Justice League and Hangman

I haven't been doing a good job of keeping up with this blog, but teaching Carina hasn't been something I've wanted to dwell on. I don't mean to make it sound terrible, it's just that after a few hours of temper tantrums and misunderstandings, I don't feel the need to go over it again once I'm home free.

The main focus with Carina has been her attitude. She has a complete lack of respect and doesn't like authority or discipline. This made my M.O. with her very difficult for her to get her head around. Unfortunately, my discipline only works as far as she will let it. If she gets too used to it, she'll just ignore it and it doesn't matter how much work you pile on as discipline if the kid simply refuses to do it. So I've had to be patient and pick my battles.

It's gotten to the point where she will pretty much do her work without too much of a fight which makes it so we can move past that and start enjoying the class. This is where I can start making the class more interesting again. In the beginning, all of my attempts at games or creative teaching was waisted on a kid who was determined not to learn or have fun. Rhyming, cartoons, trivia games, lessons based on the Justice League. That's right, Carina found a way to ruin a class based on The Justice League: she's committed.
Fortunately, she got hooked. When my Justice League DVD ran out, I brought over Teen Titans and Superman and she put her hands on her hips.
"Nooo!!! I want more Flash, Superman, Wonder Woman and...what's his name?"
"Martian Manhunter?"
"No. The really good cool one."
"Batman?"
"Yeah, Batman."
I couldn't help smiling. Batman is definitely the really good cool one. She hit me in my soft spot. Batman is my all time favorite super hero; the real hero with real courage; the man who faced all of his human weaknesses and flaws and came out a titan with an eye for justice.
I finally have a reward that I can give her and be happy about. Watching Justice League gives her concepts of attitude, morals, values, English phrases and best of all: a comparison when I'm trying to show her how important Character and Cool are. "Cool" is a very persuasive tool for a 13 year old.
Today was a nice class, but I have to be careful. I can't expect the next one to be as good. The last time we had a great class and we really bonded, I was very happy and I relaxed, expecting things to be going uphill, which set me up for real disappointment when she laid on the super tantrum the next time around. It's a give and take and takes a lot of patience and foresight. Today she jumped at finishing all her work early and we ended up staying 30 minutes after class, playing Hangman with vocabulary words from the latest lesson. She wasn't even a bad sport when she lost the tie breaker question. I have a really hard time not buying it hook line and sinker, elated that I've finally gotten through to the kid, but I have to or the up and down will kill this job fast.

We didn't have class for a week because she went to Hong Kong for a series of tournaments. She won all of them and came home with five trophies, including the one that calls her the new "Grandmaster in the 12 and under category". Before she went she told me how nervous she was and how she thought she wasn't any good. Maybe the reaffirmation helped her somewhat. I couldn't go with her because I was waiting on my visa renewal. Maybe I'll be going to her next one. So far, this job has not been what it was advertised as, but we'll see what happens from here.