11/11/08

Yesterday I made a caterpillar alphabet. On the head I attached pipe cleaners for antennas and googly eyes, courtesy Mom. The patterned green, blue, red, orange and yellow slinks up and down the wall of my fifth form classroom, as a caterpillar would.
It’s the most eye-popping visual aid they've ever seen. “What is this?!” “Woah!” So bright, so funny, so new and weird.
Jenni told a friend that her work as a Youth Development Volunteer is terrible and amazing. Terrible because everything she does is grass roots and has never been done, and amazing because everything she does is grass roots and has never been done.
Same goes for teaching.
The walls are bone bare mostly, with three hand-drawn and painted posters hung where few eyes drift. John Galsworthy and Charlotte Bronte depict modern English literature. Some written in Russian to English instead of Azeri, paint peals off the visual aids from decades of blistering sun and zero restoration.
This school year is infinitely more enjoyable than last. Teachers have adjusted to me, and I to them. They understand what I expect, and what I have had to compromise. They know that I can make up lessons on the spot, but prefer pre-written plans to follow.
I understand their customs, mostly that children and home trump work. They can plan at school but not at home where they have to cook and clean and prepare winter jam. I know that I have to tell the director what we’re doing and when we’re doing it. I know more of what they want and need, and they tell me when I don’t.
This year one of my goals is to provide a more creative environment in which to learn. Both teachers are pitching in and are totally excited. I am restoring old visual aids, swapping Dickens for Vonnegut and Hemingway, and drawing quarky vocab flashcards to make students laugh.
All this takes this takes paper and markers, I tell Nushaba. And a little imagination. We’re working on that.