Day 160,

Spending the night at the archive so that I can get replacement soap for the laundry at the market before heading back to the house tomorrow.

I’ve noticed I don’t write much about my day to day teaching, much like I don’t mention every time I go over to Norman and Marva’s to bathe as per their standing invitation during the rainy season.  In general they’re all eager to learn and well-behaved.  So much so that I found it mildly eerie at first.  Usually the worst I have to deal with is quieting them all down in the morning and after recess and keeping their attention from wandering directly before recess or the end of the day.

That, and the occasional instance of one of the children - usually one of the younger ones - struggling with a particular topic.  Typically, it’s a matter of confidence rather than ability but it still requires slowing down and carefully leading them along, and I can’t give them all the individual attention that I’d like to.  The paired tutoring seems to have help with that, but I do need to constantly check to be sure the older kids are actually helping their juniors instead of doing the work for them.

All that said, they do seem to be getting more relaxed and restless lately.  Perhaps it’s because they’ve grown used to me, perhaps it’s because we’re more than halfway through the rainy season and they’re starting to get a measure of cabin fever.  Days like today get especially tiring when the rain is coming down hard enough that I can’t let them outside for the lunchtime recess.  When that happens I usually encourage them to draw on the blackboard and play such games as they can on their tablets.  Tic-tac-toe and such.  I’ve tried having a second reading time in this period, but for most of the children, further sitting and listening is the last thing they want to do at that point in the day, and for the rest of them it’s simply too loud for me to try to read over.  

That’s perhaps the part that exhausts me most on these days.  The noise.  Nineteen children in a relatively small room can’t help but get loud.  I think my ears are still ringing a little bit.  Between that and the near-compulsion I feel to make these entries every day, it’s little wonder I often find myself tired.

Perhaps it would all go more smoothly if I had better defined lesson plans instead of winging it as much as I do.  Perhaps next season.