey turns aside and get out of the road, and again back on track, the donkey presses Balaam’s foot against the wall. Everytime, Balaam strikes his donkey. God opens the mouth of the donkey and this is what it says, “… Am I not your donkey, on which you have ridden all your life long to this day? Is it in my habit to treat you this way?” (Numbers 22:30) You know, sometimes you just need to make a “mistake” or be misinterpreted to insult someone, even though you never meant it. What is a complete nonsense to me is that people (and I included) sometimes act like Balaam.

You see, I believe I’ve always been a good “donkey” at university. Not that I am at everybody’s service, but you understand. I’ve always had good and peaceful relationships with everybody and people call me or email me when they need some comfort about some assignments, deadlines, presentations, or just when their minds blow up. I am not the perfect donkey to be sure, but I am the kind to promote peace. But the first time I sound inconsiderate, Tim says quite seriously and very upset that I insulted him. As Balaam with his donkey, hitting it for acting weird for the first time in his lifetime. Instead of being surprised and take a step back and ask me what I meant and why I sounded so inconsiderate, Tim curses me.

And just as the donkey, I am the one who’s really been insulted by the way I am treated. But you know what? I seek to show grace and try to understand why Tim treats me that way, again I try to put the pieces back in place to help rebuild the bridge. No matter the amount of work I’ll have to do. I feel we are sometimes very childish in our attitudes toward each other.

Intense afternoon. We met at Le Métropolis at 12:30 and got out around 5pm. After 8 weeks of strike, the so-called “mouvement” was gasping for breath, but not wanting to lose face, the faculty leaders proposed to lower our demands on the university, so low, so that they would be met in a day or so, which would end the strike and make us feel as if we were great victors. Some people disagreed and wanted to continue the strike with still strong demands, others were fine with the low ones and still others just wanted to be done with the strike. With a lot of ups and downs, threats and fears, the majority (finally) voted to END THE STRIKE! Classes are starting tomorrow morning!