Day in the Life

On Fridays I teach three classes.

The day begins with the sixth grade, all twelve of them sitting around three of the large desks in the history classroom. My host teacher Nino teaches the first, second, fifth, sixth, eighth, and nineth grade classes, but is still thought of as a kind of adjunct teacher since the other English teacher, Irina, has been at the school so much longer. As a result, Nino does not have her own classroom, and we are often scrambling to find an empty room before the bell.

The sixth-graders are working out of the third level of English World, the textbook set and curriculum that is mandatory for English classes in grades one through six. Some of the material is definitely over these students’ heads, but this class is a sharp bunch (for the most part) and we are making some slow progress.

Today we are reading “Jack and the Beanstalk.” The students are eager to volunteer, and they work themselves into a frenzy, trying to read through the simplified fairly tale so quickly I can barely pick out the English words through all of the “Um”s and “Uh”s.

After reading practice we move onto exercises using new words they have learned from the story. The two most vocal students are a pair of pretty girls, Mari and Teo, who argue about every answer in the activities.

“Mas!” Mari calls, hoping to prove Teo wrong. Her face is distorted with anguish and the plaintive timber of her voice tugs sharply on my patience as she waves her hand back forth at the level of her ear.

It is amazing how worked up the students can get about the smallest things. I’m sure my parents would think otherwise, but I don’t think I whined have as much or half as dramatically over a toy I coveted for weeks as these students do when the pieces of chalk at the board aren’t long enough, or another students gives the correct answer before they can.

The second class of the day, the fifth grade, is always a little painful. Somehow, though these students, or at least a majority of them, have had exactly the same teachers as every other class, their level of understanding falls far below the norm, and this deficit is exasperated by the school’s director requiring Nino to teach this class out of the second level textbook, instead of the first. So, we are left to teaching grammar to students who don’t even know the letter sounds.

Unfortunately, it seems to be general knowledge in the Georgian schools that if a student or group of students are not doing well, it is simply because they are lazy. Which is why, though I have tried to design and integrate outside activities giving the students a basic understanding of phonics, I’m usually told not to waste my time. If they want to learn English, they just will.

Class number three is the third grade, one of my largest classes with thirteen students (not that this many ever show up all together). It is also one of the two classes I teach with Irina, who is considered by most of the school to be the primary English teacher. My classes with Nino, while not always particularly organized or especially productive, are at least usually quiet, especially in comparison to the circus of screaming, nagging children that is third grade English.

Students are running to the board or between the desks, stealing each other’s pencils, pens, erasers, hitting one another, or vying for my attention. They wave notebooks and drawings in my face as they call my name over and over. Meanwhile, Irina is yelling instructions in Georgian to the two students in the front row who can hear her.

During one class she asked me, “Hannah, why don’t you help them with their work?”

“I have no idea what you are saying to them,” was the only reply I could give.

She laughed and placed a hand on my shoulder before slamming the other hand down on a student’s desk next to us, starting the two boys sitting there to attention.

After the third class period there is an extended break. I head to “the cave,” a small room furnished with abandoned desks and rickety benches where a sweet old woman sells cakes and sausages from behind a cramped counter. Nino and I drink coffee – unsweetened, god love that woman-from tiny china cups and munch on wide graham cracker like cookies or small hollow ones filled with jam. Every now and then a student will buy me a cupcake or large marshmallow like sweet. They hand it to me with their arm fully extended and only make eye contact long enough for me to thank them before they hurry back to the safety of their giggling friends.

Any other day I would have to quickly abandon my coffee to return to lessons before walking home. However, since today is Friday, I linger over an extra cake, stop in to see some teachers in the office, and practice my Georgian letters. This last activity always causes something of a stir. Nino is teaching me Georgian from the same book that the first graders use, and everyone enjoys looking over my shoulder as I read.

A little after noon I meet my host sister in front of the school. We are catching the twelve-thirty marshutka to Chkhorostku, she to attend a Georgian lesson and I to catch the two o’clock marshutka to Zugdidi. As I walk the path through the schoolyard from the front entrance to the gate, students wave to me enthusiastically calling “Goodbye, miss Hannah!”