8/21/07 Part 3
The high school is only 4 years old, but it’s already pretty decrepit. I spent all day yesterday cleaning the layers of salt off my desks and chairs and text books in my classroom. Today I opened up a box full of physics books to find a nest of 23 cockroaches – I know there were 23 because I went back to my house (which is literally a 20 second walk from my classroom – I live on campus), got a bottle of Raid, and then ran around the classroom spraying them until each one was dead. Arg. I’m teaching 10th grade biology and 11th grade integrated physics and chemistry. Good thing I’m an economics major.
Today we had our first day of school, but all that happened was an assembly and then placement testing for new students. At the assembly, all of the teachers (about 12) sat on the stage while 300 students sat facing us. We each had to introduce ourselves. It was very strange not to be a student for the first time in my life. The principal is in Majuro on “personal business” (he’s much more into local politics than actually running the school) and won’t be back for at least 2 weeks, so the vice principal, who sometimes struggles with English, did the introductions. After each of the new American teachers had received thunderous applauses, they sang their school anthem very enthusiastically, and then the placement testing began. I was a proctor, and I can already tell that classroom management is going to be an issue for me. I think the biggest problem, however, is that the students (in particular the 9th graders) really don’t understand English. I graded about 40 English placement tests this afternoon and the most advanced student was comparable to an average American 2nd or 3rd grader, while most students had no idea what was going on. So while I will be teaching high school, it’s more like I’m teaching really mature elementary and middle schoolers.
We have already made some friends on the island. On the first night, we were invited to a farewell party for a family moving from Gugeegue to Dayton, Ohio. Why? We don’t know. It was, however, quite the feast. Today at lunch we were invited to the American couple’s house who live next store to boomer and Ashley, and across the lawn from me. The wife teaches and the husband is retired but helps fix things around the school. They have family on the base and like the weather here. They’re great. Then we got invited for desert by a family also involved with education here. The wife, who was a Jesuit volunteer several years ago and is American, is now involved in teacher training, and the husband, who is Marshallese, is the principal of the smaller Catholic private high school on the island. They fed us brownies and ice cream while their baby slept. I made Terry, the husband, promise he would take me and Connor out spear fishing sometime soon after our relatively unsuccessful efforts (although I did catch an edible fish) earlier today. He seemed willing to help. They’re great too. I hope I like the students as much as everyone else here.