Here Goes Nothing

I am always nervous about doing new things with my class here. For some reason I fear that my kids will think it is lame and boring and not want to participate. It is probably some lingering self-doubt from my middle school days when I couldn’t sit at the “cool” table in the lunch room. So when I had the thought of starting a new club, I didn’t know if it would fly.

Two weeks ago I swallowed my doubts and I started a fitness club. On Tuesdays I meet with the girls and on Wednesdays I meet with the boys. We start off with some stretches and then move to some strength exercises like pushups, sit-ups and lunges. Most of them complain, but much to my relief, many show up. After that I lead them in whatever game I feel like playing on that particular day.

Lately, what with the Duck football season down the tube, we have been playing soccer. Now I love soccer but I have always been horrible at it. Most of the kids here however have never played and that makes me the best player on the field — plus I double most of their size.

It might sound mean, but when else am I going to be able to score a hat-trick in a game?

Anyway, all of the kids and I have a great time. There is usually a lot of good-natured trash talking between the two teams and some pretty ridiculous after-goal celebrations.

These kids will know English when I am through — or at least they will know how to say “in your face!”

This is some of the most fun I have had with my kids while being on-island. I get to see their personalities and senses of humor. I get to see how they interact with each other outside of class. They, in turn, get to see that their teacher is a normal enough guy — when he isn’t waving his shirt over his head after a particularly sweet goal — and is concerned with more than if they brought in their homework like they were supposed to.

After every Fitness Club meeting I bring back all of the kids to my place and get them water and we sit around the front of my house and chat. They usually try and teach me Marshallese and then laugh their heads off as I mispronounce everything. Meanwhile I ask them what word after word in English means in Marshallese.

While I know a lot more than when I got here — nothing — I still have not gotten much past the caveman stage of “I hungry, I tired, I thirsty.”

The other day after fitness club, one of my boys named Parent even climbed the two and a half storey coconut tree in my yard and knocked down some good eating for me. We hacked open the fresh coconuts and passed the milk around — delisious.

The whole thing about Fitness Club so far has been that it is a laid-back way for me to get to know my students, and I love it. It has not flopped like I feared it might and maybe I can put these middle school insecurities to bed already.

One day in class last week I had every student share with the whole class what their favorite sport is while I was taking role. There were some kids who said basketball and volleyball and then we got to Bobby Lucky.

“My favorite sport is Fitness Club,” he said.

I was smiling too big to tell him that Fitness Club is not actually a sport.


The love you give comes back in the end.
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