I was informed that I was going to be moved to a different work placement; in First High School in Basak, as they needed more UK volunteers to teach English. This meant yesterday was my last day at Zapatera - with that crazy teacher.
I turned up at Zapatera for my last day - and the teacher complained to me that my team leader came yesterday. (I complained that they were not giving us work to do, all I was doing was constantly proving her wrong).
"I don't understand what's going on.. She said I had to give you a project.. Project?! What sort of project?!"
I explained, in the nicest way possible, although I felt anger towards her, that I did not fly over all the way from the UK to do nothing. I want to be able to help out, share knowledge and experiences.
"But I don't need any help. I can teach the children on my own. I am a skilled teacher. Deaf children need discipline, and that's what I am doing."
"Deaf children only need as much discipline as you would give to hearing children." I was so close to just walking out, her stubbornness amazes me.
"But they can't hear. They need more."
No they don't. They really, really don't. I really didn't have patience with that teacher anymore. I told her I was leaving anyway, I had better things to do as I was going to be teaching deaf children English in a different school.
"Fine." She said.
I sat at the back watching her English class, and SO many times, I've wanted to come up to the board and correct sentences. Her grammar isn't that great. The words "I'm a skilled teacher" started to become a joke.
Eventually I gave up, I couldn't watch deaf children learning English that didn't consist of plural endings or whatever so I went to the front and asked her if I could take over. Obviously, she hasn't seen me teach or write English before so she hesitated. All she let me do was maths. I started teaching before she even said yes, and on purpose, I focused on plurals. Yes plurals, because the teacher doesn't know how to use them. Unlike her, I made sure ALL the children understood, gave them questions and they filled the gaps out themselves.
At the end, I sent the children to lunch and I went outside - the classroom is so hot so I was sweating by the time it was over, but going outside obviously didn't make a difference at all.
I told the teacher I was going to go home, I knew I wasn't going to do anything in the afternoon.
"Okay, why don't you come back tomorrow?"
"Sorry, it's too late, I'm going to Basak tomorrow." She did state very clearly that she didn't need me after all.
"But what you did over there, with the English, that was good. Thank you."
Hallelujah. I got a 'thank you' out of that woman.