Miss Love and Mongolian Middle School

The last week.

Oh. My. Word.

To start it off, I moved into my new apartment on Sunday evening. It's closer to the school and has lots of odds and ends left behind in it from the family that technically owns it.

I spent the night alone without internet, playing the only thing I had on my computer--season three of Downton Abbey--in the background as I cooked dinner and unpacked my belongings.
We've wrestled with getting wifi here for a week, but have at least managed to get an ethernet cable going by now.

The apartment complex they put me in looks like a castle and my apartment is decked out in a mishmash décor of pinterest meets Asian grandma.

I love it.

And, even after spending Sunday evening slaving over the stove, I didn’t discover my lack of microwave until Monday morning—when I poured cold water over my oatmeal, did a 360 around the kitchen, and realized there was no way to heat up my mushy, cold breakfast.

OH WELL.

On Monday evening, Angela moved in. She’ll be the third SSP teacher and will spend the next two months putting up with my sloppy household habits.

On Monday, I started teaching.

No, it wasn’t pretty.

My load seems easy. I teach from 12:15-3:15 Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. My course is an English supplemental course, as the kids need help to meet Cambridge English standards in high school. I’ve only got about 40 eighth grade students total in two sections, with a low group and then a high group.

But let’s look at it this way.

I have to keep a gaggle of 20 adolescents busy for an hour and twenty minutes at a time.

Some of them are fluent in English and some are...not.

I don’t really have a curriculum or tangible standards.

And this is my first time actually teaching middle school.

OY VEY.

My first day was a blur, really. I began each class period by having students make a name card with some facts about themselves on the back.  I took a picture of each of them with their name, because I would most definitely forget who was who between the Temuujens and Amarsanaas. We went over the rules—respect me and respect each other—and, YES, I introduced the football chart.

I also got the idea from another teacher to make the students do push-ups if they are late to class (which makes me feel like a boss).

I honestly don’t remember much of what else happened that first day because I was so busy trying to figure out classroom management.

A few things about Mongolian middle school English class:

A)   These kids are hormonal teenagers and have drama just like American middle schoolers. How well the day's lesson will depend on the kid with the most emotions that day.

B)   There is a HUGE gap in language capability.

C)   Some of them are bigger than me.

D)   Mongolian culture is quite macho and wrestling is BIG THING. That means boys rip into each other—I mean, play fight—every time I'm not looking. Or even when I am looking. This is normal.

E)   I have never been with another group of kids who talked over the teacher as much as these do.

F)    Sometimes I feel like I’m herding cats. Scratch that. I’m herding camels that act like cats.

That said, these kids are freaking hilarious.

 “Miss Love, I am good at the twerking.”

“Miss Love, Tennessee is known for its whiskey. Whiskey is very good, right?”

“Like a boss, yes?”

Day one ended with me purchasing three bars of chocolate.

My second day was better than my first, and I don’t know how that happened. I’d gotten home late the night before  and had hardly any time to sit down and pull together activities (no curriculum? Fine, we’ll spend the day playing random games).

I’d never done any of those activities in a classroom before.

I was panicked before class and having a bad hair day.

But for some reason, even with their rowdiness, the kids responded.

I laughed a lot, threatened with the football chart, made a lot of kids do pushups, had virtually no idea what I was doing, and watched the students tell each other to shut it so I didn’t have to shout.

I will not walk away from every day feeling as good as I did when my second day was over.

But, yes. Miss Love DID feel like a boss.

By Thursday, I'd decided to start choosing topics of interest and building activities around those. You know, stuff the kids would want to talk about. 

Like dating.

BAHAHAHAHAHA.

"I want a girlfriend who watches anime and plays minecraft."

On Thursday, I needed a hug.

On Friday, I was happily exhausted.

That's life when you're a teacher.