school marm day 1

i met with V, the mother of the kids, last week at a mcdonald's across from a technical college. she gave me the teacher manuals and we discussed how to best work with each child. then this past week i proceeded to go apeshit crazy trying to prepare for class.

i headed out at 8 this morning. i got turned around because i couldn't find the actual back road, but i still arrived fifteen minutes early. no one was around except for a goose in the driveway hovering around my car. i knocked on the door and K answered - she and her sister were still getting dressed. she told me i could go to the schoolhouse where V was, so i headed over (about twenty feet) and balanced on the planks above the mud, passed a bucket of dried, rotten apples with tons - tons - of butterflies flying over and landing on, and opened the wobbly door.

V was straightening up the room (this is a one room schoolhouse). i helped her, folded up the fabric and patterns that were about, and got my stuff together.

they have three school desks that face a small chalkboard on the wall between two huge portraits of washington and lincoln. the room is a pretty big size, but feels smaller because everything is packed in - a piano, three bookshelves, a church pew (where i sat to teach), a standup bass on it side (borrowed from a friend), maps of the us, a globe, a manual pencil sharpener that doesn't work so they had to bring in the other manual pencil sharpener from the house, books and books and books and extra chairs, and a radio with quiet classical music playing.

after getting some things put away and other things merely moved, it was time to start. it was just plain overwhelming and anxiety making and terrifying - maybe because V wanted to sit in and watch. but i love the kids so i tried my best to tell them about writing and english and all the rules and telling a story and finding your own voice. and hopefully i didn't sound crazy. and then we got down to work.

i started with the older two, R and J, and we reviewed capitalization and punctuation. this is where i feel like maybe i shouldn't be a teacher because when i looked over everything last night i thought that it was really dumb that they even have a chapter like this because, really, ain't it obvious, but then i remember that i'm not 12. so i read from the book and tried to use examples i thought of, but then read some more and just felt like i had no idea what i was talking about even though i did, but i didn't want to accidentally give them little hints that were completely wrong. but V was in the room when i had to remind the kids to always capitalize the Lord. )we talked about god at the mcdonald's and i've always known the family was religious and i'm fine with that and i'm fine with teaching them however the parents feel they should be taught as long as they are learning the grammatical rules and whatnot. and i grew up catholic and will always be catholic for the most part (it's my default religion), and i'm fine with christianity, but i have a lot of trouble saying things like 'god' and 'lord' and 'jesus' and making them sound like i'm not being ironic. but i think i did okay.)

after reviewing caps, i gave them some questions to go through. they went to work and i reviewed more of the book and K sat at her desk and drew a flower in her notebook. she's 9 and usually just soaks in what's going on with her brother and sister and then gets one on one time. i thought i had an hour and a half to get it all done, but then V kept coming in to tell me we had more time, so it turned out i had two and a half hours so i just kept babbling and trying to give them work and not ruin their brains. i realized that i need to parse out the day a bit better - give R and J some review exercises while i work with K and then go back to R and J. who knows. i don't know how the other marms do it.

and then they gave me lunch.

i told V about the crazy ass job thing going on and said i would try to figure something out, and i really hope i can. hopefully i'll be able to still get up there on a weekly basis and accomplish something with them.

post script: last week when i met with V she told me that she didn't know how much they could pay, if anything. i know they're poor. they live on a self-sustaining farm afterall, but this is such a rare and interesting opportunity and i love these kids, that i thought it would be worth it. and when i got in my car, folded up on my dash, was twenty dollars.