I’m almost paralyzed. Every time I try to get up again after a knock-down teaching challenge, I get socked over again. Mister Popup, or whatever you call those toys that people hit as hard as they can in the face, only to slug him repeatedly when he rocks back upright.

Magdalena is impossible. And in this case, there’s a lot cultural going on too.

Mexicans don’t like to be direct. They’ll do anything to avoid hurting your feelings or coming right out and saying what they mean. They don’t want to disappoint, either. Like today when I came back from Mexico City I boarded a local Pachuca bus and asked the driver twice if he stopped at Semaforo de Ceuni. Twice he said yes, even repeating my destination so we both knew we were talking about the same place. Did the bus go to Semaforo de Ceuni? No, not at all. Luckily I’ve lived here long enough to know to get off on a different road.

Today, back at Magdalena’s house, we started talking about the kids’ class I’m having trouble with. I don’t like teaching them, but I’ve been spending literally dozens of hours trying to figure out how best to serve them. They have a workbook that Magda expects them to finish, on which the test is based. I’ve realized that what I’m doing with them in content-based instruction, with grammar being something that I have to figure out how to extract. They need to know why dinosaurs went extinct: how a giant asteroid crashed into the earth and changed the climate so that… you know the story. So do they, but in Spanish, and they can’t express it in English.

These kids barely speak any English. Last class, I asked one, “How are you?” and she didn’t know what it meant. Yet they’re to comprehend and take tests on: “The Komodo dragon is also endangered. It is a very large reptile that lives on a few small islands of Indonesia. It is in danger because people are hunting it. Also, it is losing its habitat.”

And this: “Dinosaurs are not the only animals that died out. In January, 2000, the last Pyrenean ibex died in Spain. Scientists aren’t sure why it did not survive. Some say it was because of overhunting. Others believe its habitat disappeared little by little.”

In both these entries I’ve bolded the words they for-sure didn’t know. They also probably didn’t know others.

So the whole time I was in Mexico City the last two days, these kids were in the back of my mind. How can I fulfill the school’s requirement that they complete the exercises in the book to prepare for the content-based test? And how can I also do what feels right to me, which is to try to help them understand far more elementary structures — as basic as SVO syntax — rather than simply squeeze them through a broken tube? When I went to the Museo de Antropologia I saw a diorama of hunters roasting what looked to be giant lizards. I took a picture of it. “Maybe then they’ll understand ‘hunting,’ because right now they think it’s just killing for no reason.” And I snapped photos of other stuffed beasts for us to use in other exercises. On the bus I read “Five Minute Exercises” (Cambridge) looking for absolute beginner exercises that I could transform into ways to reinforce a) what the chapter wants us to cover (comparisons, simple present, simple past and wh-question formation). I took notes. The minute I came home I holed up in my room and, with notebook, stack of other Cambridge books and their text, started to write a lesson plan. Before each book exercise I would do a much more basic one so they would have some idea of what was happening, and then move  on to just getting the fecking exercise filled in correctly, just so there’s something there.

Back to Magdalena. While I was working on this, she called me to comida, a chile relleno that was too spicy and not very tasty, but that I ate all of. She did what she always does: makes fun of me for working all the time on my computer It’s true: I’m all the time on my computer, but it’s preparing lessons and doing research. I joked back with her, and reminded her that I’m doing what I’m always doing: preparing for class. I told her I’m working extra hard on stuff for the kids.

“If you want, I can take that class from you now,” she said. “You have enough hours without it.”

I don’t. I know that I don’t because I’ve counted. Also, I don’t like to quit. I told her that. “No, I’m determined to do the best I can with the kids. They’re difficult but…” And I told her a few of my ideas, none of which she listened to because she was too busy shooting them down and saying what she would do instead.” I just let it slide — none of what she said was useful to me, or I would have grabbed it — and intended to get back to work on the kids’ stuff after lunch. I must say that her response make it clear she had no confidence in me. I’ve been told I need to act more confident, so I did, saying I want to continue. But she wasn’t quite finished with me.

“Lupita’s mother says she doesn’t like the class because she doesn’t understand you.” Ah, the truth is out. She’s getting complaints from parents and parents are, after all, who it’s all about. If they parents don’t like what’s happening at school, they withdraw students and the school loses money.

I was upset, though I tried to hide it. First, because she didn’t come right out and say what she meant to say. Second, because that fecking Lupita is a troublemaker. I can tell she’s one of those popular kids, and she has a seriously snarky, superior attitude with me. But that aside, during every single exercise I ever do, I speak slowly, I explain in multiple modes, and I make sure the group understands: sometimes by having them it explain it back to me in English, and more often by having one of the two more advanced kids explain it to me in Spanish, and if they get it right, I ask them to tell the others in Spanish, so everyone understands. I give people opportunities to ask if they don’t get something. I’m always checking in. So for her to say that is untrue. She doesn’t like the class: that’s true. And that’s my problem as well as hers. But don’t lie about why. If she doesn’t understand, there are two reasons: 1) This textbook is way beyond the kids, as I’ve said many times, and it’s only hurting their chances at learning English. They can’t learn this way, but what can happen is their interest can vanish. 2) Fucking Lupita doesn’t listen to a word I say. No matter how engaging I try to make the activity, how much direct and focused attention… she’s never paying attention. Again, that’s my problem. It is saying something about my teaching: at the very least, about my teaching from this particular book. Perhaps my dislike of the so-called curriculum is shining through the activities I do. Perhaps she’s just a brat. I’d printed out five color photos of dinosaur scenes and given each of the three students at the last class a copy of one. Lupita was unhappy with hers. “It’s ugly” or something, she said. I let that go, and then right before she left I swapped hers for another. It still wasn’t good enough. “We say ‘thank you’ when someone gives us something,” I said, still sounding just like Miss West (1964).

Okay, so Magda’s trying to get me to ditch the class without saying why. Then she says she’s getting complaints from the students. My passion to a good job and, more critically, my self-esteem are plummeting by the second. Then, to complete what she’d begun, she told me it was crucial to get the kids to do the exercises in the books, because the parents have paid 350 pesos for them and want to get their money’s worth.

Well: I have been doing the exercises. And had I not, it would have been good if she’d explained that this was a requirement, not an option — and had explained in in Week One, not Week Five. I inferred that this complaint, too, was coming from Lupita’s parents. “Lupita didn’t even bring her book last time, so when we did the exercises she had no place to do them.” “Well, you should send them to me when they don’t do their homework. I count the homework in the grade.” This was the first time I’d heard anything about a grade other than the test. “That, and attendance.” I don’t take attendance. I have so few students that I know who’s there and not, and when someone’s absent I always ask her if she knows why. So all of a sudden, there are these grading criteria that she’s never said one word about. I don’t have anything written down because I don’t have to. These are teeny classes at a private after-school-school. How the fuck… I’m really sick of her popping these surprises on me.

Anyhow, so Lupita complains that she doesn’t understand, and shows her mother her workbook, which is blank because she didn’t bring the fucking book.

This whole thing is more and more like a nightmare. My self-esteem is shot right out of the sky, because I know in Magda’s mind, the student’s/students’ minds and the parents minds that I am a total fuckup.

So I was about to come back up to my room and continue to work on my lesson plan for these kids but 1) Based on what Magda said I have to rethink everything I was going to do. I had planned to do a sequence of short exercises to reinforce their ability to ask and answer questions, which they must have if they’re to do the workbook, and 2) because of that, and because I feel like a roundly condemned failure, it’s hard to summon the desire to try any longer.