It
has been almost 2 weeks since I began working at the school. The parents arrive Monday and the kids
arrive Wednesday. We have been
spending the past 9 days in meetings learning how to fill the necessary forms
for the government, the IBO organization and for the school. As the English teacher I teach 2
separate groups of kids. Each
group has 6 hours of Math, 6 hours of English and 2 hours of IBO (doesn’t
matter what this is). Anyway, at
the beginning I was all gung-ho knowing this was going to be easy and
everything will be handed to me on a platter. With one day left of organizing my daily activities for the
kids I realized WHAT THE FUCK AM I DOING?!?!
I
have NO idea how to teach and I have NO idea WHAT to teach. No one has given me any information
about the level these kids are at, what they are supposed to be learning, the
level they should be at at the end of the year AND how to get them there. I don’t know how to make a lesson plan,
I don’t know ow to teach the alphabet, I don’t know how long things take, what
kids are interested in, what works and what doesn’t and on top of all that, the
6 week unit plan I put together (in 4 hours) was given back to me when they
realized they gave me the WRONG FORM TO FILL OUT!
I
was panicked, stressed, overwhelmed and completely frazzled. I left work early after lying to my
boss’s (kind of) and went straight to my room and slept. I slept for 3 hours before I woke
up and began to have a real panic attack.
My body started convulsing, my thoughts became chaotic, I felt sick to
my stomach, I developed a fever and my throat was killing me. For the past 9 days I was pushing back
any feeling I had about the fear that comes with starting something new and my
body was finally telling me to STOP.
I went to the hostal next door where my new friend had me lie down on a
coach and gave me “psychotherapy”.
Which of course didn’t work but it did distract me for about 5
minutes. It also helped that my
mother sat on Skype with me for god knows how long to try to help me get
organized and make me feel better.
Then my roommates and Hector all sat around me and watched as my entire
body just seemed to crumple under the pressure of the unknown. With nothing to do but let it pass, I
sat and well, let it pass. I fell
asleep at 8PM and over the course of the evening ran to the bathroom as I felt
I may vomit my guts out any minute.
It never happened, but it sure as hell felt like it might. Poor Michelle (who sleeps with me in my
bed) had to deal with my hysteria.
Anyway,
I understood it was irrational and that in 2 weeks time I will laugh at the
silliness of the evening. But, in
the moment, when I really felt helpless and full of doubt about my ability to
teach these kids and give them a solid foundation of which to start the rest of
their entire lives’ education, it was so real and terrifying for me. To have the responsibility of 40
children’s future and not even know where to hang the weather chart, a bit
drastic I would say.
So
the next day I go to work and this time I decide I am not going to work on any
lesson plans, I am only going to decorate my room with my assistant (who is the
most adorable girl ever) and I began to feel better as things started to look
more “the part”. I then went into
my counterparts room, Ivi (the Spanish teacher for my two classes) and we
started speaking about the previous evening. It turns out that last night Ivi went home as well and
cracked under the pressure and told me she bawled her eyes out for hours as her
husband and children stayed very far away from her for fear of her wrath. We were both so happy to know that the
other one felt the same type of extreme hopelessness that we hugged and laughed
for a long time. The difference
is: afterwards she went back to
her lesson plan. I went back to
cutting out pictures and drawing art.
Which means, another panic attack is bound to happen before Monday..
wait for it, wait for it, wait for it….
