Some much needed empathy

I reviewed my recent entries and realized they were a little slice of depression for your day. It is difficult sometimes for me to know what I am doing with this blog. I want to paint a picture of the reality here in Bolivia but it seems that I sometimes err on the side of painting just the gloomy aspects. My students have been truly delightful this week and hopefully that will help lighten the mood of the blog.

School is back in session after a month of winter vacation. I made it clear to my students that they had to complete practice work during vacation in order to continue with the class. Apparently I wasn’t threatening enough because out of about 80 students only 7 fully completed the work and maybe another 5 that started but didn’t finish. I gave them a stern talking-to during our first class back saying things like I was fully within my rights to kick them out of class. That elicited some tears but I didn’t care because I was pretty upset with them. I gave them one class to finish up and bribed the students that had finished their work to help the others for stickers. At first that was my solution because I didn’t feel like dealing with all their questions while I was so irritated but as the week went on I started to see the benefit of my intolerance/laziness.

Watching my students help each other was the highlight of the week. It was great to see the pride on their faces as all their classmates were calling on them to help. It was good practice for them to remind the others how to insert clipart or work with bullet points, etc. And quite frankly, they were probably better teachers because they knew how to explain it in way that the others would understand. The best part was when three different kids would be asking for help. Watching the frustration on their faces made me laugh. I don’t know if they made the connection that that is how their teachers feel all the time but it still made me smile inside. A little empathy goes a long way.