Patience

This week turned out to be a great week for me, but it didn't start off so well. On Sunday night I had a serious case of the blues after a previous hellish week. I felt totally miserable at the thought of going to work, and bitter that I had no choice in the matter. When Monday morning came around, I was greeted by the discovery of more mouse excrement in my work space, followed later that day by the mouse itself, which has decided my desk should be used as a toilet rather than a place to store school supplies and student work. Last week, when I first noticed a few droppings on my desk, when said droppings were not cleaned up properly, and when I then couldn't even wash my hands due to the absence of running water at school, it would be very accurate to say that I lost my patience. Last week I also lost my patience several times during teaching, which was both exhausting and frustrating. Hence the topic of this entry. The limits of my patience have been severely tested recently, causing me to rethink my attitude and try to find a way out of this less-than-laid-back rut I find myself in.

The thing is, here (referring to my place of work - not intended to mean Batam or Indonesia in general) losing one's patience often goes unnoticed. I mean, from my perspective I completely lost it last Thursday morning, turning up to teach ten minutes late because I had to have a good cry in a corner first. But my boss's reaction was so completely calm, so unphased by what I was complaining about. So there's a mouse - And? So there's no water - *shrug*. He doesn't know how to fix it, and/or doesn't have the authority to demand changes, so why would he possibly waste a single minute caring about it? 

Let me tell you a bit more about the water problem...The teachers living at the school (there are 8 of us) have all, except me and Hadi, been without water in their rooms for more than two months now. There's a tap on a balcony that works, so they have to sit there in swimming costumes, feebly splashing water over themselves in order to shower. The school apparently doesn't have the money to fix the problem, so their solution is....to do nothing. What astounds me is the other teachers level of patience with this matter. Sure, they're unhappy and they complain, but they also continue to put up with it. In the school itself, the bathrooms are a disaster area and the water supply is inconsistent. Each time I go to the loo, it's 50/50 whether the flush will work. The general response of my colleagues? Well, this is nothing compared to the state of some other schools, so why worry? In this case, I suppose the limit of my patience compared to the local teachers is lower because my expectations for cleanliness - especially in a school environment - are higher.

Perhaps I should be using the word tolerance rather than patience. Patience often implies waiting for something, and that's not what I'm talking about here. We are not really waiting for the water problem to be fixed, because there's no indication that it will be. Neither am I waiting for the mouse problem to be solved, because I know it won't be without constant nagging from me. It's all about what we are willing to put up with, to tolerate, without losing patience, which to me means getting mad and blaming others.

After high stress and teaching disappointments last week, I tweaked my attitude slightly to avert a repeat of such events this week. I have been struggling with patience this term. It's funny that last term with my second graders I thought my patience had been tested to it's limit. I was wrong. First graders are a whole different ball game. I have discovered that I have very little tolerance for a few things that, unfortunately, six year-olds do repeatedly, namely: say my name over and over again; interrupt me when I am trying to explain something for the billionth time; shout; touch me - leaning on me, hugging me, tugging at my sleeve, hitting my stomach

I'm sure that being pregnant is making me much more sensitive to such things. I mean, what I experienced when working at a Summer camp for kids and adults with special needs was on a completely different level in terms of having one's comfort zones trodden on, and I very rarely lost my patience despite working 14 hour days, sometimes without a break. In that environment however, there was no pressure to teach anything, or to maintain order beyond getting everyone to an activity more or less on time without losing someone. My goal then was to care for people who couldn't care for themselves, and to encourage them to try new things. If I failed at achieving that, nothing happened, there were no consequences, just a desire on my part to do better the next day.

Now, in a first grade classroom, I feel trapped and pressured into creating a positive environment and improving everyone's English without losing my patience. I understand why it is so difficult: they don't speak English for a start, and they've just moved up from Kindergarten where they had the luxury of two teachers per classroom. I know that they're not really misbehaving, that they simply cannot follow what I am saying, so they don't realise that they should be listening instead of interrupting me to ask for a drink, or to sharpen their pencil, or to tell me that someone else is being naughty. I know, it sounds cute, but it drives me nuts. I have all these ideas for classroom routines that I can't implement properly because I'm not the Homeroom teacher and I don't speak the language well enough. I want to advice my students about being kind to each other instead stabbing someone with a pencil because they took their eraser without asking, but they stare at me blankly when I try, so all I'm left with is "no fighting" "be kind to your friends" "it doesn't matter if he hit you first"... Thus I feel like a total failure of a teacher most of the time.

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It has taken me a long time to finish this post. Another week has passed since I started! A lot can happen in a week, and things were better last week, as in I only lost my patience a few times instead of all the time. Improvement or random chance? not sure.

This week is starting with the added joy of having no running water in my room. I think I need to find another job ;)