The Joy of Teaching
7 Feb
“I never realized they needed to be painted!” a friend responded when I told him what some of the boys and I did last Sunday.
Several of the blackboards in the secondary classrooms were so riddled with permanent white pock-marks that anything chalked onto them were unreadable. One of them was inexplicably painted with glossy black paint, making it almost impossible to write on.
So on Independence Day (last Sunday, 4 February), Thusharra found an open paint shop on the other side of the river and I bought one can of blackboard paint. The boys had fun selecting the blackboards in need of painting (seven in all), taking them down, scrubbing them clean with water, and brushing each one with a fresh coat of paint. So, people, you can, too, paint one wall of your domiciles with blackboard paint and scribble away to your heart’s delight!
I’m not saying it was a big deal painting seven blackboards, but to me, it was. The project provided a new, engaging activity for several boys–something to break the monotony of weekends with their endless cricket games, naps, television (this is the really bad Sinhalese type of television programming), and little else. They learned how to apply a single coat of paint, how to brush with the grain, that you have to clean the surface before painting.
Two of the teachers came up to me the next day and said thank you. I’m glad they noticed, because many times, all I want to do is strangle them.
Berate them for chittering like hens to each other and making the students wait for five or ten minutes before the class can begin. Make a scene about how they don’t show up for their own classes and instead stuff their mouths–with their bare hands, no less!–in the teachers’ lounge. Drag them by their saris (there’s so much material to grab onto) to observe their own kids blithely cheating on exams because they can’t be bothered to sit long enough to monitor them during the examination. Break their fingers one by one because maybe with broken hands they’ll actually sign better than they do now.
I’m being unfair here. There are quite a few very good teachers. Niwathi, the advanced English teacher, is a delight to watch; many times I actually learn from her. And the former principal’s wife, who teaches Grade 5, has made her classroom the most tricked-out room in the school, with laminated papers plastered all over and handshapes in every nook and cranny, giving new meaning to the term “signing environment.”
And yes, they work under demanding circumstances. I mean, my god! Teaching deaf children! After a few months of this, I think it is an absolute miracle that I am able to string together a coherent sentence in English, much less write a college thesis paper or this blog.
But there’s so many little things they could do to make their own jobs easier and the learning experience a little smoother for everybody. Show up on time. Eat only during your off periods. Be aggressive about where your students are–find them if they’re not in your classroom. Don’t let kids get away with murde–er, cheating. Instill in them a fear of getting poor grades. Sign less, write more. Elicit feedback. Put a Sinhala dictionary in every classroom (I suppose I could do that). Encourage original expression instead of rote memorization or responding to predetermined questions. Don’t ditch school early. Give them more homework. And for god’s sake, don’t be so, so quick to leave school as soon as the closing prayers end because it only makes you look like you just can’t wait to leave. And finally, understand that you get 29 public holidays (and sometimes more) in addition to your three months off. Surely you can schedule your lives around that?
And there’s this issue of the cognitively disabled children. I’m just using the fancy term for mentally retarded, which is the term du jour at the school. I think anybody will agree with me that there are few things more wrong than placing a mentally retarded student in a deaf classroom where the teacher is using sign language. I don’t care what their reasons are—mentally retarded children, no matter how high their cognitive functions may be, cannot be placed in a classroom where the teacher is not speaking but instead flapping her hands around. They are still very much hearing people. Hire another teacher who will teach the smarter ones, and keep the three major disabilities (hearing, visual, cognitive) segregated.
Back to the teachers. Again, I say maybe I’m being unfair here. So much of what they do is inaccessible to me because I do not speak or understand Sinhala. Maybe they have a reason for everything they do. I really don’t know, and I probably never will.
Watching Rohana’s teachers also makes me wonder how I got such great teachers throughout my entire education. I am hard pressed to think of a bad one (it would be unkind to point out my P.E. teachers here; I just hated those classes, and consequently anyone who taught it). I mean, a few of my teachers were so cool I had them twice (a shout-out here to Mrs. Carrillo and Mrs. Ebeling).
Are there any bad teachers in America? Where do they go? Sri Lanka?
With respect to my own teaching, I’ve taken a new route where I am absolutely drilling into the children the 5 W’s and 2 H’s (the second H being “how many,” because that’s really very different than “how”). I’ve convinced myself that this is the way to go because it will provide them with the invaluable skill of asking questions. It also provides far less immediate gratification than teaching the names of fruits or sports, because the progress isn’t as evident or rapid.
It is my admittedly uneducated opinion that before the students can hope to reach even five percent of the way to English fluency, they need to start asking questions and understanding that language is for them to express their ideas and feelings, not for them to use to finish their homework. So by making lesson plans centered entirely on the idea of questions, maybe I’ll make that “aha” moment strike before too long.
