5 Weeks Down, 36 to Go!

Time flies when you're teaching English! I've now completed my 5th week in Spain; 3 and a half of them working at Rosa Luxemburgo. Time is sure passing by quickly. We are already preparing for Halloween and the arrival of staff from out Twin School, Redlands Primary, in Worksop, Nottinghamshire, England. Because of the visit by the Twin School staff we are downplaying Halloween and planning big stuff for Guy Fawkes Day, which is in the first week of November, possibly the 7th. The really super short version of Guy Fawkes day that I was told is he planned to blow up the Houses of Parliament in the 1600's and was caught and burned at the stake. Now towns and villages all over Britain re-enact the burning at the stake with an effigy which the community creates. This coincides well with the fact that November is fire safety month.

For Halloween, the older kids are going to participate in a pumpkin carving contest and we will award prizes for the best ones. Other than that, the celebration of Halloween is really up to the teachers. I know in Elena's class we are going to do some worksheets and activities that help them with grammar but use Halloween words and themes. Since we are working on feelings I looked around for coloring sheets and found one that has a ridiculous looking monster on it and a caption that says "The monster is mad," I don't know if that is mad like angry or mad like the British word for crazy, maybe both? We talked about making a potion in class so they could work on order words such as first, next, after, last. We threw around things we could use, like ketchup for blood and beans with eyes drawn on them. Then Elena said something about spider legs, but she didn't know what to use. I immediately thought of these little tiny soup noodles that are about an inch long and much skinnier than spaghetti. I told her we could use the noodles and she just gave me a blank stare. I tried to explain soup noodles, I even drew them on the board. She told me in Spanish they call them fideos and asked what the word do we use. So, I think I taught Elena "noodles" along with giving a suggestion for spider legs.

Speaking of Elena... I should share with you the funniest sentence I've heard yet, and it came from her. On Wednesday there was a girl bawling in class because her pencil and eraser were taken away. She was playing with them while I was reading them a book about day and night, and Elena had enough. After 15 or 20 minutes of crying Elena suggested that the girl go splash some water on her face and calm down. When she left the room the other kids asked where she was going and why she was crying. Elena told them that she was "going to wash her face in the toilet." I should point out that Elena didn't misspeak, rather the kids are taught British English, which calls the restroom "the toilet." To me "she is going to wash her face in the toilet" just sounds wrong; and when the kids ask me if they can go to the toilet it sounds vulgar, I don't need to know their exact destination. We've been encouraged not to correct the children when there are differences between the English they have been taught and the English we know, but I think if these kids went to The States and asked for the toilet they would get strange looks. They also call erasers "rubbers" which makes the adolescent boy in me giggle every time.

On a completely unrelated note, I received a wonderful complement on my Spanish skills yesterday. While I was in Eduardo's room working on a poster for the Redlands teachers Ines, the new 4th grade teacher came in just to say hi. She came in a few weeks into the school year because the regular 4th grade teacher took a leave of absence after her son was hit by a car and fell into a coma, he is doing much better but not out of the woods yet. Since Ines teaches the kids in Spanish I have no contact with her outside of the break times. We chatted for a little, I asked how her classes were getting along and she explained that it is much better now that she has been here a few weeks and knows the kids, a point that I totally agreed with. At the end of our conversation she asked how long I had been in Spain, and I told her about a month, she said that my Spanish was very good. I should point out that she is the one who teaches the kids Spanish grammar, so she is well qualified to make this assessment!

I also had the chance to walk home with the portero of our building. A portero is kind of like a doorman, but better. He is in charge of building upkeep, trash, mail deliveries and just being a generally friendly face in the vestibule. On my way home from school yesterday I saw him get on the same metro car as me, though he was talking with some people. When the other people got off one stop before ours he looked over with much surprise and asked if I lived in the building, I said yes. Then he told me about his metro friends, the people he sees each time he rides because he rides at the same time everyday. We chatted about what I was doing and about the weekend. He gave me a restaurant recommendation for our neighborhood. Yet another opportunity to practice Spanish.

