Week 4
Last week was pretty full on. Loads of kids, many of whom were boisterous (favourite term of the teaching profession). Things of note:
A veritable of mice and men Lenny-esque pupil of mine: massive, irresponsible and powerful. What do you do when the group leader's response to poor behaviour is "He is a good boy, from good family, he is always polite, you mustn't criticise, he from good family". I don't have so much time to explain, but the leaders who take these kids on holiday are often linked to the families, and careers and stuff ride on the students going home and saying they had fun, so it gets anarchic. Incidentally the leader who forbade me from telling off his student also felt the need to hug me in the corridor and kiss me on both cheeks later to apologise for his own cowardice in the situation. The following day he tried the same put down behaviour: "Na-o-mi, are you still angry with me?" (With arms held open for a slimy embrace) and I raised both hands, gave a saccharine smile and replied "I'm absolutely fine".
The Spanish and the Italians did not have the fight that had been brewing in the end but tensions were frayed. It's a funny old situation, in the first couple of weeks when the World Cup was on I saw the Italian kids whipped into a frenzy over their nation, hand on heart singing the national anthem at the television, suffering every missed goal along with the players, celebrating jubilantly with each success. When Italy won, one student showed up for the following three days to class with the flag, which I had the privilege of touching - like some holy relic. On the other side we had the Spanish and Catalonian kids, some of whom supported Germany and France, partially in order to make divides with the Italians. We also had an international cultural evening, where the Italian students far outnumbered any other group and insisted on singing the national anthem and football songs after every performance delivered by the rest of the students. This was all led by my difficult student; even without the words of wisdom from his group leader I would not have tried to intervene when him and his posse of gym-loving friends moshed to the national anthem.
At all turns there's some identity frontier to be respected: Catalan vs. Spain, Spain vs. Italy, Italy vs. Taiwan, Taiwan vs. China, and all nested in Edinburgh, the fiercely proud capital of Scotland where an English accent is all you need to malign yourself with the average ned. Not sure where to place myself in all of this; I think it's somewhere between colonialist and globe trotting lefty hippy; I'm here instructing the world in my language which is "the most developed in the world" according to one student's written work, yet alongside this I think we should all be wandering the globe freely adopting languages and cultures.
Ah well, so much for musings. I've now developed a bit of an ear for Italian and, on occasion, like magic can pick up the thread of conversation. Also I can say "Ragazzi andiamo, veloci!" (People, lets go, quickly) and "Vamos" (lets go) pretty damn well - useful when you need to get 30 boisterous students off of a packed city bus at rush hour.
This week the school has changed entirely in character: we now have about 100 fewer students, and the ones who remain average out at about the age of 18 and are far keener to work hard. We've now got Taiwanese, Korean and Italian students, but the proportion of Italians is far lower than before so they're less dominant.
Lots of my colleagues were on shorter contracts so have departed too. The upshot of that was three days of minimal sleep as we all drank into the wee small hours together, and a very ratty tweed-clad Naomi on a Monday morning (facing a group of students who'd spent their weekend in a similar fashion no-doubt).
Anyway, will do my best to write some individual e-mails when I can. Needless to say I'm missing everyone.
A veritable of mice and men Lenny-esque pupil of mine: massive, irresponsible and powerful. What do you do when the group leader's response to poor behaviour is "He is a good boy, from good family, he is always polite, you mustn't criticise, he from good family". I don't have so much time to explain, but the leaders who take these kids on holiday are often linked to the families, and careers and stuff ride on the students going home and saying they had fun, so it gets anarchic. Incidentally the leader who forbade me from telling off his student also felt the need to hug me in the corridor and kiss me on both cheeks later to apologise for his own cowardice in the situation. The following day he tried the same put down behaviour: "Na-o-mi, are you still angry with me?" (With arms held open for a slimy embrace) and I raised both hands, gave a saccharine smile and replied "I'm absolutely fine".
The Spanish and the Italians did not have the fight that had been brewing in the end but tensions were frayed. It's a funny old situation, in the first couple of weeks when the World Cup was on I saw the Italian kids whipped into a frenzy over their nation, hand on heart singing the national anthem at the television, suffering every missed goal along with the players, celebrating jubilantly with each success. When Italy won, one student showed up for the following three days to class with the flag, which I had the privilege of touching - like some holy relic. On the other side we had the Spanish and Catalonian kids, some of whom supported Germany and France, partially in order to make divides with the Italians. We also had an international cultural evening, where the Italian students far outnumbered any other group and insisted on singing the national anthem and football songs after every performance delivered by the rest of the students. This was all led by my difficult student; even without the words of wisdom from his group leader I would not have tried to intervene when him and his posse of gym-loving friends moshed to the national anthem.
At all turns there's some identity frontier to be respected: Catalan vs. Spain, Spain vs. Italy, Italy vs. Taiwan, Taiwan vs. China, and all nested in Edinburgh, the fiercely proud capital of Scotland where an English accent is all you need to malign yourself with the average ned. Not sure where to place myself in all of this; I think it's somewhere between colonialist and globe trotting lefty hippy; I'm here instructing the world in my language which is "the most developed in the world" according to one student's written work, yet alongside this I think we should all be wandering the globe freely adopting languages and cultures.
Ah well, so much for musings. I've now developed a bit of an ear for Italian and, on occasion, like magic can pick up the thread of conversation. Also I can say "Ragazzi andiamo, veloci!" (People, lets go, quickly) and "Vamos" (lets go) pretty damn well - useful when you need to get 30 boisterous students off of a packed city bus at rush hour.
This week the school has changed entirely in character: we now have about 100 fewer students, and the ones who remain average out at about the age of 18 and are far keener to work hard. We've now got Taiwanese, Korean and Italian students, but the proportion of Italians is far lower than before so they're less dominant.
Lots of my colleagues were on shorter contracts so have departed too. The upshot of that was three days of minimal sleep as we all drank into the wee small hours together, and a very ratty tweed-clad Naomi on a Monday morning (facing a group of students who'd spent their weekend in a similar fashion no-doubt).
Anyway, will do my best to write some individual e-mails when I can. Needless to say I'm missing everyone.
posted by RTP at 5:46 AM
1 Comments:
I'm so impressed with you! And inspired to blog myself at some point. I could never handle a bunch of 14 year olds. And how one teaches English is beyond me. I barely speak the language properly! Glad you're having a good time in Edinburgh. Do you use your humor on the kids or is it lost on them via translation? I am trying to imagine you as either a very cruel school mistress who doesn't let Ana cry or as a jovial twentysomething too cool for school teacher. LOVED the story about the "ankle". Bless her. I can't wait to visit you next year. - Anthea x
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