But it gets discouraging after you say “what” a thousand times and they get it wrong. We’re coming from opposite sides of the English skill spectrum here. And think about it–they’re doubly challenged because they have little English vocabulary to work with compared with peers from English-speaking countries. Deaf children in America are at least bombarded with English words all over, so they’ve managed to develop a sense of what they are sort of supposed to look like (i.e. balloon vs xvbuygzt) and they can pluck one out of their internal vocabulary lists when constructing expressive sentences. No such luck here for the children at the Rohana Special School.
I’m ashamed to admit it, but there are times where I honestly can’t bring myself to teach one more English class. It’s draining to teach such basic English day after day. And I constantly struggle with the notion of teaching English to them in the first place–shouldn’t all this energy be spent on helping them learn their native language, Sinhala, instead of a second language? So, when I’m faced with an, “ugh, I can’t teach English right now” moment, I reach deep into myself to find some energy reserve I didn’t know existed, and teach…
Maths! For some reason, it’s a plural “Math” here (and I’ve also noticed the same usage of the plural form in the U.K. via the materials we’ve received from there). It’s electrifying to teach multiplication or fractions or exponents. Answers are always either absolutely, positively true or outrageous, bald-faced lies.
It’s disappointing that some kids in the terminal grades (10, 11) can’t divide, and I know half the problem is that they don’t get enough maths homework. Five problems is not going to make a child understand how multiplication works–they need to do it one hundred times! Unfortunately, the textbooks here aren’t as chock-full of nauseating homework problems as they are back home. They just let you try a new arithmetic concept out ten times and then move on to the next concept.
On Monday, I taught Grade 7-C the basic concept behind division–taking a number and putting its parts into a certain number of groups and then seeing how many is in each group. It was part of an activity where I was helping them make a grid on a large piece of paper so they could write out their daily bell schedule, so we had 51 centimeters on one side and had to make 10 row, so how tall should each row be? They totally got it–5 centimeters! They can do division!
Maybe I’ll become a Maths teacher in my next incarnation. For now, my main aim remains English, and I’m still doggedly confident that sooner or later, the breakthroughs will come; they’ll start thinking for themselves and realizing that they can write English spontaneously. It’ll happen; I have to believe that it will.
Hi Adam–Your comments about teaching are so interesting to me. I have not taught the deaf, but I have taught ESL for many years and here are some thoughts that might help to make your job a little less onerous:
1. Cheating–When I studied for two years in Israel, I couldn’t get over that all the kids from South America, Africa and a few other places thought cheating was a normal part of their education. We American and European students were outraged, but ultimately came to see that this was a cultural thing, and hence has to be dealt with globally.
2. Other teachers–Ditto above. My guess is that these teachers are at the bottom of the local socio-economic scale, could find no other kind of work, etc. and so buy into a cultural belief that what they do is worthless or demeaning in some way. All you can do is have a different attitude and hence lead by example.
3. Teaching strategies–i don’t know if this will help in your current situation, but when I taught ESL at the high school level I did a lot of role playing exercises, making the lesson a kind of drama. Examples would be getting a menu (or creating one) in English and creating a restaurant scene, putting chairs together so that students act out riding on a bus, taking a pretend trip to the zoo, etc. If these can be followed up with field trips to real places, things go brilliantly. Part of the reason this works so well apart from the obvious fun of it is the Vygotskian theory put into action that kids learn best in activity, so any group exercises helps them retain what they learn and put it into action. In the very same way, your blackboard painting became an English lesson, and I’ll bet they remember the words they used that day while doing a (fun) activity.
It is so difficult to work within the framework of another culture, especially one with customs so far from our own. You are to be congratulated on the effort you are making on the students’ behalf. my guess is that they are very grateful to have you and will remember you fondly long after you are gone.
Fond regards, Phyllis
I’m still hung up on the “cognitively disabled” students in deaf classes. Didn’t realize they were hearing till you made that explicit, and then I had to read the paragraph sixteen times to convince myself that’s what you said. Geez.
I cannot compare my experiences here in San Diego to yours in Sri Lanka but a lot of things you’ve said struck close to home. Like your students, most of my students have not mastered their first language, ASL, so teaching English is indeed tough.
Thanks to Phyllis, I have been inspired to incorporate drama into my lessons. As of late, I struggled with coming up with ideas how to make the community education (budgeting, getting an apartment, personal hygiene) lessons more meaningful. Now, I know what to do. It helps that I’ve done some improv in the past. Whew. Those moments onstage have paid off at last.
Thanks for sharing, Adam!
i dont know about you, but i find it amusing to think that if someone was to say “hearing impaired” or “hearing disabled” to me, i’d smack em and then nicely ask them to call me a deaf person.
and now i see this new term sprout up.. cognitively disabled. uhm.. okay. i suppose ‘mentally retarded’ isn’t a whole lot better, and mabye this is a sign of my age, but WASN’T ‘mentally retarded’ the PC term that ungracefully fell into our laps during hte PC days of the early 80s, 90s?? So now its no longer PC enough and we have to go and come up with a better feel-good term?
