My Week.

This week has been hectic. I didn't know it but there was a concert today and all week we were preparing. I was helping but I didn't know what for. I spent the better part of two days working on making a slideshow with music to show in between the children's songs. I think it turned out well. 

After school yesterday I finally caught on that the performance was today, but when we started loading things, including 5 gigantic stair things that nearly killed me, into a moving truck I got suspicious. We moved everything into a big school across town and set up for a performance. This morning we got up early, to the church by 8:30, and made sure everything was ready. Fernando, Ana's husband, gave me his camera and told me I was in charge of photos. So for the whole program I wandered around and got tons of pictures. It's fun being the camera guy!

We put everything away afterwards and made it back to the apartment to eat at around 3:30. We ate and I took a quick nap then it was back to the school at 5:30 for some parent thing. I just made hundreds of grilled cheese sandwiches for the kids and then helped clean up afterwards.

This week was also a teacher conference for the head teachers meaning that Ana was gone for most of the week. I was in charge of her classes while she was gone. She had prepared homework for the kids so I basically just had to monitor them and make sure they did their work and didn't kill each other. Not so hard right? WRONG! These kids love to push me. They pretend they don't hear me, pretend to not understand simple commands, act dumb or simple things, and directly disobey me. I put an end to that fairly quickly with some decisive punishments, immediately taking away all recesses from the worst offenders and making the others stay late, and life got better. There is one boy though who just won't quit. When the kids finish their work for the day I let them read. A few kids had finished and were reading quietly in the corner when this boy came up to me and asked if he could go read. "Are you done with your homework?" "No." "Okay then no." I watched him finally actually start working on his large assignment, about ten minutes later he came up to me. "I'm done!" "Let me see it," He went over to the pile of papers and pulled out an assignment. I looked it over knowing full well that it wasn't his. "Is this yours?" "Oh yes!" "Then why is Iker's (other kid who I adore) name on the front?" "Oh ah...." Yeah no recess for him, and when I caught him blatantly copying answers later it was off to the principle with him!

I enjoy teaching. Most of the kids are great, I can laugh and play around with them. It kids like that one though that make my days long and tiring. I don't like having to constantly watch and punish kids. I can enjoy being a teacher this year, but it's definitely not my life career.