So I've said it many times before, and I'll say it many more times (now that it applies to me): teachers are grossly underpaid for what they do. Today was my first day of work, but before I get to that, listen to me briefly whine.
I was wrong about defeating jetlag, because after going to bed at 1am I woke up at 5...it's 1118pm...I'm still up. Then I had to call Citibank and tell them to get themselves in order and stop messing with my account. During this 20min phone call, the landlord comes for the rent, which is short because I couldn't get my money from Citi, and then the Citi rep was having a bitchfit (excuse my language) on Skype because I asked him to please hold on one moment. Then I spilled foundation everywhere, and then I went to work. Awesome.
Now, on to work! I got there at noon, and my directors (Sarah and Natasha and Braden) all showed me around and told me what was what. Sarah told me I'd have a group at 5, but the group was really half of Ryan's and hadn't been divided yet. Take book, attempt to make lesson plan, great. Then lunch at Natasha's friend's restaurant (3 course meal for $10? Don't mind if we do!), then back to lesson planning and running through the teacher's manual.
The other teachers I've met seem awesome so far, and I'm looking forward to working with them. My group of 12 teens, however, is a totally different story. The lesson was supposed to run from 510-650, but by 610 we had run through the entire thing because they didn't feel like cooperating. There was a cross between them not saying anything, speaking to each other but in Russian (which I expressly stated was NOT ALLOWED when we began the class), speaking over each other, and getting off topic. So then I tried to drag them through separable and inseparable phrasal verbs, but they were having none of it...at this point, in addition to the previous list of misbehaviors, they were also ignoring me/passing notes. Then I mistakenly thought we got out at 640 and released them, when Ryan comes running over from the next room and herding them in because, duh, we get out in 10mins. So I play a game with the only ones we were able to catch. It's hard to teach teens when you yourself still look like one, and it seemed as if they thought of me both as a peer and a bothersome authority figure at the same time...I'm going to have to switch my tactic for the next lesson on Thursday.
After my lesson, I sat in on one of Nick's to observe, although he was teaching adults instead of teens. When I finally got back to Rechnoi Vokzal (my metro stop) at about 10pm, I rewarded myself with groceries (figured I should have something besides bread, cheese, and sausage). Quick note about groceries here: SUPER super affordable. As in I got a carton of eggs, a bag of macaroni, 2 tomatoes, 3 apples, 2 liters of water, a juicebox, and a chocolate thing all for $4. Yesssss.
I go back to work tmo with a similar schedule, so for now I'll leave you with this:
I was wrong about defeating jetlag, because after going to bed at 1am I woke up at 5...it's 1118pm...I'm still up. Then I had to call Citibank and tell them to get themselves in order and stop messing with my account. During this 20min phone call, the landlord comes for the rent, which is short because I couldn't get my money from Citi, and then the Citi rep was having a bitchfit (excuse my language) on Skype because I asked him to please hold on one moment. Then I spilled foundation everywhere, and then I went to work. Awesome.
Now, on to work! I got there at noon, and my directors (Sarah and Natasha and Braden) all showed me around and told me what was what. Sarah told me I'd have a group at 5, but the group was really half of Ryan's and hadn't been divided yet. Take book, attempt to make lesson plan, great. Then lunch at Natasha's friend's restaurant (3 course meal for $10? Don't mind if we do!), then back to lesson planning and running through the teacher's manual.
The other teachers I've met seem awesome so far, and I'm looking forward to working with them. My group of 12 teens, however, is a totally different story. The lesson was supposed to run from 510-650, but by 610 we had run through the entire thing because they didn't feel like cooperating. There was a cross between them not saying anything, speaking to each other but in Russian (which I expressly stated was NOT ALLOWED when we began the class), speaking over each other, and getting off topic. So then I tried to drag them through separable and inseparable phrasal verbs, but they were having none of it...at this point, in addition to the previous list of misbehaviors, they were also ignoring me/passing notes. Then I mistakenly thought we got out at 640 and released them, when Ryan comes running over from the next room and herding them in because, duh, we get out in 10mins. So I play a game with the only ones we were able to catch. It's hard to teach teens when you yourself still look like one, and it seemed as if they thought of me both as a peer and a bothersome authority figure at the same time...I'm going to have to switch my tactic for the next lesson on Thursday.
After my lesson, I sat in on one of Nick's to observe, although he was teaching adults instead of teens. When I finally got back to Rechnoi Vokzal (my metro stop) at about 10pm, I rewarded myself with groceries (figured I should have something besides bread, cheese, and sausage). Quick note about groceries here: SUPER super affordable. As in I got a carton of eggs, a bag of macaroni, 2 tomatoes, 3 apples, 2 liters of water, a juicebox, and a chocolate thing all for $4. Yesssss.
I go back to work tmo with a similar schedule, so for now I'll leave you with this:
