Today was my last day of crazy ESL kindergarten (thanks god, as Claudia would say). That’s one thing I won’t miss. I know there are only two children, and my sweet Anna is one of them. But the other student, Denzel, is violent and uncontrollable. He screams and cries for much of the class. He’s hit me in the face and thrown rocks at me. His idea of conflict resolution is picking a chair up over his head like he’s going to smash it down on you; and I’ve seen him push Anna to the ground and hit her repeatedly in the head.
I thought maybe it was me and my inexperience, but yesterday Claudia joined me and was shocked by the behavior. And now Getrud (Denzel’s mother) tells me that all the volunteers have had problems with Denzel, even the professional teachers. Getrud herself cannot control him.
Now kindergarten will be poor Claudia’s job for the next month while she is here. I hope the kids learn a lot. Anna has come so far in the past month and I would hate for her to regress. And Denzel needs whatever discipline he can get. But, after Claudia, there will be another long break with no volunteers and therefore no kindergarten. I wonder what will happen…
Video: Anna and Denzel in a relatively quiet moment, playing with blocks
Video: Anna has learned half of the ABC song. Unfortunately, her next kindergarten teacher (Claudia) is German and doesn’t know the song.
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