Appreciating the Unappreciated (Nov. 4)

If someone were to have asked me 2 years ago where I’d be in this exact moment, it would not have crossed my mind to answer “teaching in Ukraine”. Yet here I am a month and a half later, in a country I most likely would not have been able to locate on a map. Do I enjoy it so far? Yes… Do I know how to teach? I’m learning. If I had a chance to go back and chose differently, would I? No.

“Good morning teacher, how are you?... I am fine thank you” the ripple effect sound of my 7th grade students greeting Andy and I at the beginning of our lesson. Surprisingly, I don’t go by Ms. Romero or Ms. Reyes, but rather Ms. Janira. It is tradition to call teachers by their first name and patronymic name (father’s name as one’s own). So since my father’s name is Angel, my patronymic name is Angelivna… it’s kind of sexist but it sounds cool. As a cluster, we decided not to use our patronymic name because some just sound silly. I may end up using mine once I get to my site, but for now I’m just Ms. Janira

After the 2nd week of teaching my awesome 7th grade class, I was told I’d be team teaching with Tammela in the 8th grade. Now, I don’t understand how there is such a big difference between the two grades when they are only one year apart, but it’s very noticeable. There’s a difference in class participation, behavior, and attendance. (There also seems to be violent flirting in 8th grade, which I understand the whole pulling her hair or poking his side… but this goes beyond that.) Just like in any situation, I accept the challenge and give it my best.

First time with the 8th grade
About ten minutes into class, the girl in the front is making paper airplanes, the boy in the middle is pestering another girls’ backpack, some boys in the back are chatting with each other in Ukrainian, all the while the girl I picked on to read is softly reading the paragraph from the book. It seems chaotic for a classroom of 12 students, but it’s actually not that bad… yet. At one point during the lesson, a girl straight up smacked the boy on his back for being the first to get to the card in the word game we taught them to play. It was loud and all the students laughed at what had just happened. I couldn’t believe how our innocent game of “word catch” turned into battle of the sexes. After the lesson I started thinking “Is this how it was like when I was in 8th grade?”

I remember when I was a student in middle school I didn’t care much for studying. At that age, all I wanted to do was hang out with my friends and talk about meaningless things. I may not have appreciated everything I had to do when being a middle school-er (and partially high school), but boy am I glad to have had teachers who cared about us. They were so tolerant and strict, always picking on the troubled kids to answer the difficult questions. They graded “unfairly”, or so I thought, yet were always motivating when they saw students trying.

Now that I can clearly see and acknowledge these traits, I hope to develop these same qualities as a teacher for my students. I hope that one day they may look back and appreciate the time and effort that I (and all their teachers) put into educating them for a better future. I know it sounds so cliché, but it’s the truth. None of us would be where we’re at now if it weren’t for those who taught us what we know. Although we may not appreciate it at the moment, there is always that one day where we’ll look back at certain events in our life and we’ll appreciate it… no matter how difficult it was.