Sometimes, it's all uphill

Before I get into this topic, please realize that I'm not writing to complain. I don't really blame most of the people involved for their part in the problem. They're just part of a complicated system, and right now the system isn't working in my favor.

See, I have this class. They're all adults, no teens involved. All but one of them are gainfully employed, with several of them holding important jobs. They want to learn English, mostly for their job, or for travel. So a community organization asked for a teacher (me) and put together a class list. It started with 28 students, even though I normally limit a class to 25.

Out of those 28, I've never had more than 23 show up on a given day. But we were making progress. I taught the class one day a week and an islander taught it on another day each week. We made it 3/4 of the way through the book, when...

Ramadan happened.

And since classes for adults normally occur around sunset-- the same time at which everyone is breaking the fast-- we couldn't hold classes for a month.Then we waited an extra week after Ramadan because a lot of the women were fasting an extra week (for personal reasons).

But the problem is, things here have a consistency issue. If something happens every week, people will come. If it's every day, they're even more likely to come. Every month is more difficult... then you have to call and remind everyone, because it's not in their routine.

And something that was happening and then was on break for over a month? It's a struggle. Since the break we've had 5 class sessions-- class 1 we reviewed with 5 students, class 2 the other teacher didn't come, class 3 I had 4 students (not enough to teach a lesson), class 4 the students didn't come because it was too close to a holiday, and class 5 was today. I had 7 students and decided to teach the lesson anyway.

Moral of the story? Finish classes before Ramadan, or hold low expectations for after.