Ready for round two?

With only 3 weeks of the first semester left after Thanksgiving, time just flew by. We had a designated review week before finals, which took place Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday on the last week of school. It was hard to keep the kids interested and engaged for a week of going back over material they hadn’t been too excited about in the first place. It got especially exasperating when some kids still didn’t understand at the end of review week or would ask me the day before the exam, “Miss, what’s going to be on the test?” We made it through review week, but I never want to play bingo or jeopardy again!

Even giving the exams was somewhat of a struggle. Each class was allotted a 90 min period to administer the exam, but I knew there was no way these kids were going to be able to concentrate or stay quiet for that long. I made my tests so that they would take no more than an hour (I had some advanced students finish in about 30 min). But then there was the problem of keeping them quiet while others still had their exams and then keeping the whole class relatively quiet during the 90 minutes so as not to disturb the classes around us. Cheating was definitely a problem (they still haven’t figured out I make more than one version of the tests even though I’ve told them), and I caught some students, but I’m sure there were others who got away with it. But, hey, if you cheated and didn’t get caught at least you were smart enough to get that far. Keeping them quiet for the entire 90 minutes was pretty much impossible. I let some kids leave the room to go outside because they were getting so crazy and I didn’t want them to disturb other students. But then I got a phone call: “Hi Abby, um this is Mrs. So and So from across the hallway. Um can you please keep your kids inside the classroom? They are disturbing my students. I hope this doesn’t happen again next period. Thanks.” Yeah, why do you think I sent them outside in the first place? They disturb everyone wherever they go!

So with exams finished on Friday we celebrated with the Christmas pageant and a school dance. The pageant was very similar to past assemblies complete with the 3 world teachers being cajoled into dancing alone (to Dancing Queen of all songs!) while the entire student body watched and cheered. The dance that took place after lunch was slightly odd in the fact that it was happening at 12 in the afternoon and all the kids were dressed in their normal clothes. But in many ways it was very similar to a middle school dance. There were the “cool” kids showing off all their dance moves. There were the clumps of girls and the clumps of guys who wanted to mingle but couldn’t find the nerve. There were the awkward kids circling the outside, wanting the join in but not really knowing how. But, of course, to Samoanize it there were teachers and administrators circling the gym and patrolling the stage carrying big sticks ready to whack the couples who got a little too close (leave room for Jesus!) or break up a fight between villages. A fight actually did break out and then everyone had to sit down and take a breather while they got a talking to.

Technically there was still school the Monday and Tuesday after that but all the WorldTeachers were excused for our mid-service meetings. I doubt there were very many students or teachers who came to school for those days anyway. At mid-service it was great to have the whole group back together again. We hadn’t all been together since the beginning of August, and a lot of people hadn’t seen the teachers in Manu’a since then either. We talked a lot about our feelings (so much fun) and beat to the death the subject of classroom management, but I did actually learn some new stuff, especially from the other science teachers, to revamp my classes for the 2^nd semester. Which starts tomorrow!

And so 2^nd semester begins whether I’m ready or not. I’m worried the kids might get a little too comfortable with me and our routine and we won’t be able to get stuff done. I’m also hoping I haven’t run out of creative and fun science activities that require little or no materials. I guess we’ll see what happens!

I was going to write about my Christmas vacation to Australia, but I’ll save it for another one because this is getting pretty long. But I now have a new working computer so blogging (along with so much other stuff) will become a lot easier. So stay tuned for “ChristmOZ.”