Kids will be Kids

Today, more than anything, turned into a learning opportunity for myself. Every night before we enter the school, we all get together and begin to plan out our lesson plan for the next day. As we decide on the various activities to fill the 2 hours we teach for, we try to ensure that every minute in the day is accounted for. While trying to impose this schedule on our group of roughly 20 kids, I began to notice that amidst the grammar reviews, conversation practice, and songs I have lost sight of something that was right in front of me: the kids. With only 4 more weeks to go in the program, I recognized that my desire to educate the children began to blind me to the fact that “kids will be kids”. Today as I was assaulted by eager hands trying desperately to tickle me, I once again realized that the lesson plans and work we are doing is meant for children. No matter how thought out our lesson plans may be, or how organized we are the children will always find ways to make us revise everything that we planned beforehand. Rather than being a setback, the improvisation we are forced to undertake has actually yielded numerous positive results. One example of this would be the “slap game” that I hastily created in response to the kids’ inability to sit down and write the alphabet. Instead of forcing the children to monotonously take notes, I wrote a few letters on the blackboard and asked the children to slap the letter that I called out. I was astonished to see that presenting the material in a slightly more interactive manner makes all the difference. As I learn more about education from the children, I have come to realize that the teacher role that I so confidently assumed at the start of this program is far more fluid than I had thought.