All in all things are going well. I like my school, I have a few leads on private lessons and I'm getting the hang of speaking Spanish with native speakers. What else could I ask for?

Double Post Day!

I didn't want to post these pictures with my story, as the two are really unrelated. I took a couple of snapshots along my route to school.
The first is of Calle de Goya, heading towards the center of town. I leave my apartment a few minutes before 8am. It is still dark outside when I leave.






The next photo is of a metro train heading in the opposite direction. I couldn't stand on the platform long enough to take one of my train, but in this one you get to see the giant screen where Canal Metro is projected. Many metro stops have screens or TVs that play news of varying importance throughout the day. I take the metro from Goya to Moncloa, then a bus from Moncloa to school. In the mornings I am usually seconds away from missing the bus, so I clearly didn't have time to photograph it!

Next is a picture of the green academic fortress, Rosa Luxemburgo. I couldn't get a good shot of it, so most of what you see is the giant fence that surrounds the school. Behind the fence are four buildings. One for Infants, the next for 1st & 2nd grades, after that is my building which houses the 3rd & 4th grades, the cafeteria and the directors office. Last is the new building with the gym, the new computer lab and the 5th & 6th grades.

Here, I have a photo of my Coca Cola Light and some Patatas Bravas. Across the street from school is a small shopping center that includes two cafes. Ana Eimear and I usually walk around this area during the first hour of our lunch break, when the teachers have a meeting and we have free time. Today we stopped for a beverage and it came with potatoes.


On the way home I took a couple shots of Moncloa. The Moncloa area has many Franco-esque buildings, such as the Air Force building. I also took a photo of the metro entrance so you can see what the signs look like. It also includes that giant arch in the background, which to be perfectly honest, I don't know what it is...

Even a Police Officer Can't Keep These Kids In Line!

Bet that title got your attention! It is true. Today, the 3rd grade had a visit from a very friendly police officer, MariLuz. She and the kids talked about traffic signs and safety in the streets. That is once, the kids were quiet. MariLuz worked with them from 10 until 11 this morning. The kids were busy working in their English workbooks when she came in. As per usual it took forever for them to put away the books, especially since many of them had finished the activity and wanted me or Elena to correct it.

Each week Elena assigns two helpers. These kids to a lot of work! They put up the date and the lunch menu every morning, and they are in charge of passing out and collecting materials. When MariLuz entered, the helpers had to collect the workbooks, then pass out scissors and glue. The passing out of scissors and glue was basically chaos. The kids were supposed to have labeled their scissors and put them in a box for the class. When Guillermo began to pass out the scissors it soon became obvious how few of them were actually labeled. Kids were swarming him grabbing for scissors. Finally Elena got fed up with the chaos and told him just to give a pair to each kid, and that it didn't matter if they were that person's or not. Clearly, this would not go over well with the kids. Though they did sit back down, Guillermo spent 10 minutes criss-crossing the class to pass out the scissors "correctly".

Once they all had supplies, 15 minutes later, it was time to start cutting. These kids do not like to listen to instructions, not from us in English and not from the Police in Spanish. Before she could finish explaining that they were only supposed to cut out the "STOP" sign many kids were snipping away. She tried to talk about each sign as they cut it out, but that was clearly too slow for them. They wanted to destroy things!

I mostly watched this go down, as she was conducting the activity in Spanish and I am, under no circumstances, to speak to the kids in Spanish. I tried to help one boy, Victor, since he is usually lost in every activity we do, but when I started to re-explain in English he looked at me and said "I don't understand what you are saying..." and went back to cutting out the wrong things. When MariLuz turned her back to fill out their participation certificates, and Elena was correcting the workbooks I had to police the class. This included directing them back to their chairs, which apparently the forgot what "Sit down" means the second the teacher started speaking Spanish. It also meant that I got to hold on to a stuffed frog for the rest of the class period. One of the major trouble makers, Javi, tried to throw it to his friend Guillermo, but way over shot and it happened to land at my feet.

