So today was the first day back to school after recovering from LASEK surgery for a week. I figured that since there’s only 2 more weeks left for school, the students can relax a bit, so I decided to show a movie.
Apparently, I don’t care about the school anymore, since I’m not coming back, because I’m being very lazy and only showing movies. Instead, I should play some educational games, like “Hangman”, with the students.
Ok. Fine. No big deal. For the second class, I quickly prepared a couple of games to play during the 10 minute break, but as soon as the co-teacher came into class with a bunch of papers and one of those hard-drive sized usb storage device, I knew something was up, and I was correct. She told me that I would be doing an open clas today. When I complained to her that I have no idea what I would be teaching and there’s not enough time to even go over the things that she brought in for the class, I was once again told that I don’t care enough about the school or the job anymore since my contract will be over in a few days. WTF!!! I was thinking, why the hell didn’t she tell me about it on Saturday when she came over to borrow the classroom keys? With a really cold anger in her voice, she told me the that she’ll reluctantly lead the FIRST class, so that I can observe the materials, and then I can do the next one. Next one? What next one? When is the next open class? Of course, it turned out to be the third class of the day, which is right after lunch. She told me that we can go over the materials right after lunch, which will give me about 30 minutes to study whatever it is that she prepared.
So after a brief greeting to the class, she divides the class into half and tells me to take one half of the class into another room. When I asked her what I should do with them, she just told me that they can just rest until her half is done with whatever they’re doing with her and then they’ll switch. So not only am I doing nothing with the students, which was even less than why I was getting yelled at in the first place, but I won’t be observing what I’m supposed to be doing for the open class. But I figured, I still have a little time between lunch and the class to study, and I can play a game with my half of the students in the meantime. Of course, the students didn’t understand anything I tried to explain to them without the CT, and they didn’t even want to play hangman, since they thought it was boring.
Somehow, I managed to survive that open class, so after finishing lunch very quickly, I waited in my class for the CT to show up and explain what I’m supposed to be doing. The exact same thing happened. He came in about a minute before the bell and handed me the materials, expecting me to just know what the hell I’m supposed to be doing with the students. When I tried to explain to her again about the impossibility and her unreasonable expectation, I got the same speech again and she decided to do the whole thing by herself again.
3 down and one more class to go. I actually got to play one of the games that I prepared, but it took forever (about half the class time) to explain the rules for “Telephone Charades”. At least I didn’t get yelled at about not caring about the classes anymore.
So this was my first day back. There’s less than 2 weeks left before the end of the semester/classes/my contract. I’m wondering what other surprises are waiting for me tomorrow…
-Max
