The Magical World of Elementary School

Is it just me, or did elementary school seem like a magical world in which everything was created, supervised, accounted for and everything was full of discoveries? Maybe it’s just looking back do I remember it so fondly, but, man, the fun things we learned and did! The power the teachers had! It seemed the teachers knew everything; they commanded an audience, were presidents of their mini countries, and their subjects followed for the most part, in that created and sustained environment. And we followed, out of the aura created, not out of conditioned response. Well, some of it was, but there just seemed to be something special about school that screamed completeness, that in doing whatever you were doing, you fulfilled the scholastic need. The day went on, long and filled with activities that seemed to have a greater significance you couldn’t quite comprehend, yet you still absorbed everything; it made sense.

Things flowed easily, because for most kids, you just followed the rules the teachers laid down… if the chart said you were the Paper Collector, you proudly collected the paper. If it was three strikes and you were out, by two strikes, you started being extra careful. If you made a pen-mark in a book, you got sent to the principal’s office, a threat strong enough to usually prevent you from doing it. In my school, we had suites, not individual rooms, though there were always the invisible boundaries of the classroom, which everyone adhered to – the 2nd grade corner belonged to the second grade, you didn’t go over there unless for a special reason, and you generally kept your eyes and attention to your own class area.

Assignments were done with decorum, if you were told to spend the next 10 minutes on math problems, you did so, with the small interruptions like an occasional trip to the pencil sharpener, or one or two kids who were fooling around instead. Things were numbered and accounted for.

Though, in hindsight, this was from the observation of one student; specifically, one well-behaved student who did her homework and followed instructions most of the time. Maybe the teachers would say differently. Regardless, school was mostly a place of learning, discovery and order.

Which is why I’m still shaken to the core from my time in the primary schools here.

I checked out Little Town on the Prairie from the library, and it’s fitting, because Miss Wilder and her classroom management have kept coming to mind in the past weeks. She was a new teacher, sister of a well-liked man in town, and generally respected just for being an educator. She had everything going for her; if she expected work to be done and demanded it, it would happen. If the students knew she would not tolerate bad behavior, they would not behave badly. She single-handedly ruined her effectiveness as an educator and lost all respect from her students, though, when she came in, being too nice and telling the students she wouldn’t punish them. Her declaring they would be “the best of friends” did not make it so – the students did not know what to do with that. Eventually, when she called for order, the class was out of control, caught up in disregarding her and making disturbances. And the disruption fed upon itself, until it the purpose of going to school was entirely lost. I fear I am in a similar situation.

What is it that makes people (kids) obey? Respond? What is it about a parent that makes a child eat his peas, even though he doesn’t want to? Or then, what makes that child blatantly disobey their parent’s orders to NOT jump on the bed? As adults, I think the rewards or benefits are more understood – we do as our boss says, so we earn money and keep our job, not just because they told us. We go to church because we know it will benefit our souls, we don’t eat ice cream for breakfast because we understand that’s not a nutritional beginning to the day and that our bodies need something else. Children, though, at one point or another, do not understand the “why,” only the “must.” That sort of puts them at the mercy of parents/adults, relying on older people who know “why” to guide them. And, as told from at least one former child (me), we look up to adults as knowing “a lot;” a lot more than we know, at least. In fact, we tend to think adults may know it all, if not most of it. Which gives rise to that whole scholastic atmosphere.

This is not the case (necessarily) here. It’s as if things are being held together by a thread, a fine thread where nothing is consistent, reliable or permanent. The essence of school is here, but the atmosphere is not. The motions are made, but not the emotion. Adults do not seem like they know it all, and do not act to earn respect. Teachers do not seem like they know it all (let alone the content they are teaching), and do not act to earn respect. (These statements are generalities and don’t reflect the country, or my village for that matter, as a whole.)

I used to think that if you acted in a respectful manner to kids, you would earn respect. Not expect too much, not insult others’ intelligence, give praise and make lessons interesting or fun. This is not working for me here. But perhaps the children don’t know how to show respect. Perhaps they just don’t know what to do with me.

While Miss Wilder’s intentions may be been good (ahead of her time, but good), it did not work, and then she did not try to correct it. The fall term was a failure. Giggling, fidgeting, practical jokes, teasing songs, unlearned lessons… You half feel sorry for her, half think she got what she deserved. Can anything be done once a class loses respect for you? How do you maintain control without controlling the kid?

Strict authoritarian manners with the kids don’t work, being their friend and having fun doesn’t work. Wavering inconsistently between the two doesn’t work. The “lead by intimidation and degradation” method that the teachers use here only gets the kids to do the action requested, with no emotional/intellectual participation from the kids. The smiles and outside-the-box techniques I use are hit and miss. I don’t have the answers, and the teachers here don’t have the answers, but at least they (some) get kids to respond to their methods.

I loathe the set up here and loathe that I have resorted to employing some of the common methods here to keep order; before which, I appealed to every level of a person’s psyche, to no avail. I have become unsympathetic to students’ reactions to my efforts. It feels as if I have tried everything I know. It’s not like this in the US, and despite the overall importance to not make comparisons, I told one class that. “Students back home listen when a teacher tells them something. Students do not erase the board unless the teacher tells them to. Students back home are not as bad as you all are being right now.” Being used to lectures, they mostly stomached this tirade of mine. I think they sensed I gave up on them (for the day, at least).

The function of school here is propelling, but only at the minimum level. The incomplete way many things are done here really is exasperating and angering. Despite these negative feelings, I do have an understanding that this is so only because it is how it was done in the past. Teachers teach in the way they do because they were taught in that same manner, and that’s what they know. Children learn only as much as their parents know in regards to life choices and such. And, I do understand that it is for these exact reasons that I was called here to volunteer. I will grin and bear it, and maybe, just maybe, I will succeed in creating some level of Elementary School Magic here. (Good Lord, it’s difficult, though.)