At the end of class one really bratty girl tried to rip it out of my hands and return it to Ruben, the owner. I'm starting to think that many of the kids try to pull fast-ones over on me because they think I don't understand Spanish. Oh, I understand, I'm just not allowed to speak it. So when you cop an attitude with me, but think that because it is in Spanish I'm just going to cave I get really annoyed. I also get annoyed when people talk down to me because I don't speak Spanish in front of the kids. At the end of the class, MariLuz was talking to Elena and she was asking about me/ why I wasn't participating. Elena explained that I am a language assistant, and as such only allowed to speak English with the kids. At this point MariLuz gave me a copy of the activity and slowly said something to me, I can't remember if it was "Buenas Dias" or what. But it was clearly slowed down. I know she was trying to be nice, but in doing so it came across as her thinking I'm not capable of speaking Spanish. I am perfectly capable, I'm just not allowed to!

After the adventures in traffic safety, I went to the break room for brunch. Just to remind you, everyday they give us a nice spread of coffee, tea, fruit, yogurt and random pastries. Today was Eduardo's birthday, this means that there was a giant spread of other things to complement the regular breakfast. I don't really know what I was eating, but it was pretty yummy. Ana, Eimear and I were sitting on one side of the table eating and chatting when Eduardo insisted on giving us wine. Yes, wine. Yes it was 11 am. It was delicious white wine, and I was happy to have a little drink after watching a police officer struggle to keep my kids in line! At the end of brunch there was still wine in the bottles, and Eduardo was not going to waste it. Eimear had been drinking red, and insisted that he couldn't put white in the same cup; while that was going on, Ana had stuffed her pastry wrapper into her plastic cup. Next thing I knew my cup was refilled. I told Eduardo I couldn't bring wine to Science class, he told me it was OK if I was late because I had to finish it. I can't imagine an American school that would allow such things, and this is why I love working in Spain.

I truly love working at my school. Everyday is different from the one before it. At times it can be awkward to be thrown into a tight-knit group of people who don't speak your native language, everyone does a great job of helping us feel welcome. I think they are such a close group because they are such nice people. Sure, there are times when it is overwhelming to sit in the break room and be engulfed in the cacophony of various Spanish conversations, but it is never impossible for us to participate. At times they want to help us practice Spanish, other times they want us to help them with English. There are a good number of people who don't speak any English, but last week we got into a debate about the collective abilities of Spaniards to learn languages, and even the monolingual people wanted to hear our opinions and stressed how important it was for them to be exposed to us speaking English.

Ch-Ch-Changes

Hello Readers!
So, I received some words of concern from a few of you. I see that my last post was not very positive, nor were many of them. I can also see why many of you would be a little worried, I complain too much!

Starting today there will be less complaining. I am not stupid, I recognize that there are going to be times when stuff happens that I will just have to complain about, but for the most part I am going to try and keep it positive. You will notice a change in the blog design. Not only has the content turned a corner, but I thought a design make-over was in order.

While I was too busy complaining about being kind of bored and homesick, I forgot to tell you about my favorite children. As anyone who has worked with kids will tell you, it is impossible not to have favorites. I have a couple of them, mostly in the 3rd grade.

In no particular order they are:

Alejandro from the 3rd grade. Alex does everything ridiculously slow, but he gets it done, eventually. I absolutely love him. Elena tends to call him out for being slow to finish, but he just needs some help. Last week the kids had to finish a list of things before going to computers. First they had to complete a worksheet, then the had to make the science cover page in their notebooks, and finally write the homework in the planners. Clearly this was going to be too much for Alex. As the other kids finished their tasks they went across the hall to the computer lab. Eventually it was just me and Alex. I tried to help him finish faster, but there is just no rushing Alex. Finally we made it to the computer lab, where the kids were listening to a song about the solar system and filling in the missing words on their work sheets. Alex loved the song. As per usual he was the last one to finish. Once all of the other kids had crossed back over to their regular classroom, I shut down the other computers I turned to tell Alex it was time to go. This is when I saw the cutest thing possible. He was bopping along in his chair, quietly singing the song. Adorable. Alex really is a sweet kid, he just needs some help and a little more attention. Luckily I am there on Tuesdays and Wednesdays to help him out!

