Pumped for teaching

Our trainging with WorldTeach (www.worldteach.org) was fantastic, fun, and inspiring. That was the first two weeks here. Then we were joined by the other TIPS (no one´s quite sure what it stands for, but it´s the name for program that brings native English speakers to Duoc, the institution I´m working for) for Duoc training. That, I´m sad to say, has been a huge disappointment. The guy teaching all 45 of us has a very negative attitude toward Chilean students and tells us they´re lazy and not very bright. He also keeps telling us that we´ll have to work with their "limited reality", meaning that their public-school education was sub-par and they´re not very worldly. When he launched into this, I was fuming mad for all sorts of reasons. I´ll list some of the big ones here:

(1) People will rise or fall to your expectations of them. To tell us to gear up for a bunch of lazy, stupid, small-minded students is a huge injustice -- both to us and to the students. If we walk in with those expectations, we´ll treat them that way and they´ll act that way. If we don´t plan fun, interactive lessons because we think they´re unmotivated ... we´ll have dull, teacher-centered lessons and they WILL BE unmotivated. I´m especially upset about this one because these disparaging remarks are all that the other TIPS are exposed to. I won´t be surprised if they end up having trouble with the students in their classes while the WorldTeach people don´t.

(2) Being failed by the public school system isn´t the students´fault. Part of the mission of Duoc is to provide opportunities for higher education to Chile´s non-elite. At my site in particular, the students are middle-class, lower-class, and poor. Many are the first generation in their family to pursue post-secondary education, and they and their families are spending a significant chunk of their income to make that happen. Does that say "lazy, stupid, limited reality" to you?

(3) American students aren´t that great. The disparaging remarks about Chilean students imply that American students aren´t that way. How many American students know Chilean authors, celebrities, etc? How many American students have traveled abroad and have extensive knowledge of geography, history, and international politics? How many American students never cheat, shirk work, skip class, talk in their native language during foreign language classes?

PHEW.

But we´ve started planning for our first day of class, and I´m SO PUMPED. I have so many good ideas and can´t wait to get started. We also met the English department coordinator for our site and she seems great! She said that the students and teachers there will be eager to know us and to help us out. We´re meeting with her late next week and classes start the following Monday. It´s nerve-wracking to think of walking into a room with 18 expectant, reluctant, anxious faces staring at me. Hopefully, a big smile and lessons suited to their level will put them at ease and launch my career as the greatest English teacher ever!