School Days

My ISP has finally gotten underway– this past Monday I started observing in a first grade classroom at a public school. Working in the classroom is probably one of the most interesting experiences I have had in Vietnam. There are forty-four students in the class and only one teacher. There are different teachers for art, music, physical education, and English but at any given time the student to teacher ration is 44:1. Yikes. The teachers are all so good at their job, they really know how to keep the students on task. I am trying really hard to eliminate any bias while I am observing but I can't help  compare everything to a kindergarten classroom back in America. The atmosphere is so different here in Vietnam. For example, the teacher walks around with a big yardstick and slams it down on desks when the students get out of control. She is in no way threatening the students– just getting their attention in a forceful manner. Sometimes she will use the stick to tap students on the back to make them sit up straighter, face the front of the room, stop talking, or something else along those lines. School starts at 7:00 and lets out at 4:30. It is such a long day for these kids– they have nap time and lots of little breaks throughout the day but still, it must be exhausting for them and their teachers!

I have been going to class at different times throughout the day. I sit in the back of the room and observe. I almost always have a translator with me. These are University students who I have met through my Vietnamese English Club friends. When I need a translator I send out a mass text message/facebook message and with a bit of luck someone will be available or know someone who is. I am in the process of writing about five hundred different papers right now. When I find an interesting situation in the classroom I write down as much as I can in that moment and then once I return to my room I take out my laptop and type away. So right now I don't really have much of an ISP, just a lot of vignettes and my analyses. I am hoping that as I collect more examples and scenarios I will establish a strong argument about the school. But for the mean time I will just keep typing away. Here is an excerpt– still a work in progress. I will post more when they are done!

The Red Grass

It is English class and the students have just finished learning the words net, balloon, bicycle, and jump rope and are scribbling away in their English workbooks, coloring the objects and matching them to the correct word. On the opposite page is a maze that leads to the different objects– the maze is supposed to look like grass or shrubbery. The students are happily working, completing the maze, connecting the words, and coloring the objects. Suddenly, I hear the teacher raise her voice; I look up to see her standing over a desk talking to a small boy. With a select few words she firmly instructs him to do something differently in his workbook. The boy casts his eyes down at his desk, drops the crayon in his hand, and picks up another. I immediately turned to my translator and asked her what just happened. She explains to me that the teacher wanted the boy to be more, “reasonable.” I didn’t quite understand what this meant so we both got up and went to look at the boy’s workbook. Half of the grass maze had been colored red, but now his small hand was clutching a green crayon, slowly moving it back and forth over the paper filling in the remaining white spaces.

            As I returned to my desk my mind was spinning– the boy had simply been coloring the grass red, yet the teacher had spoken in such a harsh tone, directing him to be more “reasonable.” Here comes one of the difficulties of not speaking the language, am I to think that instead of “reasonable” my translator meant “realistic?” She had further explained that what they were drawing had to match the real world, leading me to believe that the teacher had said be more “realistic.” Regardless of which word the teacher used– she wasn’t impressed with the boy’s unique choice in grass color. On my way back to my desk I began glancing at other students’ work. They had all colored the balloon red, the bicycle either blue or black, the net’s handle blue, and the grass green– the hue of the colors varied but generally speaking everyone’s coloring job was identical. These colors were the exact colors of the illustrations the teacher put on the board when teaching the new words; everyone besides this one boy had produced replicas of the teacher’s visuals. Why the boy decided to color the grass red– I do not know. But I do know that when the teacher told him to put down the red crayon she was discouraging creativity. This young boy simply was generating his own idea, and he was told that it was wrong, because grass can only be one color, the realistic or reasonable color: green.

The teacher is discouraging the boy to think on his own, to be original, and to explore new ideas. Making him pick up the green crayon doesn’t just change the color of the grass, but slowly chips away at his creative thought process, deterring him from generating new and original ideas. Why doesn’t this teacher want to foster creativity? If there is no positive reinforcement on creativity at school, then where will children learn? I am not simply referring to creative as an artistic talent, but looking at the bigger picture– a child’s ability to think and act in a way that is considered original, unique, innovative, or alternative. With a teacher acting as a restraint it will be nearly impossible for children to explore and stimulate their creative thought process. This teacher is promoting conformity and imitation rather than innovative and creative thinking.