In keeping with my love of troubled youth, the next on my list is Joe (pronounced Joey, though in neither English nor Spanish does that make sense...). He is also a 3rd grader, and Elena told me he is "special ed", which I think just means he has some problems with social stuff, perhaps Aspergers. He catches on very quickly to English and has some of the best grammar in the class. He does tend to talk to his neighbors, especially one kid named Guillermo. Unlike Alex, Joe gets his work done quickly, and usually with very few mistakes. I think I like him for the simple fact that he is always excited to see me. When I am walking through the playground on my way to or from the bus stop, and he spots me he yells out "Hello, Liz!!"

In the 4th grade I am having a harder time picking favorites. Even though I spend all of Mondays with them I don't feel like I know them very well. There is one kid, Jorge who made my week last week. On Monday I worked with the kids on descriptions by showing them pictures of my family. They all got a big kick out of seeing my parents, and sister and my cousins Jenna and Matthew... They also thought it was hilarious that I am the shortest member of my family. After we talked about my family for a little while, I had them tell me sentences about their families, like who is the tallest or youngest. On Tuesday I was back in 4th grade for Science class when Jorge came up and said "I really like your class." Though he has pretty awful behavior most of the time, and not in a cute way, this moment carved Jorge out a little place in my heart.

Several of the girls are super sweet, like Ines, Berta, Julia, Sara and both of the Martas. But I wouldn't say I have favorites among them. They are all different, Ines and Julia are very quick, and have a decent level of English. Berta is just a little busy-body. I felt awful for her last week when she was acting up and Eduardo took her out of the class and made her work on her assignments in the 3rd grade class. It is typical that the teachers will tell kids they are acting like babies, and ask if they want to go to the infants' classroom, but usually that is an empty threat. This time, Eduardo was for real. The Martas are both sweet girls, and do very well with their assignments, but one of them looks like she is on the verge of tears all the time. I've talked to the other Auxiliares about it, and we just think it is her face, not that she is actually about to start crying. Finally, Sara. She is just the cutest little thing. I say little because she is the shortest girl in the 4th grade, possibly the 3rd too, and we all know how i feel about the vertically challenged. Along with being super short, she is also super quiet and very hesitant to speak in English. I see alot of myself in little Sara, so it is my goal to help her.

Even if the teachers frustrate me, I know the kids are consistently going to be awesome. Sure, they bring toys to class and I have to take them away, or they have really bad moments, but all in all they do make this experience fun. No two days are the same, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

4 Weeks down, 37 to Go!

So... 4 weeks down, 37 to go. Wow! I've been here for a month, and it is starting to feel much longer. They (who ever "they" are...) say that culture shock comes in waves, but I think the same thing can be said for homesickness. When I first got here the only thing I really missed was my dog, Stella (That's her in the picture. My mom took the photo this weekend. Isn't she precious?). Laugh all you want, but she and I spent a good deal of time together over the summer and I really enjoy her company. Now I am starting to miss the people from home also. Of course my parents are top on the list, next come the friends.

I think most of this homesickness is because of a lot of free time. I only work 4 days a week and am home by 5 pm every night. So I spend a good deal of time entertaining myself. Both of my roommates have other things after school and Tony is in class many evenings. I need to find a second job, not only for monetary reasons, but also as a good distraction. Sure, I would wander the shops around my apartment, but the city of Madrid doesn't pay that well. My neighborhood shops are expensive; I saw a pair of shoes in a window, on sale, for more than my rent!

It is also surprisingly difficult to make Spanish friends. Yes, the people at my school are super nice, but that doesn't mean we are going to hang out... yet. I've heard Elena talk about things she did with her last assistant outside of school, so maybe as time passes we'll become friends. Or at least occasionally hang out. I did make good progress in speaking Spanish the other day. Several of the teachers also take the same bus back to Madrid city center, and Thursday while waiting for the bus I had a brief conversation with Lucia, the 5th & 6th grade English teacher. While she does speak English really well, she also recognizes our need to practice.

