Mixtures of Gray

 
     Teaching in Nepal has officially become one of those experiences in life that makes me think everything from here on out will be a piece of cake. One of those experiences I think I'll refer back to with appreciation saying - well as least it's not Nepal.

First Grade

The challenges of teaching in Nepal are messy and complicated, like yards of rope all tangled together into a million knots - with me tied up in the center. It's a sticky mess of good and bad, things that you can change and can't change, and mixtures of frustration with joy. But if you learn anything from traveling, viewing other cultures, and from teaching children day after day, it's that the world is not black and white.



               Let's start with the good: my students are slowly, very slowly, learning to do simple addition. They all failed it on the first exam, so I consider this progress a great accomplishment. Two or three have subtraction down as well - though I'm almost positive they don't understand the actual concept of it. My first graders are also picking up vocabulary fast, they are truly little sponges at this age.

My 2nd Grade Class

 More good: My second graders love me. They have started giving me little handmade paper flowers and boats, and always smile when I pass by their room. I've also had fun days with the older students - playing games and explaining material much farther than most teachers do here. I've learning almost all of my first grader's names by now (though I found out there are actually 41 of them, not 34 - they just don't always all come to school). And I've had the joy of seeing an extremely reckless classroom of children fall silent and content to the act of drawing when I gave them each just one crayon (I can't begin to name the things we take for granted in the US).


    The Bad: This list could get long. First of all, the discipline has gotten out of hand. Well, it's always been out of hand, but it's gotten worse... if that's possible. I've seen first grade classrooms in the US before, I know how six-year-olds are capable of acting, but here the bad discipline (aka kids running around everywhere, hitting each other, rubbing their hands on the chalkboard, ect) is seen as normal "baby" behavior and all the teachers do is comment that their head hurts after class and write off the children as naughty. When the teachers do orient the class, they do it by hitting students, sometimes very hard, and pulling on their ears. No wonder the students think it's okay to push and hit each other.

First Grade

    All of my challenges here - uncontrollable classes, lack of materials, extremely diverse abilities in each class -  are connected to everything and everything is connected to them - connected to the poverty, the culture, and the practices at the school.  The bad discipline is connected back to Nepali culture and parenting - where literally every kid whines to get what they want. I see this with my own younger sister and with children in the community. It shows through to the classroom, where I've had one kid repetitively ask me for a pink crayon for literally five minutes straight despite the fact that I very clearly told her that she wasn't getting one.

          The discipline that works in the US doesn't work here well for so many reasons - sending a note home to parents isn't a practice that is done (most of the parents are illiterate), the principal doesn't ever deal with misbehavior, and the huge class sizes make reward systems difficult (not to mention I don't have the language to fully explain them - my star chart only lasted one day before it was ripped down and erased). Because of the discipline, my teaching is falling short. I can't play nearly any classrooms games anymore because of the bad behavior, let alone hand out crayons (literally, they can barely handle one crayon, though I'd like to give them buckets). With my energy taken up herding Samitra back to her seat and grabbing Sushil's arm to keep him from hitting the boy next to him, lessons are cut short and made unsuccessful. After trying star charts, prizes, call and responses, and resorting to lots of yelling over the loud screams and cries of the classroom, I am exhausted. I'm especially exhausted during those times when I feel like I've exhausted all of my options.

          I've sworn a few times in class - the benefit of no one knowing English - and have left a few classes on the edge of tears. But I love my students and teachers too much to give up. And the truth is - my options will never be exhausted. There's always something else to try, something else to do, something else to pull out of my tool box, even when it feels like I'm groping against its empty bottom. And sometimes I may have to let the class go up in flames and just sit in the back teaching one student to count on their fingers, but it's progress none the less. As much as I hate the system I'm stuck in, I know I'm still strong enough to swim through it, no matter how fiercely it's current throws me back.

       I visited one of my favorite student's home today as I have before. Despite the fact that I speak to her in Nepali, she answers all my questions with a "yes" or "no" in a cute Nepali accent. Even though she is only six, she has such strong motivation to learn English, and a loving mother who taught her "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star." Their one room house only speaks a little to their poverty. With the husband in Dubai, the mother brings water from a well everyday and tends to the vegetables growing near as well as taking care of her children. As I braided Reeya's hair I could tell she had lice and realized there was also no bathroom near the house. I've promised them I would print the pictures I have taken of their family for them, as they have very few pictures in the house and Reeya's mother has no way of documenting her young children's growth. They treated me to what little food they had and asked me to dance to the Nepali music they played. As I walked away from their house encompassed by the mountains, I was reminded that it's students like Reeya that fuel my fire for teaching, no matter what obstacles I may be fighting in the classroom. There are so many people in this world that have been given so little - and if I, who has been given so much, can be a part of giving them at the very least an education, then I will continue to push past challenges in order to do that.


It is frustrating to feel like you are fighting the ones you are trying to help - especially in my class of fifty-four where I can already see that the students in the back of the class have lost their motivation for learning. But when you know they deserve someone to keep fighting for them, that's exactly what you do.

Everyday is different. Some bad, some good... but all are a mixture of gray. It's far from simple.