of tears in class and pistachios

This is why I should never be a teacher. In English class today, I made a grade one child cry. Well, four if you really think about it. After going over short vowels (I'm actually starting to learn those suckers!), Papri and I split the class into two and Papri took her half downstairs. We got each kid to read a page in their little Dick and Jane books. Well after a couple minutes, a couple of my kids started to get a little rambunctious. Little Jenny was aimlessly flipping through her book and loudly saying random words. Diana got up to take a drink every two minutes and kept turning around to talk to Jenny. Joseph decided his book looked better on his head and Rebecca somehow lost her book and took to staring at the wall. So I patiently went to each one, put their book flat on the desk with the page turned to the right spot and pointed where another student was reading aloud from. That didn't work. They kept doing what they wanted to do until I firmly told Joseph no and stop. This is when he started to mimic me. So I went over again, put his book firmly on his desk and said no. Then he started crying--which made me panic because I have no idea what I'm doing and Joseph is one of my favourite little boys..

Somehow I made it through the last couple minutes before the Bengali teacher Papri came back with her half. I took her aside and told her what happened, hoping that she could let the kids know that they need to listen to me. So she started lecturing the class in Bangla and my heart sank to the floor as I watched the kids' expressions. How do you explain to small first graders that you can have fun with Jehanna, singing songs, being goofy, and telling stories outside but inside you have to be quiet and are not allowed to have fun? One of the kids in my half tattled on the rest in Bangla when Papri asked who had been causing trouble. Then she got little Jenny, Diana, Rebecca, and Joseph to all come up, hold my hand, and say I'm sorry. Needless to say they were all crying. I gave them all hugs, hoping to assure them it was okay on some level. Then I got Papri to translate that I really do want them to learn to read so that they can go on to grade two in January. Whether they got that message or not... well I don't know. Later in conversational English Joseph came up and gave me a hug (did you know they don't have a word that means hug in Bangla? It's not a part of their culture so they don't have a word for it).

I was bummed out after class though, so I came up to our room and cracked open my can of pistachios that I bought in Gulshen. Gulshen is the ritzy part of Dhaka where I found Cheetos, Heinz ketchup and Snickers chocolate bars. Pistachios are basically happiness in a can--you should get some asap!

I'm going to write a more interesting post now--the two didn't seem to be able to live under one heading :)

ami tomake bhalobashi