Your best

Last night I dreamed that I was at the supermarket looking for a jar of tomato sauce. I went to where it usually is, but it wasn't there. There were all sorts of things that were vaguely related, but not what I was looking for. I thought maybe I had gone to the wrong aisle so I tried another. I didn't find it. Then I thought maybe I had been in the right aisle the first time, but I just hadn't looked hard enough. I went back, but I still couldn't find it. I never found the tomato sauce.

To be honest, I had a pretty frustrating and discouraging morning. On Wednesdays I teach the Spotlight on the USA class, which is generally the class I am most excited about. It is always the first class I lesson plan for and the class I most look forward to teaching. I want to have activities and discussions. I want to engage my students and show them what it's like to be in a student-centered classroom. But it doesn't work. Today, in particular, I felt like I was talking to the wall at the back of an empty classroom. When I ask a question I try to wait to start calling on people to let someone raise their hand. I always hope it will happen but it almost never does. Today I talked to them about the differences between the North and South during the Civil War Era, then I wrote those differences on the board, and then I asked them to tell me what the differences were. They were still on the board and all I got were blank stares and a few people rustling through their textbooks. I waited for what felt like five minutes. Finally I called on someone. I wanted to have a discussion comparing and contrasting the differences between the North and South in the US and the differences between the North and South in Vietnam, but we ended up just listing the differences in the US and then listing the differences in Vietnam. This was the only part that garnered student participation. Several students volunteered differences in Vietnam.

I understand that sometimes students just don't want to talk, and it's not necessarily a comment on the teacher or the lesson. I've been there. I've been a student in classes like this. But as a teacher, that doesn't make it any less frustrating. I feel like there's a problem and I don't know if it's me, my expectations, my methods, or my students. I want to make students enthusiastic about what I teach and motivate them to participate, but I'm starting to feel like the only way I'm going to stop being frustrated is by changing (lowering) my expectations.

Instead of wallowing in my post-teaching frustrations I asked Trang out to lunch. I vented a little bit and then we had a lighthearted time. I've seen these weird charts in a lot of places and I asked Trang about them. It is a grid labeled with the months across the top and the squares have a triangular red sticker that covers the lower left half. It turns out that these are the governmental version of gold stars. The authorities check in on you and your family every now and then and decide whether you are model citizens/up to par, and if you are you get a sticker. If you get a sticker every month for one year, you get a certificate. If everyone in your commune/hamlet gets a certificate, the whole hamlet gets a sign. If all of the hamlets get a sign, the district gets a sign. And so on, increasingly. There are no repercussions to not getting a sticker, but I guess you're supposed to want one. Evaluations are based on spousal equality, home cleanliness, neighbor relations, and things like that. Now, how an official can evaluate that by dropping by is a whole other question.

We ended up, unexpectedly, going to the supermarket after lunch. And I found the tomato sauce exactly where it was last time. I spent the afternoon giving my room the intensive post-Tet cleaning it deserved. (During Tet if you sweep or do other cleaning you might sweep out the good luck.)

After the morning I had, I was not looking forward to the English club tonight. But, it turned my day around. Only about 15 people showed up, which meant that I got to throw my makeshift plan out the window and just settle in for conversation. We sat in a circle, something I always yearn for. It started off a little stilted as I went around the circle and asked everyone to tell me about their Tet break, but things gradually got more natural and conversational, and students even asked each other questions, instead of always speaking to or through me. Talk of lunar zodiac signs and their characteristics revealed that as a dragon I'm supposed to be strong. My students think this is fitting, because I came all the way here to Vietnam. I asked them if, if they had the opportunity to spend a year far from home, whether they would. They all said no. I asked how long they would be willing to be far from home. One month was ok, but three months was too long for them to be so far. Then they asked me if I ever got sad. I said yes. They asked me what kinds of things make me sad. Of course, the first thing that came to mind was the morning. I wanted to be honest but I didn't want to be accusatory. I just said I feel sad when a class makes me disappointed, because I feel like I'm not succeeding. Several students looked sheepish, but the student next to me looked me in the eye and said, "I think you try your best." It meant a lot to me.

"Give what you have to somebody, it may be better than you think." - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow