Classroom Epiphany #14

Well I'm back...but still on holidays.

If there is one thing that is alright about teaching here in Spain, it's the Christmas holidays. I'm lucky enough that mine are actually paid, or at least a good portion of my hours are (wow did the parents complain). So as I face another year of playing the clown in order to pay my mortgage, an article in the so-called education section of the Guardian reaffirms my idea that language teachers for children are nothing but clowns and in the process takes all teachers down with us.

In schools that serve poorer areas, where many students' attention spans are decimated by a diet of sugary snacks, video games and 20 channels of fast-edited crud on the cathode ray tube, pupil engagement is not just an issue; it is the issue. The teacher who is not able to induce open mouths expressing awe and wonder within the first 10 minutes of a lesson is likely to witness the jaws of those mouths slacken as one, when class behaviour heads quickly in the direction of "off-task".

Teachers are under irrefutable pressure to entertain. Losing a difficult class in the first 10 minutes of a double lesson on Friday afternoon can present the poor teacher with a two-hour inferno, leading to self-doubt and misery.

While it is a joke, it is in someway true. Who's going to take responsibility for the fact that a 13yr old can't sit still and concentrate for 45 minutes? Definitely not the parents, so let's shift the blame onto the teachers (and in some cases doctors), for after all they are doing the educating, aren't they? Parents just pay the bills.

So, for resisting this absurdity, teachers like me are called boring. Surely because we don't shoot fireworks out of our asses in order to catch the little dears attention we are skirting our duties? Engaging doesn't necessarily meaning entertaining, or am I wrong?

So I guess it's go with the flow as they say. I'm going to have to start planning my classes with whoopee cushions in 2009. Next lesson on practicing the past tense.

Stage 1:
- Teacher sits down on chair and a huge fart erupts.

Stage 2:
- Ask the learners what just happened.

Stage 3:
- Focus on pronunciation of past tenses. How do you pronounce the past of fart?

Stage 4:
- Look for synonyms for fart. (let one rip, cut the cheese etc)

Stage 5:
- Superlative practice, who can let off the loudest, smelliest, etc.

Stage 6:
- Eat beans or chickpeas before next class.

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