Anyone who can name all three songs, and their respective bands, referenced in the title gets a jednička (A).
Anyway… It’s been a while since I added a blog post. Time has been a blur this winter-into-spring, but today at work my kids had a huge win, and I think I was the most proud I’ve ever been of them. It didn’t fit into a facebook status, so I decided to write it here, where I can brag about them as much as they deserve.
I got the idea a couple of weeks ago, actually. I know a handful of people who have done Model U.N. in the past, so I started scouring ye olde internet to see if it was something I could adapt. If I could sum up all relevant advice for living overseas for any reason it would be like this: Be ready to adapt anything and everything. And be ready to do it yourself.
I found some materials, including some entertaining “how-to” and “how-not-to” videos, that gave guidance to those wanting to start and run a Model U.N. group. I picked the topic of modern piracy, came up with a plan to adapt it for a 45 minute class period, and ran it past my students to see what they thought. I have never seen them so enthusiastic about anything. Not even Christmas! It was all at once, “I want to be Italy!” “Terka, be Czech Republic with me!” “Can Marketa and me be North Korea?” Yes, gentle reader, even North Korea was at our mock Model U.N. conference. Even with this enthusiasm, I had no idea how it would all go over, or if it would blow up in my face. In preparation, I told them to do some background research, and we talked a bit about modern piracy as a diplomatic, humanitarian, defensive, and economic issue. The day of, I put on my most “strong, confident, independent woman” business casual outfit (see photo), and brought cookies for the “afterparty” that was mentioned in several of those “how-to” and “how-not-to”videos. After that, all I could do was hope for the best. And as I was hoping for the best, I was blown off my red high heels.
They had researched examples of piracy all the way back to the 1700’s. They knew their country’s economy and military, as well as how their country had dealt with piracy in the past. They brought their talking points on paper, having decorated them with pirate flags and the flags of their countries. One kid even had the Pirates of the Caribbean soundtrack playing in the background as he offered his action plans. They ran the whole show, I just sat and kept the schedule, trying not to laugh at how hilarious they were being. Let me give some examples of the hilarity I thoroughly enjoyed:
- The Czech Republic was hard to convince to participate. They said “well, we have no sea, so piracy is not our problem.” However, when offered money from other countries for their refugee crisis, they changed their tune. All the same, when the other countries were debating the terms of their alliance, Czech Republic loudly announced that they were going for a beer.
- Italy said “mamma mia” every five minutes, talked over everyone else, pontificated about the glorious Costa Nostra (look it up), and tried to get everyone to join up with them through offering them the world’s best pasta.
- India tried to focus on humanitarian solutions the the problem, but when North Korea started threatening to nuke their enemies, India played Bollywood hits and adopted Yogi master poses while the arguing continued.
- The United States offered hamburgers and education to Somalia, and joined up with anyone who would go along with them.
- North Korea demanded benefits in exchange for alliances, and was generally very volatile in their interactions with everybody. The only benefit they offered their allies in return was abstaining from using their nuclear weapons on them.
- They agreed on a solution with minimal military activity
- Our “afterparty” involved my homemade chocolate chip cookies, whose recipe I have memorized, which disappeared in 30 seconds. I have never seen food disappear so fast, and I have spent my life surrounded by food-obsessed animals (not the homo sapiens kind). But those kids were SO. HAPPY. My heart felt full to bursting when I saw their faces light up.
My teaching experiment, I think, was a huge success. The kids remained enthusiastic, and blew me out of the water (pun intended) with how prepared they were for the activity. Their English was advanced and smooth, they negotiated world politics in a foreign language, and each of them brought their own personality to their portrayal of their country. There was laughter, smiling, interest, dialogue, negotiation, and music from Pirates of the Caribbean. It made me think a lot as I forced myself to sit back and watch, and not offer my own opinions.
It’s fascinating, from a sociological perspective, how people are all the same. I gave no guidance, it was a completely new experience for my students, and they behaved in a strikingly similar manner to adult politicians, adopting this behavior all on their own. It was a microscale of everything that is wrong with the world, with fighting and selfishness, while the voices of those most affected (Somalia) were absent. I’m curious to see how the debrief next week goes.
At the same time, these kids showed me what I love about teenagers most: they were goofy, theatrical, intelligent, creative, experimenting with thinking deeply, and trying to balance conflicting aspects of a global problem. They are walking the tightrope between childhood and adulthood, they’ve already gotten their share of lickings from this world, which wastes no time in forcing its young ones to grow up, but they still have the most valuable hearts and spirits. I love that they still assert their individuality, and they are not too scared yet to wear their hearts on their sleeves and their minds on their faces. I even love that they say the worst profanities when they hit their finger on a desk, because they still don’t know that there are things in life that hurt worse than a smacked finger. I love that when they smile and laugh at things, you can still see the adorable wonder of a small kid, if you’re just willing to laugh with them, and validate what they think is funny. Their self esteem is fragile enough that when they get sincere praise, and hear “you should be proud of yourself,” they look as happy and proud as a baby who has just taken their first steps.
And finally, everyone says that teenagers just care about themselves and their attitudes, but I can attest that they don’t. If you show them that you care about their opinions, that you think their thoughts are worth listening to, and if you show this consistently, they will open up to you and paint the walls of your heart the colors of the sunset. They have favorite music, favorite movies, they have amazing senses of humor, they think about things that happen in the world… I could go on, but I just have one more little honor that my students gave to me.
Back in November, I came up with an activity to teach modal verbs (things like “should,” “can,” “may,” etc.). I told the students to pretend that there were undercover cops coming to their school, and they had to give advice to these cops for how to fit in with the students. The astute among you will realize that I probably was inspired by the movie 21 Jump Street. Well, the kids liked it. And it’s all about the kids, right? Anyway, one thing they agreed on was that students can’t be too friendly with teachers. For this reason, I’ve been respectful of this with my students, and not tried to be too buddy-buddy with them. But I still strive to respect them and show them I care about them, mostly by making them laugh in class, and asking for their input for planning lessons. And I have to say… my heart soars when they run up to me in the grocery store or the train station or cross the street to say hi (#smalltowns), or when they tell me, “paní učitelko, have you seen the movie ____? I think you would really like it,” or when I’m sick, they email me their homework and tell me “I’m so sorry you were sick today, and I wish you a speedy recovery.” Today when I showed up in my “ready to take on the world” business casual outfit, the girl students GUSHED, telling me “wow, you look so beautiful, I love your outfit!” I even got respectful compliments from a few guys. Finally, one of my students came up to me to ask me if I had seen The Godfather, and we ended up talking for his whole break about gangster and dirty cop movies. What I’m trying to say is… I think I earned a relationship with my students. An honor is the only word I can think of to describe this.
In conclusion (finally!)… Yes, for all the great stories, I’ve had to bite my tongue plenty, I’ve given out plenty of pushups for horseplay and tardiness, there have been a couple instances of disrespect, and I doubt myself often. After the Easter disaster of ’16 (another story for another time), I came very close to quitting at this school. Ultimately, I decided to stay because of the students, and today chased away any lingering doubts. I certainly didn’t stay for the money, or for the administrators (well ok, one of them is pretty great). Because after all, isn’t everything we do as teachers about the students?
Thanks for reading. Now enjoy some lovely pictures of the Labe before a storm.
¿quévalemás? 
They are lucky to have such a talented and creative teacher, Annie! all the best! JAmes