Hopeful and Hopeless

There are days when I seriously doubt whether or not my kids are learning anything. Well, that’s a nice way to say it. Sometimes I wonder why I bother. And yet, there are days when I know why I do.

Recently, the 7th graders have been learning about Ancient Egypt. They have (erroneously) learned that archaeologists are scientists who study artifacts. They also learned what an artifact is. Now, as some of you know, I’m an honorary archaeologist with a bit of experience in the field. And, as some of you might know that while it’s important to me that my kids learn their English, it’s maybe more important to me that they develop their critical thinking skills. With that in mind, I developed a very special project for them, one which took me weeks to prepare. (I’m kind of slow.) They would be archaeologists themselves. Of course, they also had to work on summary writing because that’s the skill in this week’s lesson plan.

People can’t just call themselves archaeologists without a little training. Without boring you with the details, we discussed how it’s possible to learn a whole lot about ancient people by examining the objects with which they were buried. We looked at some of the artifacts from the Sutton Hoo ship burial. I had my reasons. They were purely selfish. But the kids got the message. Afterwards, they were ready to look at some artifacts of their own and make their own interpretations.

Last weekend, I prepared the artifacts. This of course included going to the labyrinth of stores around the Spice Bazaar looking for stuff. Then I spent hours making little things out of air-drying clay and digging through the bits and pieces odds and ends that I tend to collect and put in jars. I concocted 5 bags of artifacts, all from one cemetery, one each belonging to a man, a woman, a girl, a boy and a shaman/priest-like figure. That all but the last are related by common artifacts could be noticed by the more attentive members of the groups.

It’s been a long time since I’ve been artsy-fartsy, so I rather enjoyed my play time and am very proud of my handiwork. I made little babies wrapped in blankets, dolls, axes, shields and swords, bull heads with gold-tipped horns, flutes, masks, toy chickens, and cooking bowls. I found ceramic toy horses I had made a few years ago, tiny crochet hooks, little bells (no whistles), earrings I no longer wear and a whole bunch of other bitty things. Most of the ready-made artifacts were waiting in jars on my bookshelf. I lined my artifacts up on the table and giggled at them before carefully placing them in Ziploc baggies.

Before beginning the project with the kids, I gave them a little lecture about how much work the project took me, and how I had to trust them with the things I had made, therefore they must handle them with care. Then I set down the rules. No one could complain about who was in their group. The designated group leader was responsible for receiving and returning all the intact artifacts. They had to be quiet and respectful, and they had to take detailed notes.

And it worked. My first group was so good, I almost cried. OK, that’s an exaggeration. All the classes who participated were serious, careful and thoughtful. They asked lots of questions. They experimented with different hypotheses. They got it, even the one slower group who had earlier in the week earned my trust. One group with the little girl’s bag learned that maybe archaeologists can’t put together all the pieces of the puzzle. Sometimes, they can’t make decisive conclusions because the evidence just doesn’t make sense. In one class, the group with the protective objects correctly identified their owner as a shaman. (It’s the same word in Turkish.) I almost kissed Mehmet for that one. Another class understood that the family consisted of a mother, father and two children with only one hint: the same kinds of beads were in the mother and daughter’s bags. God love ‘em but I was proud of my kids.

Yet with joy comes sorrow, and my success today was tempered by my group of hopeless kids.

I have one class of 16 students. It’s the smallest 7th grade class because it is the worst on several levels. Each and every one of these 12 boys and 6 girls has some kind of learning and/or behavioral disorder. There’s a near complete range of psychological ones as well. Forget learning English. These kids have difficulty understanding their mother tongue. Don’t get me wrong. I actually like some of them and am fully aware that they did not choose to be the owners of their respective disorders. It’s a good day if I send no one to the office, don’t give a written warning or don’t send for the assistant principal to haul someone out for a lecture. I’m happy when the level of chaos remains low. Two of them recently took to calling me a terrorist. “You terrorista. You live Kurdistan” followed by something spoken so rapidly in Turkish that I could not understand a word. I got the gist. (This is not the group that I previously allowed to talk about the PKK. I ain’t that dumb.) Because I knew that these kids would torture me if I responded angrily, I just told them to sit down and be quiet. My teaching partner gave them a good talking to in Turkish for me. Bless her.

These are the kids on whom the administration has given up. The vast majority of them do not belong in this factory of a school, yet it is nearly impossible to expel them due to laws in Turkey governing education. The boy who last year brought a knife to school and this year a shotgun shell might have been expelled after many reports, but only after a series of psychological tests. It doesn’t take a trained expert to understand that the boy does not comprehend the difference between right and wrong.

They’re not completely stupid though. They’re smart enough to know that since I don’t speak Turkish, they can pull things that they would not dare with other teachers. Today while they were working in groups, drawing pictures of the warrior king from Sutton Hoo, I turned around to see one of the girls smack a boy. She was provoked, but I didn’t see the provocation. As she had been verbally warned several times, I sent her to the office and gave her a written warning. I later discovered from the principal, who is extremely supportive of me, that they had a little bet going on during the class. The boys were deciding which of the girls in the class would get pregnant and by whom. They’re 13. Indeed the girls were scandalized, but they were not innocent in the matter either.

Yes, it’s sad and hopeless.