Kids, You’re Gonna Get Me Through This

Partner teaching is no easy task. Many days, I feel like I’m just working as their assistant, not the partner teacher who has a master in education and actually knows a lot about pedagogy and research-based teaching methods. I’m supposed to help bring student-centered activities to the lessons, but the ideas I bring to the table aren’t always welcome. Or my partners make changes without telling me. One of the reasons we team-teach is so that there is sustainability. On particularly difficult days, I feel rather useless, and I worry that all the time I spend making or planning high-quality activities will be done in vain. Right after I leave, all my work will be put on a shelf and not used. Thinking about this makes me worried how I will make it through the next 2 years.

However, over the last week, I have concluded that my students are going to be the ones that get me through these next 2 years. Their faces light up when I bring pictures or do pretty much anything different from the textbook, and they can’t wait to find out what we will do. I fuss at them in class when they are drawing or not paying attention in class. But then after class, they come to me and give the picture that they were drawing and just got in trouble in class with.

One of my favorite moments so far happened a couple days ago. I was walking to school, and one of my students (a boy who can be a particular handful, but you can’t help but love) ran to catch up with me. He was really excited about something and was talking in Romanian too fast for me understand (not that I would have understood him if he were talking slower). After a long time of him talking and me not understanding, I eventually figured out that he was telling me he did his homework (mostly because he showed it to me).

Now, he didn’t do the homework that was assigned, but he took the time to do English work outside of the classroom. Homework is not really done by the students here (this is one of the things I’m hoping to improve). So the fact that he did something, I think, is a pretty big step. It was a good feeling. These feelings are what will help me get through the next 2 years.