Battling favoritism
Teachers of the world, I need your help! I’ve not only got my favorite classes, I’ve got my favorite pupils! I just ADORE some of these children, and others, I find tedious. Not really, but sometimes, I find myself not choosing the overly anxious children in class – the ones who know all of the answers. I find myself gravitating to the drifters, the ones who daydream or are bad or look at me, terrified that I’m going to call on them. It’s different with my 1st graders, I actually like almost all of them…in fact, I can’t name one that I don’t like right this minute. What I can tell you is that I prefer Class A to Class B. It isn’t fair, I know, but I do! Oh, and I’d love to sit Daivi down from Class B and tell him all about the benefits of LISTENING and NOT FIDGETING and NOT INSTIGATING HUGE CRYING FITS OUT OF AMY AND CECILEE. I’d also like to sit Cecilee down and tell her that pulling up her shirt in the middle of class and putting it over Tina’s head just isn’t helping. What I have learned and love is that these children are extremely hands-on. In Shanghai, my teachers at Mandarin House told me that they were not affectionate with their parents. In fact, I had one interesting conversation with a teacher who thinks that her aversion to sex evolved from a complete lack of physical affection from her mother and father. I’ve heard this theory before. Anyway, I find it very healthy that this particular generation is so warm and open with each other. I also like to see that, for the most part, boys and girls are really caring of each other. When I was in Kindergarten, I don’t particularly remember letting little Ryan Duke play with my hair or patting and soothing Nathan Belcher’s back when he got a question wrong. I remember sticking my tongue out at them and chasing them around the playground or being chased by them on the playground.
So, back to my problem with favoritism. I adore all of the boys from my 2nd grade classes. Leo, from Class A is a shy, aloof creature who always seems to be in the back of the room staring off into space. And, when I call on him to answer a question, he knows the answer 100% of the time. Then there’s Andrew whose little face is always furrowed with worry. When I returned his test paper yesterday – he got an 84% - he feigned the “Why God, why?!?” gesture with his hands and face turned skyward. I stifled a laugh and unconvincingly shook my head in admonishment. That’s the other problem. When the children are being “bad”, I rarely call them on it because I’d be fidgety too if someone expected me to remember 30 new words right after recess and think it was interesting all at the same time. Julia, my wonderful co-teacher keeps them in line, but I’m behind her trying my darndest to keep a straight face when Lewis winks at me or Georges or Mike or Jerry or Fred wiggle their shoulders in a surreptitious “hello” to me.
Class B from Grade 2 has Harold and Andy. Two round boys who cannot keep still. They also have a hard time keeping objects out of the orifices in their faces. Nostrils, mouths, and ears always have something poking out. Today, Harold’s head was resting on the desk behind him and Betty and Zena were trying to shove it off. Harold started making gargling noises and snorted and a pencil flew out of his nose and through the air between the two girls’ heads. They shrieked and Julia nearly hit the roof. I saw it all but kept my mouth shut. She likes to make examples of the children and they can turn into 10-minute diatribes and I had 30 new words to go over.
Tomorrow I’ll be on my own with the 2nd grade classes. This is the 2nd time Julia’s left me alone with both classes and the third time I will have been alone with Class A. I like it, though, because we can play a game and the children seem to retain just as much when we play games as when I’m up their in front of them doing my song and dance. Julia isn’t a big fan of games…although she did tell me she thinks I can take it easy with the lectures. This weekend is all about preparation and creative brainstorming. My fellow foreign teachers are all out celebrating Canadian Alex’s 20th (I think?) birthday tonight. Tomorrow, they’ll all go to Blue Sky. A fellow I’m not too excited about running into will most likely be out tomorrow night, so it’s stay-home for me. I’m not bothered one bit as I’ve done the going-out scene in Wuhan and don’t expect to miss much. It’s on to marking and lesson planning for me tonight. So glad to see the Internet is momentarily working with me.
