Blah

Today is a blah day.  I feel fat, my a/c is giving me congestion problems, I'm wearing dirty clothes because I've been too lazy to wash my clothes by hand, and nothing sounds better than sitting on my bed-turned-couch all day sipping tea and reading Sarah Vowell's Assassination Vacation.  But here I am, dressed for school (sans that horrific and HOT jilbab), typing on my blog and trying to think of games to play so I don't have to teach.

Thursdays are always blah days.  My classes on Thursday are really bad.  The students are unruly, discipline is nonexistent, and I spend most of my time waiting for them to be quiet.  Here's an example:

A few months ago, I was doing an activity with this class that lets them talk and move around a lot.  Unbeknownst to them, I'm always trying to find fun, energetic activities to connect to the lesson to accommodate their, well, spunk.  It doesn't seem to matter what I do because I can't keep control of these students no matter what.  And it's not just me - my co-teacher gave up on them before I even got here!  A class usually has one or two bad students that rile up the class.  Bond with them and your golden.  But when a class of 43 students has 15 boys who would've been in alternative school in America at the age of 7, there's really no chance.  Especially if you can't speak the same language.  And when any form of discipline results in cheering and clapping from their cohorts, it all seems pretty pointless.

So on this particular day, we were doing an activity.  The time was up and I needed them to sit down.  Despite my many efforts of speaking to individual students, yelling over the noise, and attempting my pathetic teacher staredown, nothing worked.  So finally I thought, "Hey, they just can't see me.  I'll pull a soapbox!"  And I stood on my chair to make the announcement.

Did this work?  NO!  I got their attention all right.  They heard me speaking and they looked around to see me standing on the chair.  For just one fleeting moment I thought I'd achieved success.  And then a Dead Poet's Society scene unfolded.  Only instead of me being the thought-provoking Robin Williams and my students feeling inspired by my wit, intelligence, and compassion, they jumped on their desks and started shouting at me and each other.  I suppose it would be more accurate to liken it to the crucifixion trial of Jesus.

That's why I hate Thursdays.