The Substitute Teacher

Today one of the high school teachers was sick, so rather than my usual task of assisting in teaching classes, I was given the opportunity to teach classes by myself. I taught 2 hours of English class to 8th grade, 1 hour of English to 10th grade, and then helped teach 2 hours of Social Studies to 9th graders. It was quite fun. I enjoyed teaching the students, and for what seemed like the first time since I’ve been here, they actually paid attention and did all of their work.
One thing that has been discouraging during my time here has been the lack of respect that the students give the teachers, and their general lack of interest in their studies. This isn’t to say that all of them lack respect or dedication, but many of them do. They routinely act way out of line in class, and repeatedly fail to complete assignments. Now I know that students in schools everywhere act out in class and don’t always pay attention or listen, but this goes beyond anything I’ve seen in any school before. For example, two days ago, during the final hour of the day, the entire 8th grade class decided not to go to class, that they’d rather stay outside and hang out. One of them even walked into the classroom, saw Reyna (the teacher) and I sitting there waiting for them, walked out and went back to socializing. Had this happened once I would’ve attributed it to simple acting out, but I was told that this had been happening repeatedly with this class.
I also realize that for many of these students completing their work at home can be challenging because of the lack of resources available to many of them. At the same time, most of these students don’t even try, and the teachers here do a good job of assigning work that the students should be able to complete without assistance. Even so, it is rarely done.
That being said, it was quite encouraging today to see that the students were actually paying attention and showing somewhat of an interest in what we were studying.

En el principio ya existía la Palabra; y aquel que es la Palabra estaba con Dios y era Dios. El estaba en el principio con Dios. Por medio de él, Dios hizo todas las cosas; nada de lo que existe fue hecho sin él. En él estaba la vida, y la vida era la luz de la humanidad.
- San Juan 1:1-4