You Win Some, You Lose Some

When they're hunched over their tests all silent (so that the only sound in the room is the wind rattling the tin schoolhouse roof) I start to think that maybe they've got it. That they're scratching pens are writing English words, English verbs that match the subject, English vocab that matches the Spanish. That everything I've spent the last two days trying to put into their heads is now spilling back out onto the page, into the silence.

But after about fifteen minutes they start to squirm. They stare off into space, flip the test over and over, run their little hands through their straight black hair. And the worst part is that this isn't boredom born of completion; it is the boredom born of facing so many blank spaces that you just don't know how to fill. English is rather "all or nothing" that way. No amount of thinking about it is suddenly going to bring you closer to the answer.

And some of the squirming is bad news. Bad news bears. Even after making an example of Klever's cheating attempt last week, the students remained just as bold. One girl's rustling turned out to be her fingers sifting through notes hidden in the backpack seated next to her. She received a zero. And another girl's impatient erasing turned out to be the only noticeable sign of her silent method of passing answers to her neighbor. Two points off!

Teaching is exhausting. But having to watch the students like a hawk to ensure that they don't cheat is exhausting in a whole new way. I guess the right word is disappointing.

My disappointment can never last for more than ten minutes at a time because the kids can be so cute. One girl finished both her test and the post-test activity before time was up, so I told her she could draw. She kept looking up at me as her pencil moved across the page, and I just thought she was nervous about being allowed to do something so non-academic. But when she finished she held her paper up to show me how she had drawn and labeled me and my three co-workers.

She wasn't the only cute one. All of them planned a surprise going away party for a leaving co-worker. They got us to open an extra classroom so that they could serve cake and soda and perform a dance for her. She got presents and cake in her face. It was so cute, but I just wish they would show their affection for us in some other way, like, for example, by studying, or by not cheating.