Best Worst Day

Sometimes when I arrive at school in the morning, I find out that one or both of my co-teachers is absent. I am not, by contract, supposed to teach alone, but since there are not enough teachers at the school I usually just fly solo if my co-teachers are missing. These classes are not very productive...The students see me as the fun, cool teacher who likes to play games, talk, and laugh with them. With my co-teachers everything is great, but if I am alone in the classroom this can cause huge problems. Everyone wants to talk to me at once, to tell me about the game they want to play, to show me their homework so I will draw a heart on it, or else to talk to/fight with their peers in class because they don’t see me as an authority figure. This is not for lack of trying --- I’ve tried encouraging and rewarding good behavior, speaking in Georgian instead of English to get their attention when they aren’t listening, giving the silent treatment and waiting for the class to be silent, clapping my hands, separating students that are fighting, taking away items that they are hitting each other with, even yelling (which I am never proud of, but it’s the only way to make my voice heard above everyone else’s). To be fair, usually there aren’t too many issues, and eventually I can get everyone to do what they need to do. Today was not one of those days. Today was seriously awful. One of my students even started bleeding after being hit by a girl with an uncapped pen in her hand. I asked them, BEGGED them to be good, in English and in Georgian. I explained that I only had one month left and I wanted them to be good, and later on I even told them that they were being so naughty that I wanted to go to America today instead of in a month. They all cried “No, no, teacher! Good children, good!” but they didn’t change their behavior at all. I walked out of the classroom after 45 minutes of hell, while the three decent children in the class literally kissed my face and hands with apologies, almost crying. I walked into my next class, stared at the fourth-graders that I loved, and felt myself beginning to cry as they smiled and said in unison “Sarah! Hello, teacher! How are you?!” I managed to give a thumbs-down in response, and when they all asked “why?” I gestured that I would be back in a minute, and went to hide in the teacher’s lounge and chill out. My host mother and brother were there to ask me “What’s wrong? Are you sick?” to which I responded in tears and broken Georgian that my class had been awful. Koka tried his best to make me laugh and used my scarf to wipe the tears off my face, then walked with me hand-in-hand to my awesome fourth grade class. I love kids, but teaching is hard. It’s hard enough even when you speak the same language.

After school things almost completely turned around. I made myself a huge cup of coffee, talked to a good friend who could empathize with my bad day, and went on a walk down the dirt road that goes through my village. I ran into one of my 4^th graders, who joined me in my walk. I love this kid --- he’s crazy as I’ll get out, but he’s #1. Extremely funny, and #2. Extremely adorable. We passed the house of his cousin, one of my favorite 6^th graders, and she joined us as well. We kept walking and talking in Georgian/English until we reached another student’s house where we played hide-and-seek. They asked for help studying their English, so we all practiced together, played some more games, went on another little walk, and ended up at my 4^th grader’s house again where we picked cherries and I braided the girls’ hair. Then my 4^th grader brought me an album of photos on his mother's command. It was explained to me that his little brother had passed away 4 months prior. I went through the album filled with photos of two happy, beautiful children and we all shed a few more tears… I gave my students another round of compliments and they gave me a fresh batch of I-love-you’s as they started to walk me home (I had been gone for a few hours by now). We passed another student’s house, whose family invited us all inside. I sat and spoke Russian with my student’s parents and neighbors, I ate the best khachipurri I’ve had yet, and my students brought me a huge bouquet of roses from the garden. We finally made it home, where my host mother made us all coffee and I learned some more Georgian dancing from my students. Tomorrow I leave at 6am for “Kutaisi Day” to watch my host brother sing and see my friends teaching in other villages.

That’s all I’ve got for now. So happy to have good friends, great students, and an amazing host family.

Love,

Sarah