My experiments with teaching - Part I

It is strange that I am getting to teach English in a school. The popular story in my family is how I conversed with my classmate in the school bus when I was in my 2^nd standard or something. “You bring ball?” (with an enquiring expression), “I bring ball” (with a proud expression). My family also claimed for the longest time that my English remained at that level and were quite puzzled about how I could successfully court someone through English. In any case the poor students in Chandranagar do not really have a choice. There are 270 students and now there are only 4 teachers. It is just chaos in the school and any additional help in terms of teaching is welcomed with open arms. So I go there everyday to teach English to the 4^th standard students. I have two text books (an english alphabet book and an english primer book) which I have to finish my Dec 6 before I start gallivanting again.

Oh boy, where do I start? There are more than 40 students in my class. I guess around 15 or so girls and rest boys. They sit on the floor and even if the room is big they tend to sit tightly close to each other. When one opens a book it usually goes over the next ones lap. These kids are badly malnourished. They are so tiny! The biggest one must be as big nephew who is in the 1^st standard. Gosh, but I can’t imagine what it would be like if there were 40 well nourished kids in the room. Their energy levels are very high (except for a couple who seem seriously under nourished, I will have to get them checked out). Many of them have serious problems in concentrating and paying attention. The lack of discipline in this school in legendary (read Rajni’s report). I would really like those who espouse these new-age ideas of teaching to come to this class room and handle these 40 kids. Unless the teacher is someone like Meryl Streep who can hold the attention of any kind of audience spell bound, which I am surely not capable of, there is no way to teach anything to this kind of class without laying down some basic rules. Discipline vs. freedom is something the teacher has to maintain a fine balance. I resorted to time-out by sending the trouble some kid away. But they put on such a sorry face that even the Khumbu ice-fall will melt, but when they get back they start trouble the next minute.

I can give the children all the freedom to do what they want but I am not sure if they would really learn anything at the end of the class.

How do I do to hold the attention of a class of 40 kids without having to behave like Adolf Hitler? Can anyone HELP?

After the second day, I sat with around 8 kids who were either too troublesome in the class or had not learnt much at all separately for an additional hour. One kid seems to have a serious attention deficit but if I work with him one on one he has learnt the stuff. I am quite exhausted after taking one class (45 minutes) and one extra session for these 8 kids (another 30 minutes) and I ready to head back home. How do these teachers manage for the whole day?