Two days ago, me and 9 other teachers in the primary school here played volleyball together after school. Only one of them knew English (it took a few plays to realize that "Ben! Ben!" meant "Me! Me!" and that I should stay away from the ball), so I was at a double disaadvantage, knowing neither Turkish nor the rules of the game very well (I had no clue how to keep score). In the end it didn't matter, seeing as most of us weren't familiar with the game at all. We do have two former professional players on our faculty, so I did get a little instruction and improved throughout the evening.
But there was this magical moment when I rose majestically above the net to spike the ball into the social studies teacher's face, and, with a purely menacing form and reckless abandon, completely missed the ball, letting it hit my face and roll down my body.
Luckily, the scouts weren't watching that play.
In other news, December is here! Snuck up on you, didn't it? I'm not a fan of this phrase, but time sure seemed to go by fast. Does this mean I have to start preparing my top 10 CDs list for 2010? But living all the way out here, I don't get to buy CDs!
But this autumn seems to have passed so quickly because, in my experiences here in Istanbul, the weather has been so consistently warm and dry that I can't get my head around winter's unmistakable presence - isn't that what December means? I thought I'd have seen some snow by now. Where's the snow? (= Where are the snow holidays?)
And finally, the last thing I want to mention before I go: the terrible at which we work our kids in these schools. Over the week-long Bayram holiday, my 6th graders had (no lie) 229 pages of homework. I don't know which teachers think it's a good idea to give that kind of workload over a vacation or what parents demanded their children study so hard each and every day, but that just seems unethical to me. Not to mention bad for the children - isn't leisure time at least as important as study time for children? They are learning just as much if not more by playing with each other and exploring the world around them than they do sitting in a classroom. No wonder they act out in the classroom: there's no chance for them to be children in their outside lives either!
And this trend isn't just over the holidays. We give them a test in each subject about once each month, and because of the number of subjects they have this ends up averaging to about a test each week. This doesn't make sense at all to me. What new knowledge can you gain about a student's abilities after a month? This policy, I've learned, is thanks to overanxious parents aching to monitor their children's every move.
Another case in point: Last Saturday I taught a 4th grade "support class," an optional class offered for struggling students who need help outside of class. As much as I hate the idea of sending kids to school on Saturdays, there are some students who surely benefit from the smaller class setting. But I was shocked at the ability of the students I found myself teaching: We completed over 3 lessons worth of material in just 2 lessons because they were so proficient in English. Only 2 or 3 of them actually seemed to need special English help, and they were robbed of the attention they needed by the good students overpopulating the classroom. The presence of so many proficient students in the support classnot defeated its purpose for the struggling students and increased the pent up energy and stress in the good students.
Then, as I was leaving at the end of the half-day, I saw some of my best students from the 5th grade, including one who had last month been recognized as one of the two best students in the school. I asked why they were here, and they said their parents wanted them to study more.
Parents, don't ruin your sons' and daughters' lives. Let them live! I'm proud to say I never give homework in any of my classes unless there's something we fail to cover in class because of misbehaving students. Seriously, so much of a student's life takes place in the school. They don't need school to come home with them too.
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Preach on Sam.
ReplyDeleteIt seems like the over emphasis on studying leads to a "shoot yourself in the foot" situation. Children never get to relax and play so they find times to do that, usually in my classroom. It seems harsh.
Sam, Alan and I and one other Turkish teacher talk about his constantly. It's amazing how little free time these children get. Their recess time is hardly long enough for them to get out side before they have to turn around and come back in, and that's if the teacher lets them out on time. They have no weekend, and most of my children stay after school or come in an hour early at least once a week fro extra lessons, and I teach 7 and 8-year-olds. AGH. What happened to learning through play? What happened to learning through interaction with peers? My kids seem incapable of doing anything on the spectrum between copying words directly from the board and being absolutely out of control. We are contemplating opening up a completely different kind of school here in Turkey, although it's possible that no parents would enroll their child in the "hippy" kind of school I would open. If we do... you've got a spot in our staff.
ReplyDeleteThanks, guys! I'll definitely keep that in mind. There's a new teacher here at the high school who's introducing the "Waldorf" style of teaching to Turkey, which is a lot more progressive than what we do now. I bet she and her husband would be interested in joining up. As for the crappy schedule for the kids, the problem seems to be the parents putting on too much pressure and the state forcing so many exams down their throats. This schedule seems to go against everything Gulfem taught us!
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