Cause and Effect.

June 5, 2009

Today Professor Monaci doesn’t have class until 10:30 so I came to school early to see if I could go to classes with Professor Mango again.  She’s the nice teacher that I went with last Friday.  We taught the 4^th G class.  It is so weird to see how different and unique each class is and how they behave towards the different teachers.  This class seemed a lot quieter than any of Professor Monaci’s classes.  Maybe its because it was 8:30 and they were all still zombies.  It seems like Professor Mango requires more discipline and less liberty.  They all stood when she walked in the class and the ones that were late asked to be permitted into the classroom before walking in.  She walks around a lot more than Professor Monaci and she’s on her feet most of the time.  She showed me a little cheat sheet that she had collected from one of the students during the last exam.  It was a little square with writing that had been printed out on the computer.  It was probably font 5 typing with certain parts highlighted and underlined.  Woah, these kids are good!  She said that she felt that the students in this class were really untrusting of her and that they were always on the defense because they felt that she was always out to get them.  She told me how upset she was about it and she wanted me to talk a little bit about what I had talked about to her other class last Friday about cheating.  This made me think about the importance of class unity and how important it is to get the students to trust you.  The first thing she did in class was to pass back the test and record the grades.  Then she introduced me and while she was doing this I was praying hard that something that I would say would get through to the kids.  Then I thought, a sure way that something would get through to them was with the help of the Holy Ghost.  This reminded me of how important it is to always have the spirit with us so that the truths that we speak will get through to people.  I started out saying a bit about myself and stopped every once in a while and asked a student to translate in Italian what I had said.  I talked about the consequences of cheating in schools in America and how it can be a very serious thing.  I also told them about BYU and the honor code.  I told them about Karl G Maeser and the story of honest and integrity about not leaving the circle.  They sort of just looked at me with blank stares.  I asked if anyone was planning on getting married when they were older.  Some of them raised their hands.  I asked if they had plans to have children.  Again, some raised their hands.  Then I asked them how they would feel if their kids were caught cheating at school.  One of the students said, “It would be fine as long as they were smart enough to not get caught.”  Everyone laughed.  I was like, “Really?  You would be okay with your cute and sweet little girl with her cute hair in ponytails and pink clothes doing something so ugly and dishonest?”  Yeah, nothing gets through to these kids.  Professor Mango said, “Does anyone else feel as depressed about this as I do right now?”  I was like, “You know what, its okay.  Because life is an AWESOME teacher and after things catch up with you you’ll learn.”  I realize that cheating postpones consequences.  I think that if these kids were to have cheating completely eliminated somehow they might fail exams maybe 3 or 4 times.  After which, the smart kids would get the clue and start studying a little bit until they see improvement.  Cause and effect.  How does balance play in?  Hmm…I’ll think about it this week. 

  Everything is so different here.  I might as well be on mars. 

After the first period I went to the teacher’s lounge and waited for Professor Monaci.  Our first class together was the 2^nd G class.  We started with grammar and again, I realize how much I still have to learn bout grammar.  Its one thing to pass the English Grammar class at BYU but its another thing to have to teach it to students and have to justify your explanations in a way that they can understand.  Some of these kids really know their stuff…not just what things are called but how they work both with regulars and irregulars.  Professor Monaci is a really good grammar teacher.  He demands that his students know this stuff and that they be prepared to answer questions about it. 

The next class we had was the 2^nd A class.  There’s a kid in the class that smells SOOOO bad!  You would think the poor kid has never heard of deodorant.  Maybe his parents don’t tell him anything?  Anyway, the smelly kid got the wrath of Professor M. today.  Professor M. asked him for a summary of About a Boy and the smelly kid was just so tongue-tied that he couldn’t respond.  I’m sure that it didn’t help that Professor M. kept saying, “Come on!!  Speak!!”  I think the kid must have gotten really nervous because the smell of body odor intensified and came all the way over to where I was sitting.  Basically the way I would describe this class period is “Killing me softly.” 

The last class was the 5^th class.  There was another interrogation of a couple of girls.  The first one didn’t do very well.  She was really quiet and you could barely hear her.  The second girl did a lot better.  The topic was the poem The Tollund Man.  Pretty, pretty boring but these kids need to review this stuff so they can be ready for their interrogations this month. 

After school was out I cam over to the library to use the Internet.  I’m so excited because Hillary and I are going over to Florence again tomorrow and I really like Florence.