As mentioned here a week ago, there is a new arrangement with the story artist. Perhaps it’s the iPad with so many bells and whistles that causes the artist to disappear into the iPad and thus miss valuable input. So I changed that job so that the artist does the drawing at home, perhaps sketching a few scenes during class only, if she can keep her focus on the CI.
(I also dropped completely the quiz writer due to bad quality of quizzes. I write them and it takes me about three minutes to scribble out the quiz in L1 to on-the-spot translate as I give the quiz.)
This morning my story artist came in to ask where the story was, since I had neglected to get the story up on the class website/blog last night. A wonderful conversation ensued, compared to the past (where I always had a feeling of trying to “make” students do work). The disclaimer is that I realize I have some of the best students one could ask for in the entire world in my new building here in New Delhi.
The student came by my room to remind me to write up (from the story writer’s notes yesterday) the embedded reading so she could get the drawing done for class tomorrow (alternate day blocks). In reminding me, she went on to give me a complete description of her classmates’ rating of the story (they rate stories) – they loved it even though I thought it was rather chaotic. She went on with all kinds of details about how much fun it was for her little group of girls she sits with and how much fun they had talking about it after class.
This is the kind of approval we need! All we hear is what’s wrong with things, or at least that’s the way it often seems for teachers. But now I am encountering students who take the stories and their jobs and their participation in the stories seriously. One side point to make here is that our technical director is happy because a student who was in Japan for the week was able to Skype in and fully participate in the class with a big smile on his face.
At the completion of our conversation, as she left the room with a friend who had been waiting for her, I heard her proudly say to her friend, “Now I’m going to tell you what we do in French class.” Just the idea that kids like the class and find value in it and say so, which is something so simple and yet something that teachers seem to rarely hear (or maybe I should only speak for myself), I’ve never gotten as much positive feedback as in this current building.
It certainly has to do with the class size here – no classes over 20 students – and the culture of the school and an enlightened group of people around me including Linda Li and Zach Al Moreno. Whatever it is, my report from the field today is one of happiness, that all those years with oversized classes and much confusion and a kind of mental fighting and fear, seem to be competely over. God has given to me with both hands. I am so grateful. Thank you, God!