Clases de Computación

At La Montaña, I teach a computer “class.” There are 10 old desktops, seven of them usually work. The kids start with MecaNet, a typing program. But some of the computers don’t have the program, so those kids have to type a page in a Word document. The typing program is so lame, very boring looking. I’ve asked my mom to mail me a different program for the kids, hopefully that will come soon.

The first week I ran computer classes by myself was madness, total chaos. The kids love the class, because after they do their work they can play games… really old games…like Mario and something I’ve never seen before called Prehistorik. You’d think that their favorite class would be the one they behave the best for. No way. The computers make them lose their minds, they go crazy. Besides that, I didn’t have the words to tell them what I wanted or to make them listen to me, they just ran circles around me.

That first week, by Friday, I had lost my mind. No one would leave when the time was up and no one would do their work. On Friday, after chasing one of the boys around the room and pulling him out from under the table, I locked myself inside the classroom and had a frustrated cry.

Then on Saturday I bought a poster for the class and made up a program for them. If they behave during class—listening to me, leaving when it’s time to leave, and doing their work—then they get a Spiderman sticker on the chart. When they have four stickers, a prize. Prizes are really cool things like pencils, erasers, and pencil sharpeners. But they will do anything for a prize. And I will do anything to get them to behave. So we understand each other now.