It’s been 20 months working and living in Moldova, and I feel pretty accustom to daily life here. In fact, that’s why I don’t have as many blog entries anymore. So you would think that most things wouldn’t surprise me much anymore, yet I still get caught off guard with some things.
On Monday, one of my partner teachers told a student to leave the lesson to go make copies since she hadn’t made them yet. This involved the student leaving the school to go to a place that makes copies. The student had to go multiple shops, and the student missed the whole lesson.
And in another class, we were giving a test. I caught a student cheating and marked that he would receive a lower grade because of it, which is something my partner and I have been doing all year. And he just left the classroom. As far as I can tell, he won’t be making up the test either.
And then today, I was talking to another one of my partners about how I could participate more in the lessons. In the classroom with this partner, I’ve been included less and less in the lessons slowly through out the year. At this point, I was pretty much just sitting there doing nothing the whole lesson. So I wanted to come up with a way to help out and participate more, and I suggested that I work with the students struggling with English in small groups or individually. My partner replied that she would love my help and that she hadn’t asked for my help before because she didn’t want to disturb me during the lesson. I guess that why I’m not always involved in the lesson. I don’t think she completely understands my purpose in working with her.
It’s experiences like this that make me miss America and American school systems. I miss valuing education, both from the teachers and students. I miss higher expectations in schools. I miss the expectation for working hard, from all members of the school community. And while America is far from perfect, I’m starting to get excited to get back to working in the familiarity of American schools.
On Monday, one of my partner teachers told a student to leave the lesson to go make copies since she hadn’t made them yet. This involved the student leaving the school to go to a place that makes copies. The student had to go multiple shops, and the student missed the whole lesson.
And in another class, we were giving a test. I caught a student cheating and marked that he would receive a lower grade because of it, which is something my partner and I have been doing all year. And he just left the classroom. As far as I can tell, he won’t be making up the test either.
And then today, I was talking to another one of my partners about how I could participate more in the lessons. In the classroom with this partner, I’ve been included less and less in the lessons slowly through out the year. At this point, I was pretty much just sitting there doing nothing the whole lesson. So I wanted to come up with a way to help out and participate more, and I suggested that I work with the students struggling with English in small groups or individually. My partner replied that she would love my help and that she hadn’t asked for my help before because she didn’t want to disturb me during the lesson. I guess that why I’m not always involved in the lesson. I don’t think she completely understands my purpose in working with her.
It’s experiences like this that make me miss America and American school systems. I miss valuing education, both from the teachers and students. I miss higher expectations in schools. I miss the expectation for working hard, from all members of the school community. And while America is far from perfect, I’m starting to get excited to get back to working in the familiarity of American schools.
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