You probably noticed that one thing I haven't been doing with my free time is blogging. Honestly, my life hasn't been that thrilling and school is becoming more and more routine. I'm still working on figuring out Eduardo. He seems like a very nice person, outside of the classroom. He will ask how I am doing and seems to honestly care, he even asked if I was having any problems with my apartment or other non-school things. But once class starts he becomes a ridiculous disciplinarian. I sometimes wonder if he thinks I am weak or soft. I can tell he wants the kids to fall in line, and I know he sees that I'm not going to yell at them.

He has talked to me about the importance of pushing them, but I don't know if he has grasped the difference between challenging them and pushing them around. It is probably a cultural difference causing this conflict (one that mostly takes place in my head) since when I worked with kids before we were schooled in guiding children and redirecting bad behavior rather than out and out yelling. Elena did mention that the practice of yelling at kids is from the Franco era. Obviously, during the dictatorship using severe discipline was common, in and outside of schools. I am surprised that this type of classroom control has remained, given that on the streets jovenes (young people) are basically given the run of things. Many of the current parents were very young at the end of the Franco dictatorship, and they ardently believe "kids will be kids".

I would prefer that some of the older generation would regain control of the youth! Today, I went on a walk around my neighborhood, just to get some air. When I returned to my street there were two separate groups of kids hanging out, blocking the sidewalks. These groups of kids were about 10 deep, mixed gender and just really annoying. While they could easily see me coming none of them made an attempt to clear any kind of path, in fact one girl took a step directly in my way. What is weird about this encounter is that it went better than one last week. Last week one group of kids were hanging out directly in front of the local store. They were just sitting on someone's car, drinking out of (more than likely spiked) soda bottles. I went in to the store really quick, and the kids wouldn't move. They also wouldn't move when I came out. When I kind of had to push my way though, while muttering excuse me in Spanish, they began to yell it back at me. I don't know why they were yelling, but I sure didn't like it.

Yeah, so we've reached a rough patch. But I will survive, don't worry. Maybe next time I'll wait 'til I'm not in a funky mood to post... oh well, this whole year is one big learning process!

Andar un Paseo

Last time I posted about how today is the giant celebration of all things Spanish, and how awesome Spain is. Since Meagan, Melanie and I do love Spain we decided we were going to participate in the celebrations. Our intention was to go see the military parade that goes down Paseo de la Castellana and passes the Royal Family at Plaza de Colón. Plaza de Colón is about a 10 minute walk from my apartment, so we just walked down. The parade started at 10:15, we didn't leave our place until 11:30. Needless to say, we missed all of the parade. What we did catch was the Royal Family driving back to the Palace. Each time a car sped past the crowd throngs of people would start whistling and yelling.

After we realized that the parade was a bust we started to walk to the Royal Palace. This took us through a series of book sellers on Paseo de Recoletos, which is adjacent to Paseo de la Castellana. For several blocks there were little stands set up to sell all kinds of new and used books. Meagan, who wrote her senior thesis on One Hundred Years of Solitude by Garcia Marquez, was on a hunt for a copy of it in Spanish. Unfortunately there were no copies in any of the stands. It was still a good time.

When we reached the end of the books we were at Plaza de Cibeles with the giant Post Office building. I honestly don't know if the building is actually used for postal services or not, but it is huge. Cibeles is also a transportation hub, including where the night buses depart from. When the metro closes down at 1 am, people use the buhos (Spanish for owls) to get around. The N3, N5 & N7 all service my neighborhood.

From Cibeles, we started up Gran Via towards the Palace. The walk up Gran Via was nice, though there were huge crowds everywhere. Gran Via is Melanie's old 'hood, and she was shocked when we passed by a vacant lot. Apparently in the past 2 years an entire building had been ripped down. To be honest, this was the first time that I encountered Spain changing while I was gone. Up to this point everything had felt oddly familiar; like I had never left.

