Things Not to Teach
In one of my French classes we got a reading about a guy who crashes on an island and ends up eating another person in order to survive. After the reading we had a really long discussion, around 90 minutes, about what we would do in that situation, and it eventually turned to religion and other matters. A great class overall.
Thinking I was being clever, I translated the story into English and held one of my practice classes over it. It was a complete flop. Every single student said they wouldn't eat a person, and wouldn't talk any further. I was expecting controversey, but after class a volunteer told me that it's a huge taboo to even discuss the subject, and that some students probably associate cannibalism with witches, which they won't talk about either.
Otherwise, Model School is going great. There's one week left of practice teaching, and the week after is just some administrative tasks followed by my swearing-in ceremony.
Thinking I was being clever, I translated the story into English and held one of my practice classes over it. It was a complete flop. Every single student said they wouldn't eat a person, and wouldn't talk any further. I was expecting controversey, but after class a volunteer told me that it's a huge taboo to even discuss the subject, and that some students probably associate cannibalism with witches, which they won't talk about either.
Otherwise, Model School is going great. There's one week left of practice teaching, and the week after is just some administrative tasks followed by my swearing-in ceremony.
posted by Jim R at 8:21 AM
1 Comments:
Way to alienate a culture, yovo.
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