School!

I realized that I’ve been writing a lot about Pohnpeian culture and not too much about my job here. There’s a very good reason for this – cultural differences are far more interesting to read about than my attempts to make a class of middle schoolers be quiet. However, to mark my six-month anniversary (February 15^th) at my permanent site, this post is going to be all about school!

The biggest challenge has been implementing co-teaching and co-planning. Peace Corps used to send volunteers into the schools to be solo teachers, but that has no sustainable effect on the school once the volunteer leaves. (Sustainability is the big word in Peace Corps right now – every project must be sustainable.) Getting co-teachers to cooperate on this is easier said than done, however. It’s still a balancing act with lots of persistence necessary on my part (why does it come as a surprise every Tuesday that we have our weekly co-planning meeting!?), but co-planning and co-teaching are now happening, amazingly enough. Only took the first six months of service to get to this point, lol!

Sixth grade is going really well! We’ve broken the students into three groups based on their reading level three days a week. I’ve been fighting for this since October, so it’s a huge relief to finally win that battle with co-teachers. It’s been really successful – the “higher” students are being challenged for the first time all year, basically. And the lowest students are finally moving at a pace that actually benefits them.

Eighth grade is also going well. We’re trying to get them to use creativity and critical thinking in their assignments. I’m so impressed with their progress! My co-teachers and I gave a presentation on developing critical thinking skills at the Pohnpei Teacher Forum this month, which was pretty exciting.

And I really don’t want to talk about 7^th grade. No, they’re not really that terrible, just not my most enjoyable class… The textbook for 7^th grade is terrible. I’m trying to find other readings to use that are closer to their reading level.

I’ve also gotten some secondary projects started up. My school got a grant from the Pohnpeian government to have a school garden, so I’ve been helping with that. The eighth graders are in charge of planting and caring for it. It’s sort of losing energy as the novelty wears off and as the year progresses. I’m also so busy with other projects that I can’t really dedicate much time to it, so it’s going to have a minimal role for the rest of the school year. But hopefully we’ll be able to get the energy back for the coming school year.

Also, since The Magic Tree House books are wildly popular with the students (I’ve actually seen students fighting over who gets to check one out!), I started a Magic Tree House reading club. (HUGE thank you to everyone who sent books!!!!) For each book they read, they have to answer three questions in their “passport.” Then they get a “stamp” based on the country setting of that specific book. This is also an attempt to improve students’ knowledge of basic geography. As is, they can’t even name the continents, I guess because it all feels rather insignificant when you’re on a tiny island… (I didn’t think a country existed that both cared less about soccer than the United States and was worse at geography than the United States, but Micronesia succeeds on both counts.)