Our walk built up a decent hunger, so our goal became food. We got stopped a few times to take pictures and then we swung past the Royal Palace; we saw the gardens attached to the back and caught the changing of the guards. We didn't know what was going on at the Royal Palace, but saw a huge crowd gathering. It has been my experience that when a large crowd gathers outside a hotel or a palace something is about to happen. Two years ago in Rome a group of us got a little lost on a walk and happened upon the hotel where Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes were staying for their wedding. We waited around, behind the fence, and ended up seeing a a handful of celebrities including Brooke Shields, the Beckhams and Will Smith.

Finally we stopped for Kebab, which was delicious. We saw several restaurants with a Menú del Día, but they were wicked over priced. Usually a Menú should run about 10 euro, we passed one place that was asking 17. Clearly we are not made of money, plus we love Turkish food.

After eating our fill, and letting the daze of the food coma wear off we were back on the road. We walked from Opera to Puerta del Sol. Along the way we stopped to check out a 5 piece strings group performing just down the street from our favorite churros location. We also noticed that many of the apartment buildings along this heavily traveled path had decorated their balconies with yellow and red flags, basically the Spanish flag without the crest in the middle.

Once we arrived at Puerta del Sol I took a photo of the Bear and the Strawberry Tree statue, but I really can't remember why that is the symbol for Madrid. I will google that for you and report back later.

This basically ended our walking tour of the city. Four hours later we were back in our apartment, discussing how lucky we are to have this opportunity.

3 Weeks down, 38 to Go!

This is probably going to be a short post. I think the previous posts covered the main events of the week, like Eduardo throwing pens and the unintentional torture by instrumental U2.

Thursday I had planning time with both of the teachers. Neither session was the road map I want, I felt that it was productive. In Elena's class we are working on making visuals to go up around to the room, especially since the kids are having major trouble with spelling. Eduardo wants me to work with small groups of kids to cement their knowledge of comparative and superlative words (for example, older and oldest). Slowly but surely I think I will fit into this situation and the school.

I've said it before, but it is totally worth repeating, the teachers at Rosa Luxemburgo are really nice people. Last week I asked the first grade teacher about which laundry soap to buy and she not only answered my question, but was super excited to give me tips on anything and everything. The staff in the bilingual program will speak to us in either English or Spanish, which is fine; the rest of the staff on the other hand speaks only Spanish. I think since they work in a bilingual school they know how hard it is to learn a new language, so they speak really slow and more than happy to repeat things for us. When we have our morning coffee break the room fills up with excited chatter, but the monolingual staff does a great job of trying to engage us in conversations. I really feel lucky to be at such a welcoming school.

Things in general are going well. Sadly, the hours I spend at the school really knock me out. Thursday night I came home and watched some TV on my computer and put on my pajamas. When Tony called at 12:45 am to see if I wanted to go out I laughed out loud at the idea. By that point in the night I was getting ready to brush my teeth and go to bed, not put on my party shoes.

Friday Meagan and I tried to go to a free flamenco show in the Chamartin metro station. I said "tried" because even though we had arrived an hour early the line to get the free tickets was at least 150 deep, not counting the people who had already received tickets and were inside the tent. Slightly defeated we went to Bilbao area to see if we could find something else to do. This idea turned into a 2 hour walking tour of Madrid Center. It was nice to see Gran Via all lit up, and to pass the Royal Palace at night, it really made me wish I had brought the camera. No joke, I pulled it out of the little case and debated bringing it, but then decided against the idea. I guess that teaches me to just bring it and not kick myself later.

Hopefully this weekend I can get out and sacar unas fotos (to take pictures in Spanish). This morning/afternoon it was rainy, so we'll see if the weather lets up enough to take a good walk. Tomorrow is El Dia de la Hispanidad (The Day of Spanish-ness, basically), the day Spain celebrates itself and how Columbus found the new world (some people call it El Dia de la Raza [The Day of the Race] because it celebrates when the Spanish brought civilization to the natives of the Americas, but that is neither here nor there, just a fun fact to know and share). There is a large military parade and several other celebrations, which might give me a few good photo ops.

