Second Week - Grabbing Life by Los Cuernos

Last week, I was definitely frustrated by the lack of organization at Santa Cruz. I felt like
I just could not really do anything and the excitement I had to start the year was waning as the other English teacher and I did no planning, we had only five students (when the class sizes are 30 to 40) in some classes, the schedule was still up in the air, and just generally there was chaos and confusion.

Talking with my community mates helped a lot and starting late last week I have just decided that I need to be more active and just take the initiative. With this in mind, I made placement/diagnostic tests to help us figure out how to divide up our classes (in secondary - which is basically middle and high school combined - there is one other English teacher and we split each class in half and I take the advanced/more interested students and she takes the others.). I also decided I would take it upon myself to make sure we recognized International Women´s Day, which for those who don´t know was yesterday. I chose a nice little poem to read that I borrow from a community mate and the only movie I could find to show was ¨Frida.¨ It ended up being a real interesting choice as it is very racy and has a couple real sex scenes, but I think the constant thought that I might not skip those parts kept the kids more interested. Also, she is a good example of a strong Latin American woman and someone new for them to learn about.

To give everyone out there a little bit of a sense of how my job will work, here is what my schedule for a week is like. Mondays I always get there early - at 7:45 - for Lunes Civico, during which they sing the national anthem and have a general school assembly in which the Director, Padre Jorge, usually goes on about puntuality and other assorted issues. It is always a little funny to me that he is giving the lecture on puntuality to the kids who arrived on time, while the late ones have to stay outside the school until the assembly is over.

For each of the five years of secondary, I teach three pedagogical hours (forty five minute blocks). But since the English teacher - her name is Sandra - also teaches somewhere else in the morning (it is not unusual for teachers here to have two jobs or even to be working two jobs and still taking further career development classes - which is part of the reason why they tend to only spend the hours they need to teach at the school), these classes never begin until 11:15. In the mornings, I do some prep, chat up different teachers who are around and Padre Jorge (both of which I found is the easiest and best way to find out what is actually going on around the school), and hang out with the kids during their 15 minute recess.

I also am starting this week my primary classes, for which I will be teaching 2 pedagogical hours in a row with each of the 4th year classrooms. Last year, the classes I sat in on or helped teacher with these little uns was quite an experience and I am trying to think of how I am going to handle it this year. I think I am going to really emphasize movement (singing, dancing, etc.) and maybe alternative means of grading as opposed to simply tests. Last year, each time we tried to do a worksheet or a test, it was a real struggle to have them focus, not cheat, and generally the grades came out quite low.

Outside of this weekday/teaching stuff, I also am on of the co-leaders of the Youth Group for the parish that meets on Sundays and I am involved in coordinating and running the tutoring program for which students from the most wealthy (and probably best) school come on Saturday mornings to Vinani. They come from Cristo Rey, which is the school where Nate teaches and with whom I went on Mes de Mision.