First week of co-teaching

Hey all!

So this week I had my first real week of teaching and it was, well, interesting. I’m finding it a little difficult right now to actually co-teach with my counter-parts. The main problem I am facing is co-planning mainly because my counter-parts and I have different definitions on co-planning a lesson and how lesson planning should go. This week I worked with Serdar, my main counter-part, and he is a real take charge kind of guy (that’s actually kind of fitting because his name in Turkmen means “leader”) thus he came up with all of the lesson plans by himself on the first day and told me what he wanted me to do. So the first day I taught with him I just kind of followed his lead. The next day we planned a little together because I insisted on using an activity in the lesson (it took a bit of insisting, but he agreed finally) overall I felt a little better about the planning session.

The next day though (Thursday) was a bit of a disaster when it came to actually teaching. To start off, Serdar had accidently told me the wrong time to show up at the school for our lessons (I only taught 3 and they were later in the morning) so I completely missed the first lesson. That wasn’t  a big deal because Serdar was able to handle things ok without me and we talked about the misunderstanding. The next lesson was horrible though, because we had someone from the Ministry of Education show up to inspect our lesson plans and critique Serdar’s teaching. Now first off, let me say, Serdar is a wonderful teacher and a real joy to work with because he is so passionate about his work. He even uses a computer (he has his own laptop) to write out the lesson plans and will usually print them off at home and keep them in a file at school. Well, for some reason, his printer decided not to work this week and we ended up teaching the lesson off of his computer, not a big deal to us. Unfortunately, that was a huge deal to the Inspector because he came in and immediately began to yell at Serdar for being unprepared for class even after Serdar tried to explain the situation to him and showed him the lesson on the computer. Then the inspector turned to me (I had no idea who this man was until after he left by the way) and he asked me a really complicated question in Turkmen, not undertanding his question I responded in Turkmen “I’m sorry I do not understand” and asked Serdar for a translation. This further angered him and he turned to Serdar and asked him “Why doesn’t your American teacher understand Turkmen? She should know Turkmen if she is going to teach here” (all of which I understood perfectly by the way). Serdar again tried to explain the situation to him, but he didn’t really care to listen. After he finished the inspection the man chewed out Serdar for being an unprepared teacher and left in a huge huff. Thus, we didn’t even really get to teach that class. The last class that day was ok, but neither Serdar or I were on our game after the horrible meeting with the inspector. Turns out that Serdar had been labled the worst teacher at our school by the inspector when in actuality he is probably the best teacher there.   

Well, our School Director decided that Serdar should write a formal letter to the Ministry explaining the circumstances (a good idea in my opinion) and informed him of this on Friday. So during the classes we were supposed to co-teach Serdar worked with the Director to write his letter, leaving me alone to teach the lesson. Not a big deal, but I had a very difficult time trying to control the class when Serdar was gone, mainly because I do not have to language skills to control a classroom. So it was a bit of a fiasco on Friday to actually teach my lessons because none of the kids would be quite and listen while I tried to teach. So thus it was a difficult first week of actual teaching.

Fortunately, it wasn’t all negative. As I said last week I did get to also start a few clubs this week. The first one was on Thursday and that was my Student Club. I only had 4 kids show up, but that was a huge improvement from the last time I tried to do something independently with the students. I also knew all of the students and knew they were good kids who we actually interested in learning and having fun. So we started off reviewing the alphabet by singing the ABCs and playing a race game. The kids had a lot of fun and by the end were actually really good at naming all of the letters, a huge step up from where I thought they would be. My next student club is on Tuesday and I am hoping to get a few more kids to show. The major success of the week though was the teacher’s club on Friday! Yes, I did have to bribe them to come with a new book from Peace Corps, but most of them were actually genuinely interested in what I had to say. I had 12 teachers show up, with 7 from other schools and just about all of them said they would be interested in coming again the next week. Overall, that was a huge success! I can also see how my being here has already impacted some of other teachers. For example, in the classes that I do not teach with Serdar he began using a few activities that I used before the winter holiday. He noticed that the students enjoyed it and that their sentance building has improved a little because of it. Overall, that’s a point in the small victories column!

Other than a lot of teaching (which was really good I must say) the week was a little slow, but good all the same. Yesterday I actually got outside and met some new friends in Ashgabat playing soccer. My friend Tess is teaching in Ashgabat and she organized an all women’s soccer club there. She invited me to come out to the first meeting. Not having anything to do and being interested in hanging out with people I decided to go and had a blast. It was so much fun to just run around and spend time with people. It was also really fun to help teach the Turkmen girls how to play (it’s kinda against cultural norms for women to play sports here). I have to commend Tess for a great fun gender development activity. I als got to see two of the other Turkmen Teachers from our training at the soccer club, Maya and Ayna. It was great to see them and I actually found myself a new Turkmen tutor because Ayna is currently doing nothing and looking for a way to make some extra money. Now I have a weekly saturday tutoring session and soccer appointment in Ashgabat! Overall, it was a very successful and fun outing and left me exhausted when I got home. I think it was the combination of the sunshine, excercise, and cool air. Not a bad way to end a week.

Oh in other news. There is a possibility that I might have contracted my first Peace Corps illness. Without going into too much gross details I have been having a lot of stomach issues for the past 2 weeks and this week my doctor decided to do some tests for Giardia. It’s nothing major and not anything that will send me to Thailand, but a huge discomfort to me. If you don’t know what Giardia is, your probably better off, but you can look it up on google if you feel up to being grossed out. Anyways, I find out on monday if I actually have it and will be getting some meds, no worries!

I think that’s about all I got! Hope everyone has a good week!