Ups and downs

Today on my way to teach my 4A class of first-year students, the infamous group of K2B girls stopped me by barricading the hallway.

"Ms. Allison, happy Thanksgiving! Please come teach our class now!"
"Girls, I have to go teach 4A! I can't teach you now!"
"We don't care about 4A! Teach us instead! If you don't, we don't care, we'll pull down our underwear!"

So, this is what I get for teaching them inappropriate Halloween rhymes? They use the rhymes against me in order to coerce me into doing whatever they want? Oh boy...

It feels good to be loved and respected by such a talented group of students, and I feel so privileged to teach them even once a week. While I love being able to reach 200 or so students, I wonder if that number of students is spreading me too thin and thus making my influence and knowledge ineffective. What if, instead of teaching 6 separate classes every week, I only taught 2 classes, but 3 times each? While I understand the inequality in a situation like that (it wouldn't be fair to all the students who didn't get to benefit from such educational investment), it would also breed a few classes of "super students" who would really benefit from my undivided attention, as opposed to 200 mediocre students who only get to interact with a native English speaker for 3 hours a week.

These are just academic fantasies of mine. I don't see them coming to fruition for a multitude of reasons, but I guess what I'm saying is... wouldn't it be nice if I could spend all week cultivating the knowledge and investing in the futures of my small group of eager, motivated, intelligent K2B girls so that they walk away from this year as confident, competent, talented young ladies who are able to go accomplish all the dreams that they always talk about achieving?

As a stark contrast to my angelic K2B girls, 4A (the group who K2B was jokingly trying to persuade me to leave behind) caused my first "I am about to lose my cool" moment as a teacher, and I ended class early for my students to think about their behavior and whether or not they feel like they are showing full respect to me and their fellow classmates. It was such a made-for-TV moment as I walked out of class with their repentant faces gazing after me. They offered a collective "We are very sorry, Teacher" to which I reassured them that I'm not mad, and that I am excited to come back next week to work with better-behaved students.

I simply don't know how many different ways (or in how many different languages) I can say "I don't care if you would prefer to talk to your friend instead of practice English during class. That's fine, and if you would like to leave class and go sit in the hallway to talk, that's fine. But do not talk in class and interrupt your classmates who do want to practice their English." I opened the classroom door and said, "If any of you would like to leave, you may go ahead now, and I will not be angry" Just as you would expect, nobody got up to leave the classroom; unfortunately (but expectedly), people still continued to talk and interrupt the class.

Would I have had a bit more patience and tolerance for noisy and disruptive students, had I not been completely bogged down with stress about renewing my visa and not giving in to suspicious and seemingly unethical offers? Perhaps, but that's irrelevant. Teachers have personal lives and personal problems, too, and especially in a country like Vietnam (when we have JUST finished celebrating Teachers' Day, for crying out loud!) I expect students to comply with my rules after 3 or 4 times of reminding them not to talk while others are talking.

So this might be my first disgruntled teacher post. Up until now, my posts have been strictly along the lines of disgruntled ex-pat, with the occasional "WOW-THIS-COUNTRY-IS-SO-AWESOME" post thrown in for good measure. But here I am, complaining about Chatty Cathy students, hoping that they will be more polite next week.

Heading off to find dinner, finish packing, and hop on a bus to Hanoi. While I don't particularly love bus travel in Vietnam, the plus side is that there is never a shortage of people-watching or fascinating "Are you serious, Vietnam?" moments, so be prepared for some Thanksgiving-themed recollections from my bus trip tomorrow.

Happy Thanksgiving to all!