What do you do at school, some of you might be wondering, or what are your classes like, so I'll give a short description of each of my six classes (thanks to Regina's blog from Kosrae for the inspiration to do this).

I rotate through all the juniors in the school each day and one class of sophomores. The students are divided into sections sort of by "majors", but this doesn't necessarily correspond to their english speaking level which makes things interesting (although it does sort of generally). My impression is that of the three high schools, the english level in Madoleniehmw is on average the lowest. These are in chronological order.

11-D
My first class of the day, it has gone from being my second largest to my smallest, right now I'm down to about 12-13 students who show up every day. I should be thankful, most of the volunteers on the island have big classes (ranging from 25-45). These guys are probably the most respectful generally, they are the vocational group, so the least academic. They work hard though and are a smart group but need help with their english.

11-C
My second period is a class of all girls (14 of them) which proves to be highly interesting. They are the business majors, and again are generally pretty respectful. I think I misinterpret their attempts at flirting for disrespect a lot, so they end up saying things (in Pohnpeian) and laughing a whole lot which leaves me flustered and frustrated sometimes. I am learning to just roll with it and realize that they just like me and I interpret it in really strange ways.

11-A
I have this class twice each day which is sometimes a struggle for all of us, there are about 20 of them. They are the top academic students of their grade which of course is good and bad. Smart students who have been treated like the smartest can sometimes be the most self-rightous and "know I'm smart" of all. I'm making a generalization about a group, so it's not true down to individuals (although maybe sometimes, yes). They are generally highly amusing, but they want to teach me Pohnpeian as much or maybe more than I teach them english, which is frustrating. I might be getting a squirt gun to start enforcing some english only days in this class. They are high achievers though and generally there english is the best of my classes.

11-B
My class after lunch is oft-times so crazy I don't what to do with them. About 20 students, I would say that regularly about 6-8 come in almost halfway through class (the bell is pretty much inaudible during lunch and the elementary students have lunch for about 15-20 more minutes after our classes have started, so I usually have an audience and peanut gallery outside my windows). I have struggled with these students, some of whom I really like and enjoy. A few of them like to laugh uproariously and sometimes they set me off laughing which is not the best thing, but it's almost uncontrollable (my laughter that is).

10-D
This class is probably the craziest and least disciplined in all the school (don't ask me why I ended up with them, my discipline skills, as I'm sure you can imagine, are not super honed). Numerous other teachers have said as much and they have struggled with this class. There are about 30 of them and it's the end of the day when I get them. Couple this fact with their lack of english textbooks and I'm left to sort of fend for myself (of them off) for the period a lot. I have learned to find amusement in this class, but many times I just leaved pissed off. I've resorted to using a lot of journal prompts for them (most recently, if you could have any superpower what would it be).

A general note about education here, for someone who likes to do things in a not very traditional way, this school system is a super-challange. Students here expect to copy everything down, question and answer included, and do a lot of work right out of the book (which is not very useful for ESL students, the book that is), but they do get something out of it. I am still surprised when I give book exercises my students are the best behaved and respond fairly well. Discussions, lectures, games, or other such activities are way outside their bounds and they often times don't know what to do with these things. They also strive for perfection, so often times will just start over on new paper if a couple things go wrong for them.