Preparation

When I was at home just before leaving for Ghana, I spent some time going through old stuff that had accumulated in my room. Seriously, I had saved every Valentine from my fourth grade classmates, including one with a (very well-preserved) candy heart still taped to it. Time for some pruning.

One of the gems I found was my “Livre de Memoires de 2B,” a totally adorable construction paper book compiled by my 2nd grade class when I moved to the US, in which each student had drawn a picture and written a “goodbye” sentence. Apparently, almost every single one of them was going to miss me “because you are always prepared for show and tell.” What kind of 2nd graders care how prepared their classmates are?! Thinking back, I do remember long Sunday afternoons with my mother, carefully planning each show-and-tell and checking each word in my French-English dictionary. (Thanks, Mom – you made me memorable.)

I like to be prepared, to strategize. I get by on my work ethic more than quick thinking, and I want to plan my thoughts before speaking rather than fumble with ideas out loud (it was recently explained to me that this is what people mean when they tell me, “You think a lot” – which actually happens more often than one would expect, believe it or not). So you can imagine my momentary distress when I arrived to teach my very first class—which I had prepared on the writing section of the (for me) completely unfamiliar TOEFL exam—and my students told me that the only section they felt they hadn’t covered was actually the speaking section. Okay, no problem, I can teach that for two hours…! (deep breaths)

It turned out to be a totally great class. In fact, it was much better than my afternoon SAT Critical Reading class, in which we were all drooping a little bit, and for which I had a neatly structured plan with pre-selected examples and everything. Sure, the speaking class was a little disorganized, but everyone was engaged and we talked through topics ranging from corporal punishment (all were against) to government censorship (half for, half against).

I’ve been really enjoying getting to know the students. Today was especially gratifying because I met with most of them individually to talk about their application essays and plans for college. Not to pick favorites, but so far there are a couple of students I’m especially looking forward to helping, including a girl who I would love to see at Barnard, and a boy who is an intense reader and loves to use his grandiose vocabulary and collection of pre-fabricated phrases (“the maelstrom of time”) as much as possible, even if incorrectly. He’s a little awkward and risks sounding emo at times, but it’s endearing – he’s a smart kid.

Unplanned classes give me more flexibility to hear their opinions,^[*] and ask them questions I’m thinking through myself. This morning, we were talking about structuring essays and going through some examples. I asked them whether it was better to plan and prepare, or to try things as you go, expecting that diligent students in the process of preparing for standardized tests would be in favor of preparation, but to my surprise they all agreed that plans never work out. I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised: this is Africa, after all, and I’ve certainly learned the necessity of having a go-with-the-flow attitude here.

Though I’m sure it was only a Larium-induced coincidence, I dreamt of my 2nd grade class the night after my impromptu, off-the-cuff teaching experience. In my dream, I went back to visit my elementary school and Mrs. Treble was remarkably still there, still remembered me and my “Livre de Memoires” (dream logic). She asked if she should make me another one before I left for Ghana, and I refused, laughing. Time to grow a little, to push myself out of the comfort of always being the one who needs to prepare… at least in some cases.

^[*]
Obviously, this isn’t rocket science, or at all revolutionary in the world of teaching – in fact, one of my favorite things in college was when professors would begin class with a totally open-ended solicitation for comments. But knowing it as a student and putting it into practice as a teacher have so far been two very different things.