Whenever I talk to Magdalena about a school-related matter, she tells me things I think she should have told me sooner. Her theory, I imagine, is “let her find it out for herself.” I’d prefer more… scaffolding. If she knows that a particular child has a particular problem with a particular thing, withholding it doesn’t help anyone. She knows that Lupita, Sharon and Luz are trouble, and could have given me strategies she’s discovered work with them (“when things get out of control, get them writing”).

Only today when I brought up my challenges with the kids did she say, “Yes, I heard them all coming downstairs laughing and talking about the teacher and what they’d done to her.” It would have been good if she’d taken that knowledge and fed it to me constructively. Instead, she just laughed knowingly, and I felt that she was doing a “teacher with forty years experience reveling in the inexperience of one with zero years’ experience.” It’s hard enough teaching without passive-aggressive stuff. Not once has Magdalena forewarned me about anything that would help me, and there have been plenty of opportunities. For one thing, telling me that she had no students for me so I didn’t need to be here till a week later. Never did she say anything about what she knew about my students so I could work better with them. When it came time for the testing (as I wrote about) she didn’t tell me til the night before, when my lesson was already planned for something else. That’s when this whole kids’ class went south: between lacking crucial information and having to meet a useless deadline for a useless evaluation, I’ve been under pressure.

As I’ve said, I never wanted to teach kids and I’ve never wanted to teach beginners. I don’t have that kind of patient, calm, in command temperament. Perhaps it’s good that this reinforces what I already know.

I know that I’m most interested in working with people at an intermediate level, with enough grasp of the language that we can play with it: not so elementary that we can’t even communicate, and not so advanced that I’m in a highbrow realm, with fine grammar points. I’m interested in the creative and communicative capacity of language, rather than its elements and its sophistication. There’s a certain beauty to things made with rudimentary elements; sometimes I find the grammatically incorrect or awkward writings of a novice to be rawer and more compelling than a spit-shined piece of prose. It seems more real and close to the heart.

Take these two poems, for example. It is so full of language errors (she’s at a level slightly lower than my ideal) that it’s hard to understand, yet it’s an image with singular beauty.

To reinforce the text’s lessons on in, at and to, as well as the usage of the definite and zero article, and the simple past tense, I asked them to write a short poem beginning with “Once I traveled to…”

Somehow, eloquent ideas can shine through the simplest of language.

From Daniel (in its uncorrected state):

Once I traveled to
The universe.
In the place more dark
I saw a light,
A light as your eyes.
I wanted to go, but…
It was very late
And I had to return at home.

From Illaly (with some spelling corrections for comprehension)

Once I reach a star.
I took off the tip and I to drop
[my treasures into the treasure chest]…

This post began as a diatribe against an administration’s intentional withholding of information, for reasons of power or some other mysterious personal agenda. It’s interesting to me — though not surprising — that the administrative complications have been greater for me at ABC then for my peers at the university. It’s all about the people in higher-up positions, and not necessarily about the institution itself. One person — their policy, their ego, their beliefs (or lack thereof) — can totally govern one’s teaching experience. That’s always been true, regardless of the institution I’ve worked in. But perhaps a larger organization has some benefits: that is, possibly you have safety in numbers — peers with whom at least you can exchange ideas and complaints and frustrations, and possibly even push to make a change. But I wouldn’t k now about that. At ABC, with its staff of about four people who’ve known each other for decades and for whom teaching is a business, not an art, I am an outsider. Add to that the brevity of my internship, and all I can do is just go with the program. But were I to be in a situation like this long-term, I doubt I’d be able to do much anyway, to introduce my own ideas, to try to find ways for my students really to learn. They’re entrenched in their ways. I’m not young, but still I’m an upstart and a foreigner to boot, so the cards are stacked against me, in the hypothetical situation of being here long-term. I would HATE it.

Something to remember for the future is that it may be more important to work with someone who treats me as a colleague and not something lower, than to work for an organization that in theory is progressive, altruistic, reputable. A rotten boss at a place like that would condemn me to frustration, as is the sitatuio