teacher

I may have outlined this before, but over the course of two weeks I teach about 900 different students. IF there isn't testing or classes pulled for one reason or another (ha), I see my students two times a month. At the main school I am at, I have classes that are usually 30-36 students. (my country school is different - I see them each week, and the biggest class is about 12 kids. It is awesome).

I very rarely feel like a real teacher here. I'm more a zoo animal.

But this week, I had a couple "real teacher" moments:

1.) I love teaching the grade 1 (middle school) kids. They are great, and so much fun. Which makes sense, since I like the 7th graders the most back home. I am SUCH a middle school teacher.

2.) We have one class for kids with special needs, and they usually send them to my class with whatever home room they would have been in (I hope this means they go to PE and music and art and stuff like that, too...) but one of the boys has some minor behavior problems and while he knows "hihello" most days, that is about the extent of his English. Yesterday he was in class with me and I did some modifications so he was able to do SOMETHING in class, was able to get positive reinforcement (from me and from his peers), and stopped throwing stuff and generally annoying at the other kids. I know it sounds tiny, but it really made me miss being a real teacher/teaching SPED. I also got to see a great side of some of my students when they were helping to translate some basic directions for me.

Also? Kids with behavior problems LOVE me. Even if we don't speak the same language.