Expectations

I decided that I should follow my previous blog post with a post about expectations.  It is something that I've been thinking about lately.

I don't think that my expectations for my Kindergarteners are any higher than those of an average American class.  However, here those expectations seem rather high.  My students come from homes very different than students in the states.  My students were hand picked to come to this school because they are very poor and would not be able to afford an education.  Some of them have only one parent, many of them live with aunts, uncles, or cousins, all of them have very small simple homes.  Sometimes the food that they get at school is the only thing they have to eat.

On top of that many of the parents are uneducated.  I know that several of my students' parents cannot even sign their own name.  Generations of uneducated people raising uneducated people eventually takes its tole.  I see it in the children that I meet.  Most children that I meet here are accustomed to lying, stealing, cheating, fighting, and not respecting their elders.  Parents allow their children to play in the streets unsupervised.  Parents allow five year old children to walk to school alone.  Most children that I meet and befriend on the streets are a bunch of little hooligans.  Things that we in America refer to as "common sense" are NOT common sense here.  Behaviors that teachers in American expect from their students to know when they start school are NOT expectations here.

So, while my classroom expectations are typical for an American class, here they seem like very "high expectations".  I expect my students to follow directions.  I expect my students to take care of classroom materials.  I expect my students to use kind words.  I expect my students not to fight in school.  I expect my students to respect adults.  I expect my students to listen while I am talking.  I expect my students to raise their hands to speak.  I expect my students to participate in class.  I expect my students to share.

I don't plan on lowering these expectations.  I know that it is possible for my students to reach these goals.  I just didn't realize that such simple things would take so much work!  If I don't push them to be better, who will?  If I don't work to teach them these things, how will Haiti's problems ever improve?

I only get to spend four hours with the Pre-K students and four hours with the Kindergarten students each day.  The other 20 hours are spent with their families.  There is a whole lot of teaching that has to take place in a tiny amount of time.  Lord help me!