Ramblings of a Frustrated English Teacher

It's hard to believe that in the United States, there are public schools that teach in a language other than English. I understand the argument that they are trying to save the Yupik culture by saving the language, but at what point did culture education become the school's responsibility and no longer the family's responsibility? Are we to teach religious education, too? We are certainly required to teach character education (morals/values). The lines between parents and teachers have become blurred. Add to that that teachers are expected to teach those things, but not have a public opinion on them. Teachers spend so much time teaching what kids should be learning at home, that there's not enough time for formal education and that's causing test scores to suffer.

Because of being taught in Yupik for the first four years of school, by the time my students get to high school they are (you guessed it) four years behind. As an English teacher, this is insanely frustrating. Their vocabulary is minimal, grammar usage is poor, and use of punctuation is spotty, at best. They don't even speak in complete sentences.

Here's an example. A student raises her hand and I go to her desk. She points to a question on her study guide and looks at me. After appropriate wait time (we are told to give Yupik students plenty of this), I ask, "Do you have a question?" She points again to the study guide and replies, "This one."
"What is your question?" I ask.
"Character?" she responds.
"Ask me a question in a complete sentence."
"Who are the characters?"
"The question asks, 'What are two characteristics of myths?' It's not asking about characters. A characteristic is a trait, an example of something that shows you it's a myth."

It is because this situation occurs over and over again that often I institute my "Ask 3 Before Me" rule:
1. Read the directions, again.
2. Ask a student.
3. Write the question down using a complete sentence.
By the time they get through number three, they have either gotten their question answered or they have a clear idea of what they want to ask. Either way, it helps tremendously!

My high school students don't know what paraphrase, significant, or stereotype mean, along with hundreds of other terms. And yet, I'm instructed to prepare them for the SAT, which I do.

Just now, I had an 11th grade boy ask me, "Do the loud of the snowgos bother you?" Then, another boy walked in to class, 65 minutes late (it's his 9th unexcused absence this semester - at 10, he automatically fails), and I told him that we were having a work day to work on the vocabulary packet, papers and powerpoints that are due next Tuesday. He asks me, "What powerpoint?" I laughed (sometimes I just can't help it) as I replied, "The same one I had to re-explain to you on Tuesday when you came to class an hour late."

I'm at the end of my rope. I've had three students fail the semester already due to unexcused absences. One had signed a contract with the U.S. Army last year to go to work for them upon graduation (they sent him to Basic Training last summer). He will not graduate and will be dishonorably discharged... before he even got started. Another of the three... well, his father is the local priest. The third is a 21 year old (Did you know that you can attend public high school until you turn 22?) who has just used up his last chance at public education. I have a fourth student in Bethel having a baby.

Teach? I don't feel like I get to do much of that. I prepare lessons. I grade a few papers. Mostly, I babysit. I heard tell of tale in the Elementary side yesterday where a student needed to be sent home because of behavior (first, the parent/guardian needed to come to the school). But, an office worker said that this student lived with her Grandma who was taking care of her baby (office worker's baby) and Grandma couldn't come to school because then the office worker would have to go home to the baby. She told the teacher/administrator to just deal with the unruly student at school. That happens... more than the administration would like to admit.

I feel like we are trying to force round students into a square hole out here. The regular public education system just doesn't fit their needs. Because of that, the village doesn't support the school and the students don't find any applicability for it. They come only because it's the law. We have nothing they want, except free food and a warm place to hang out. Speaking of which, it's amazing how many people just come "hang out" on the bench by our office. Every day, I walk past the 10 foot long, wooden bench on my way to the bathroom and see three, four, or even five people sitting there. Adults. I'm not sure what they're there for, but they'll be there for an hour or more sometimes. It feels kind of like a bus station out by the office sometimes.

This has become my normal. Not really. It feels as foreign to me today as it did when I moved out here in July.