POTD 49: Resource Room

I know this may not look like much, but this is a picture from the English resource room that I helped organize this year, specifically the resources. It’s hard to believe that all the work I did in two years can fit in such a small space, but I like to think that this is more than my partners would have had than if I weren’t here. And when I showed some of the resources to one of my partners, Valentina, she hugged me out of joy.

Sometimes It’s Hard To Work With Moldovan Priorities

I had mentioned how my school has given the English department a classroom to use, which will also be a place where I can work during and after school. And this past week, the priority of the English teachers was to prepare the room. When I first saw the room, I thought I would be able to have some freedom with setting up the room in a functional way so that resources are stored well and in a logical order. And since I would be the one working in there, I thought I would get to plan the basic set up of the classroom. I was looking forward to having a classroom to arrange and decorate with my partners.

However, things weren’t going as I thought (as with most things here), nor are they going so smoothly. My partners all have their own opinions about how the room should be put together, but many of their ideas collide with one another. And many times, they turn to me to take their side. This is the whole reason why I want my focus this year to be getting my partner teachers to work together. They don’t understand how to work together without just letting one person have her way.

Furthermore, I haven’t been able to express what I want with the room. My goal was for the room to have a library-like set-up: lots of bookshelves with resources and some tables to work at. Plus I was hoping to decorate it with lots of posters teaching English grammar and vocabulary. However, my partners are not showing any interest in my opinion. When they ask my opinion, they just want me to support their idea.

Since this is the English department’s room, not just mine, and my partners will (hopefully) continue to use it once I leave, I am trying to be compromising. But right now, it feels like I’m the only one not getting heard. I was hoping to have a room that reflected all of us. And so far, all the opinions I have expressed haven’t been honored.

Even though the opinions of my partners are clashing, the one thing they all agree upon is that the priority of the classroom right now is beauty. When I first started talking to my partners about what I wanted to do, I was talking about how to have bookshelves for materials, a place for the posters, etc. But they wanted to talk about what color the curtains should be. In fact, as I sit here writing this, one of my partner teachers sent two students to clean the plants.

I’m trying to be understanding since part of the reason they’re working on the appearance is because the director wants to show the room to some officials who are coming tomorrow. But it’s really hard to be understanding when I can’t express my opinion of how to efficiently store resources in the room. I keep telling myself that this is a room for them so I need to let them set up how they would like. But many Moldovans have poor organizational skills, and I was hoping to help with this room organization.

I just have to let it go sometimes. But the room is starting to lose some of its functionality because beauty keeps being prioritized. This makes me wonder what the purpose of this room is; to develop and store resources for the English department or to impress others with a pretty room. Sometimes it is very difficult for me to work with Moldovan priorities, and I often feel like I'm working against them. I am hoping that once tomorrow has passed, I can slowly start to change the room to be more functional while keeping up the beauty Moldovans value.

New Plan for the Year

My job as an English Education volunteer is to work with Moldovan English teachers to help improve their teaching methods and techniques as well as their English skills. Last year, I taught 18 hours class hours per week with four different partner teachers. In addition to the hours in classroom, I spent at least one additional hour per week with each partner planning the weekly lessons. I helped develop new resources for the lessons I taught, and I taught my partners some new activities. My days were long and difficult.

This year, there is another English teacher returning to our school from a 3-year maternity leave (which is a typical length for maternity leave in Moldova), so my other four partners are losing many of their teaching hours. The new teacher, Lilia, has asked to not work with me right this semester, which I can completely understanding since coming back to teaching already requires a lot of figuring things out. I wouldn’t want to make an already difficult time more difficult for her. Once she feels settled in, we might be able to teach together.

With all these changes, it would be difficult for me to do the same kind of routine as last year. So I have come up with a new goal, after talking with my partners: as opposed to a partner teacher, I will work as a resource teacher. I will teach fewer hours and spend more time researching and making materials. I will work with my partners to make these things, but I will be making things for classes that I won’t necessarily be teaching. And instead of spending all my time with my partners planning every minute of every lesson, I hope to spend that time teaching my partners new activities that can apply to all lessons and as well as better ways to teach English. Last year, our planning time together really needed to focus on what exactly we are doing next lesson. So this would be more about teaching my partners rather than teaching with my partners.

I also hope to teach my partners how to work together to make teaching easier. Right now, they each kind of work independently of each other. Each of them makes their own things. And when I would plan with each individual partner, the materials we made for that class were not always things that could be shared easily. So now, if I’m working more as a resource teacher, when I’m making resources with my partners, we will make things to share with the whole English department instead of the individual teacher.

Furthermore, Tatiana told me today that our director has given the English department a classroom to use. This means we can make it into an English resource center, so there is a place to put all the resources I will be making with my partners. It also means I finally have a place to work in the school during my free periods. Last year, I felt like a refugee when I didn’t have a class to teach, having no room to work in. With this new room, I have a place where I can spend my free periods at school to work on resource development.

I’m so excited about this potential idea. I feel like I can do so many more useful things with my partners this way, and I think my partners will like this arrangement better. And I feel like it uses my skills and education better. Plus, I think I will be happier doing this kind of work. Now I just have to get Peace Corps to approve this change. Wish me luck!