The First Day of School

Monday was the first official day of school here in American Samoa for the public schools. And what a day it was. The day started with an hour long assembly to welcome all the students back to school. The other volunteers and I sat with the other teachers as Viper, one of your VP's greeted the students and got them to do some Leone cheers. It was quite intense. After welcoming the freshmen to the school and giving them the "you're not the big fish in the small pond anymore" speech, we were tasked with handing out the students schedules. As we the palagi teachers didnt know any of the students we just stood back and watched.

I should preface this next part by saying, that for those of you that don't know, I am teaching 5 classes of 11th grade English. 4 (that number was 3 until today when they changed it unbeknownst to me) are proficient level which is like Advanced in the states. I also teach 1 class of mainstream level which is like General in the states.

Because it was the first day of school we were going to see each period for 35 minutes. Periods 1 and 2 are my proficient classes and they were generally pretty good. Samoan kids are loud. Samoan kids like to speak in Samoan in front of a palagi teacher because we have no idea what they're saying. Samoan kids like to laugh and tease each other, but "it's all in good fun." Samoan kids don't want to be asked to work to hard. Samoan kinds truly have hearts of gold underneath all of those exteriors.



After having my first prep period, periods 4 and 5 were my not so easy classes. The kids were more talkative, less attentive and less willing to listen to what I had to say. I realized that with one of my classes, it is going to be a battle for the remainder of the year. In fact today, on the third day of school, I had to hold back 2 students at the end of class because they broke some of my cardinal rules that we had just spoken about only a couple minutes ago. But don't all teachers experience a class like this. I mean, that's what I've been told at least.

Finishing off with period 6 was not so good either but only because it was the last class of the first day of school and the kids were in no mood to be in school anymore. But I know now after three days that these kids are good and fun and we are going to have a great year.

All in all its been a good couple of days teaching. Hard but good. I tip my hat to all those teachers out there because it is much harder than people give them credit for. I will have to constantly think outside the box to come up with lessons that are creative and engaging for my kids. But I am up for the challenge.



Anyone out there who has any fabulous advice on classroom management for rowdy high schoolers should shoot me an email.

Included are some random pictures to make this a less boring post. MWAH!