Lyndsay, Ellen, Kyle and I spent this morning at the high school. We were sent over to help out with chores, but no one seemed to have any chores for us. We were summarily scooped up by an English teacher who was about to have a class of seniors. We read with them "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings," a short story by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. We also got a chance to talk with the students about our majors, what things are like at a liberal arts college, and what we might do with our lives.We stayed with the same English teacher for her sophomore class. They were working on emails to Amherst students who are reading the same book, Black Boy by Richard Wright. The four of us were assigned to stroll around the computer lab, checking for proper spelling, punctuation, encouraging people to cite passages, etc. I think the students were happy to be working with us and seemed fairly interested in interacting with the Amherst folk. I think most of the things I helped them fix were just careless mistakes that they would have noticed on their own during a proofread, but maybe I saved them some trouble. The teacher felt really strongly that they needed to use formal English during a formal discussion of a text even when they're on the internet. In both the sophomore and senior classes, she was really pushing her students.
Kyle is wandering around eating fruit loops, milk and all. Midnight snack. Jia Jia thinks the gas stove is leaking, so we have resolved not to use it for eggs (or anything else) tomorrow morning. So I will be eggless. But I don't want the parish to go up in flames, either.
Working in the high school was a really welcome break from elementary school chaos. At first, I think we were all a little unsure of how we would be received at the high school since they are only a few years younger than we are. But they were really very polite and gracious. I can't imagine being a third grade teacher, dealing with little kids every day, nine months of the year. But maybe once you get to know them as individuals, it's not so overwhelming.
Maybe. When I was in third grade, I collected pencil points...over 1,000 pencil points in my desk. I would get up to sharpen my pencil so that I could break the point and add it to my collection. Several times throughout the year, my desk tipped over (don't ask me why) and my pencil point collection spilled across the entire floor. So as to not lose to a vacuum cleaner the fruits of my labor, I would crawl around trying to salvage as many pencil points as possible. I would estimate that most of my 8-year-old intellectual capacity was devoted to this endeavor. Needless to say, my relationship with my third grade teacher was several steps removed from peaceful co-existence and mutual understanding.
Gonpo and I presented our lesson to the first grade, but unfortunately, they had to leave for P. E. after around 20 minutes. They probably didn't care because they didn't know about all the cool games we had in store, but we were a little disappointed. Oh well. So we went down the hall to the kindergarten class where Kyle and Lyndsay were talking about states of matter and making ooblek (corn starch and water) for them to fool around with. That was a really fun class. Everyone was really excited about the ooblek and did a good job listening to the lesson. Afterwards, I helped to put the ooblek into individual plastic bags and add food coloring for them to mix around. One little girl was disturbed by how messy the whole procedure ended up being. I tried to explain that it would all come off with a little water (it did) but I don't know if she really believed me.
Everyone went outside after school. That is, everyone who had finished their homework. So about 45 minutes after classes ended, just about everyone went outside to the playground. We ran around for a while, played tag, spun on the spinny things. There were a few kids who really liked spinning Kyle. Ellen, Prim, and Jess talked for a long time with a little boy who wants to be a microbiologist. There was one little girl who really wanted to play my violin. At first I assumed she was taking lessons, but she couldn't remember how to hold it or do anything with it, really. So I let her pluck the strings. She was not satisfied by this compromise and really wanted to hold the bow. I decided that it would be a lesson in not getting what you wanted. I felt bad, but it seemed like, all things considered, the right thing to do. Oh well.
Kyle, Jia Jia and I went on a really nice walk before dinner. We followed a dirt road up a hill, saw some horses, cows, and cacti. Sadly, we didn't meet any prairie dogs (acquaintances of Kyle from one of his other walks.) From some of the higher points, we could see a good distance of the land surrounding the school and parish. Some more pictures from the walk are in Navajo Nation Parts 2 and 3.
Before/during dinner, we listened to a speaker talk about the Navajo creation story, the Navajo language, and contemporary issues in the community. The creation story is very complicated! But I suppose I just always hear the Judeo-Christian version and I'm used to it. Our speaker discussed the role of Navajo Code Talkers in World War II. She also tried to have us reproduce some of the syllables and tones of the Navajo language. She talked a little bit about how when she was a girl she was taken from her community and sent to a boarding school where students were forced to speak English. Now, very few children learn to speak Navajo (none that we have met so far) and there is a strong possibility that the language will die in the next few decades.
Tomorrow is a half day and everyone is very excited about going to the flea market! Though the flea market might be closed because of bad weather, in which case we will go to the craft store.
No comments:
Post a Comment