I've had a headache for three days.
This morning one of our 4th graders brought me a bouquet of honeysuckle and daffodils.
Today in the staff room there was some meeting which turned into a lot of yelling in Georgian. My co-teacher was also angry and raising her voice. She told me that the director was saying they are not allowed to punish their students and that the teachers have no rights. I asked what she meant by punish and if yelling at the students counted. She said she didn't know. My other co-teacher didn't seem angry; she laughed at how crazy everyone was. Then she told me that the teachers can't cry at the children and hit them. I think cry means yell? Not hitting children is fine with me.
This event made my head hurt worse.
Everyone seemed kind of weird today. I was basically lost in my own world for the entire day.
My 11th graders were especially strange. They seemed like they were all in a bad mood and bickering with one another. One of them who is usually very attentive did absolutely nothing. They were really grumpy until my co-teacher told them I was going to Armenia for Easter. This got them talking. Talkin' a lot of shit! Apparently they don't like Armenians. They told me they hope I don't like them either. Then they went on to describe their appearance as having big noses, eyebrows and they are "black" which to them means dark, not African. They also said that they don't like them because they do not have a sea, which the Georgians do. So during summer tons of Armenians come to the Black Sea and sing their Armenian songs and cook their Armenian food. I didn't think this sounded so bad........ But then one of the students said that if the Armenian has money, the Georgians will like them, and he laughed. So at least he seemed to realize how ridiculous it all was. Even if he feels the same way. Then they tried to teach me a couple Armenian words like "beautiful girl" or "beautiful boy" which I was really unsure why I would need to know. I asked them, and they said "if you know an Armenian word they will think you are Armenian and be nice to you!" and I was thinking "umm they will NOT think I'm Armenian...." not to mention, they were just talking about how Armenians are ugly! Then they tried to teach me how to say "I love you" which I'm quite positive I won't be needing to know. Especially if they are as ugly as my students claim they are.
Anyway, this post is starting to seem kind of anti-Armenian and also mean. I don't have any idea if all Georgians feel this way about Armenia of it is just my three grumpy 17 year old students. Either way, I'm totally excited to go to Armenia! You can't listen to opinions like these. If I listened to what my friend in Russia said about Georgians, I wouldn't have ever ended up in Georgia!
This morning one of our 4th graders brought me a bouquet of honeysuckle and daffodils.
Today in the staff room there was some meeting which turned into a lot of yelling in Georgian. My co-teacher was also angry and raising her voice. She told me that the director was saying they are not allowed to punish their students and that the teachers have no rights. I asked what she meant by punish and if yelling at the students counted. She said she didn't know. My other co-teacher didn't seem angry; she laughed at how crazy everyone was. Then she told me that the teachers can't cry at the children and hit them. I think cry means yell? Not hitting children is fine with me.
This event made my head hurt worse.
Everyone seemed kind of weird today. I was basically lost in my own world for the entire day.
My 11th graders were especially strange. They seemed like they were all in a bad mood and bickering with one another. One of them who is usually very attentive did absolutely nothing. They were really grumpy until my co-teacher told them I was going to Armenia for Easter. This got them talking. Talkin' a lot of shit! Apparently they don't like Armenians. They told me they hope I don't like them either. Then they went on to describe their appearance as having big noses, eyebrows and they are "black" which to them means dark, not African. They also said that they don't like them because they do not have a sea, which the Georgians do. So during summer tons of Armenians come to the Black Sea and sing their Armenian songs and cook their Armenian food. I didn't think this sounded so bad........ But then one of the students said that if the Armenian has money, the Georgians will like them, and he laughed. So at least he seemed to realize how ridiculous it all was. Even if he feels the same way. Then they tried to teach me a couple Armenian words like "beautiful girl" or "beautiful boy" which I was really unsure why I would need to know. I asked them, and they said "if you know an Armenian word they will think you are Armenian and be nice to you!" and I was thinking "umm they will NOT think I'm Armenian...." not to mention, they were just talking about how Armenians are ugly! Then they tried to teach me how to say "I love you" which I'm quite positive I won't be needing to know. Especially if they are as ugly as my students claim they are.
Anyway, this post is starting to seem kind of anti-Armenian and also mean. I don't have any idea if all Georgians feel this way about Armenia of it is just my three grumpy 17 year old students. Either way, I'm totally excited to go to Armenia! You can't listen to opinions like these. If I listened to what my friend in Russia said about Georgians, I wouldn't have ever ended up in Georgia!
Racism is alive and well everywhere.
ReplyDeleteArmenians are our friends, our brothers, And in georgia is a big armenian diaspore. I think there students were angry about one person, (child) and this fact is not RACISM problem... We love ARMENIANS!
ReplyDeleteI'm very glad to hear that!
ReplyDelete