I can’t help but feel like a hypocrite if I were to sit here and say that “cognitively disabled” is fine with me, but yet “hearing impaired” is not. but i dont know what word(s) i’d suggest in its place either.
*shrug*
Hey Adam, another blog where i found myself just nodding in an understanding of the situations you’ve been in lately!
I think you are dealing with the teachers alot better than i did, i tried once or twice to talk to them about their actual lack of teaching but got too frustrated and concentrated on the kids. (in the most frustrating case it was trying to get the teachers who had free periods to sit with a class whose teacher was absent..ARGH!!) Niwanthi is a great teacher and so keen to try alternative methods of teaching the deaf kids, which is quite rare in Sri Lanka, right? I guess when i was at the Rohana school i had already made my mind up about what the teachers would be like from the previous Deaf school in Thihariya- i.e. INCREDIBLY frustrating, to the point of tears sometimes why they just seemed sometimes like they couldn’t care less- and i couldn’t understand why not with these brilliant kids?! However, in discussion with Nerissa and David about this, they pointed out that the predjudices against people with disablities in sri lanka were sometimes so awful, judgemental and treatment was the feeling that people with disabilities were ‘lesser’; that the teachers of ‘these people’ might feel ashamed and also looked down upon by society. I know this is just appalling, but lack of access to education and knowledge (on the teachers side!) probably means this all they know. So i totally agree with Pyllis in that you should just carry on leading by example, and hope they take inspiration. And i found it helpful to ask the teachers to join in helping me plan lessons/make games/set up activities, team teach etc
But Adam, you are truly 100% amazing for doing what you are doing and i hope to get out to sri lanka before you leave! Big love to everyone there, and you can tell Priyankara i have his 4 foot drawing of me up on my wall! Love Soph x x x
Hi Adam
What if we try to instill pride and feeling of importance in the teachers? I think they are looked down on amongst their peers for teaching in a deaf school.
The idea of the Deaf Festival we had a month ago could generate pride if it were held at the school and we got ‘eminent’ people to preside and maybe key teachers were singled out to talk etc. I think arranging it might also help to create a greater sense of involvement.
The launch of the deaf dictionary, some local press about the ‘best’ sign teachers in the district…..or an annual prize (a substantail one) for the best teacher, best attendance record etc.
We also need to get the Principal to berate the teachers re their attitude as he certainly does not have this attitude of slackness, and perhaps he could also come up with some ideas re what would ‘move’ them?
there are some really great comments here and ive pretty much texted you my thoughts already.. they were generally along the lines of wondering what biases the teachers have been instilled with by society… and wondering what resources are available to them.
I’m now thinking about the lack of examples for the teachers. If you’re told that disabled children really have no chance of learning, then how do you believe otherwise (some really great people just do, but.. its not that easy..) and how do you learn how to change your teaching techniques? by learning from other schools typically, no?? growing up at TLC we always had guest visitors from other schools who would come get a tour & they were there to talk w/ TLC’s people about what we were doing there.. and likewise — TLC has visited other schools.. it doesn’t sound like there’s the opportunity in Sri Lanka for teachers to “see otherwise” to what they’ve been taught.
I would think that just by being there — a Deaf Adult who’s gone all the way through college, who’s exhibiting the mind power you have — you’re setting an example.
Mr. Stone,
Thanks to your inspiration, I’ve started a new job as an “instructional assistant” at Theodore Roosevelt Elementary, assisting 4th graders. It remains to be seen if you’ll need to drag me by my sari (“bad teacher!”) but so far I’M busy learning new 9 year-old names like Aisha, Bunker, Kareem, Milla, Rafaella, Rahim and Sergei. (a little U.N. in Santa Monica, USA) No Adams or Harrisons so far…Oh well, back to similes, metaphors and the Gold Rush…
write on,
“Mr. Rosenfeld”
That’s awesome, Uncka Hank—that Mr. Rosenfeld’s our quite youthful 50-something
uncle, folks. And a writer/comedian/radio host/great one-liner. Instructional assistant? Gunna emulate any of Adam’s great examples?
BTW, I loved Nerissa’s idea. Often, the challenge with the system barriers is instigating internal organizational change. If the top-down style isn’t doing the kids w/ different abilities any justice, then it has to start from people that are influential to the top like David and Nerissa, the volunteers, and the exceptional Sri Lankans who think differently and are risktakers. (Like the principal). Setting an example and doing it collectively is really the key to changing people’s attitudes and perspectives. Adam, you’re already in a good place. I’ve seen how David and Nerissa respond to the issues surrounding the community and the school. I also have seen how the volunteers jump in and try to make a difference too. It seems to me that whatever issue you have to deal with, you will get the support somehow and find solutions (not overnight, but at least something to alleivate them).
Like Hank wud say…write on!