Classroom management's a bitch

11/15/06

Okay, so here continues the update, better late than never. I believe as we left off I was describing our Halloween goodness, so we’ll go from there. The day after our festa was a national holiday for Cape Verde, so no one had work or school, but instead I decided to take a couple of girls out to ice cream (we just recently got ice cream in Assomada! It’s imported of course), and then back to my house. But on the way back to the house we ran into Andreia and her boyfriend, who were planning to take a group of girls to Orgãos to visit a family who likes to have the girls from the Center come once in awhile to spend the afternoon. So we joined them and spent the afternoon in Orgãos. We made couscous (not the Middle Eastern couscous you may be thinking, this is a thick, heavy, cake-like food made from ground corn and flour), sang batuque songs the girls had written about the Center, and just relaxed and spent time together. You can’t help but feel calm in the more rural parts of Cape Verde’s interior, with the animals, the beautiful views, the slower pace of living, no busy streets or zillions of youth coming into town for school (students come from all over the island to go to school in Assomada), and the kind hospitality of humble Cape Verdeans. And this house has a wonderful view of Pico de Antonio, the highest point on Santiago, and all the other beautiful mountainsides, which are now beginning their descent into complete dryness as the rainy season has ended. Alas, our beautiful green has disappeared as quickly as it came, leaving dried out stalks of corn and a much browner terrain. It was beautiful while it lasted.

In any case, the afternoon in Orgãos was very peaceful, a fresh break from the “city”. And I came home with a bag full of fresh eggs from the free range chickens they have at their place, which are so good and normally twice the price at the market. So a successful afternoon. This happens to be a family who is planning to adopt one of the girls from the Center, so there tends to be a lot of interaction and all the girls know the family. I’ve been there three times in the last few weeks already.

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During that week I had started to feel like I was getting sick again. My first month at site along with the week before I left (for a total of 5 weeks) I was sick with an increasingly stubborn and yucky cold, which eventually turned into bronchitis, and then finally went on its way. Because of my extended sickness, my family sent me an entire pharmacy’s worth of cold medicine, which so happened to come in handy when the week after the Halloween party I started coming down with something. I felt the scratchy sore throat and achiness, which scared me into staying home from work on Friday, to make sure I could try and combat it before it really took hold. So I went to the Center in the morning to drop some things off and let them know I wasn’t feeling well and wanted to stay home and rest. They were very concerned and sent me on my way. Later that day, after lunchtime, Andreia and three of the girls from the Center, followed by Ivete, all came to my house to check up on me. They came so sweetly concerned, panicked that I didn’t have everything I needed, wanting to know if they could go to the market for me, if they could make my meals for me, if they could clean my house, if I needed to go the doctor and get antibiotics, anything. I was overwhelmed with the kindness and concern! I assured them I was fine and just needed to get some rest, spend the afternoon lying down and catching up on much-needed R&R, and I would assuredly be fine by Monday. Andreia was insistent, not convinced that I should even be up and walking around, and claiming that no one wants to do things like cook and clean when they’re sick (so very true), and wouldn’t accept my refusals to let them clean. So the girls swept and mopped my floor (which was embarrassingly still dirty from the Halloween party), did my dishes, and stayed and talked with me for awhile to keep me company in my hour of “need”. Never before had I experienced such a huge show of affection for a time when I was sick. It’s one thing to have your mom take care of you and nurse you back to health at home, but it’s another to be in a different culture and have people from your community come and clean your house and take care of you when you merely have the flu! Andreia said it’s a completely normal cultural thing, people just naturally come and offer what they can for the people around them when they’re sick or in need. Particularly for people who live alone—it’s assumed that you will need help with things when you are feeling under the weather. So I spent the rest of my resting day feeling very loved and lucky to be in such a caring culture. It makes sick times a lot easier to bear when you’re away from Mommy who can’t make you chicken noodle soup. It also reminded me how lucky I am to have a caring and understanding work environment, one that stretches beyond coming to the Center every day to do a job, but extends to friendship and taking care of one another. I am very blessed.

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Today I presented the behavioral chart (the monster I mentioned making earlier) to the girls, explaining what it was, how it worked, and what we hoped to come as a result. Let me just say this is why I’m not a teacher: classroom management’s a bitch. Getting up in front of a classroom of students to try and teach a class is hard enough, but trying to get a bunch of rowdy, untrained children and adolescents who are used to spending most of their lives on the streets or in unsupervised or abusive homes to pay attention and stop talking while you are explaining something is like getting the fat kid to throw away his popsicle. It doesn’t happen. And so I spent the better part of an hour trying to get through the explanation of the chart while the kids talked, shouted at each other, and yelled out their suggestions. There is no concept in Cape Verde of raising your hand or waiting your turn to talk. Even when you set the ground rules ahead of time, they don’t care to raise a hand or wait for another person to finish talking before they jump in with whatever it is they’re wanting to say. I can’t decide if it’s lack of respect for the people talking, or if it’s just that these girls have never really been taught appropriate manners when it comes to these situations—no good role models to teach them respect for one another in communication. I’ve already learned and started to accept that yelling or speaking very loudly to get your point across is a cultural thing here (remember when the mães were screaming at the girls during that one meeting and I said they were acting like children? Apparently that’s just how they communicate and it’s completely acceptable to most people here.). But I’m struggling with a balance in which to teach the girls respect and good communication skills while respecting their cultural boundaries. If nothing else getting them to wait their turn to start yelling and screaming would be an improvement.

Anyway, I have my doubts as to whether this chart will work and people will follow it, but hopefully when conflicts arise over it, no blood will be shed. As surely as I believe it’s probably raining in Seattle right now, I know there will be conflicts maybe even every day over this chart. It comes with the territory. And so patience will be needed every minute of these next two years. But if we were only willing to work with the “easy” kids what hope would the less “easy” kids have? I still swear to the end that these are good girls. There’s potential in them. They want it. Today one of the older girls who failed the 7th grade twice and found herself being potentially barred from school, as there were no spaces available in the high school, found out today that the director would allow her to come back and had found room for her in a 7th grade class. She began to cry and you could see in her eyes how badly she wanted it. Every day since school began she has come to me and Andreia asking when she would be able to go to school, if we had found her a spot yet. So not all days are hopeless. Today was a good one for her. Hopefully she’ll be able to catch up with all that she’s missed.

Okay, I have to get back to my Portuguese homework, but more to update later. Take care.