¡Caramba!

In continuing with my previous post about the difference between American and Spanish schools I thought I'd put up a few observations, then continue with a bit of story telling.

1. All the kids have freaking rolling backpacks! I loathe the rolling suitcases in the airport; I can't stand them in the schools. The paths around the school are all brick, so when the kids come into the buildings from recess all I can hear is "thump! thump! thump! thump!" from a series of 30 rolling backpacks. Also, since the classrooms are all upstairs the kids have to stop at the bottom of the stairs and put the handles down so they can carry it up the stairs. It reminds me of being in the airport and someone with a rolling suitcase stops to put it on the x-ray belt; but it soon becomes obvious that person is not a frequent traveler and they are easily baffled by the suitcase. Yeah, that is my life. It grates on my last nerve. The last thing that pisses me off about the rolling backpacks is that I mostly see parents rolling them home from school. The thing has wheels! How difficult can it be for your 8 year-old to wheel home his notebooks?!
2. The pencil cases. Since the kids are moving from room to room they carry their pencils with them in little cases. About 90% of the time these cases become toys. They are thrown about the room, they are slid across the desks, they are chewed on (believe me it is the most disgusting thing to see a wet pencil case). Today I had to chastise someone for throwing a pencil case and hitting another kid in the ear. Really? In what language does pencil mean the same thing as toy? When I was in elementary school we had one desk and kept our pencils in there.
   
3. The scissors. Kids here have real scissors. No rounded safety edges in Spain. Seven year olds have scissors with pointy tips. Who thought this was a good idea? Though we haven't done a single activity that involved cutting, I've had to ask kids to put their scissors down or away. One boy was just wandering around the 3rd grade classroom with his 3-inch scissors yesterday. Honestly, lets rethink the scissor situation.

Today was not a bad day. I spent most of it with Elena, the 3rd grade teacher. While she hadn't given me much to prepare I got to fully participate with the class. They are learning about the solar system in Science and practicing talking about friends and family in English. For Science we did a word search, but the second time I got to explain a little about some of the things we find in the solar system, like asteroids and meteors. In English class I presented a picture of my family and told them about how Dad is the tallest and I am the shortest and about how both my parents wear glasses and that Jen has got dark hair. They were a little thrown by Jen's redish-brown dye job and by Mom's gray/blond hair; up to this point they were working off of black and white pictures in the work book. They also had never heard "bald" before, so I had to explain it.

The kids in the 3rd grade are generally really good. They get very out of control at times. Like this afternoon, when the 3B's had finished the word-search about the solar system there was a small fiesta, complete with yelling and running around. I think the majority of the problem is that they haven't been exposed to the serious side of school yet. First and 2nd grades were both focused around singing and playing games, but now they have to learn skills like studying. Tomorrow Elena and I have an hour to plan, so hopefully we can get things charted out a little bit. If so, I probably won't feel as useless!

I also had one section of 4th grade science today. Eduardo is splitting the science class up so that the kids can be grouped based on their level of English. The other person teaching it is Ana, who seems very nice, but also strict. When told that they would be split up, one of the 4th grade girls was very interested to know which group I would be with. To add to my confusion, i will be going between groups. Today I went with Ana and one half of the class. Since I had no idea I would be going with Ana I just followed her to the other room and watched and listened. Hopefully I can get on top of this 4th grade thing, I still feel a little lost. The most helpful I have been was when I kept score for a trivia game, clearly that utilizes my skills with the English language. Luckily, there is also 4th grade planning on my schedule for tomorrow, so maybe we can get on the same page... or even reading the same book.

Lastly, today Elena played music while the kids worked in their English workbooks. It was U2, but not just any U2... U2 as elevator music. Instrumental U2. I'm not sure if you all know this or not, but I HATE U2. This mostly stems from the fact that I detest Bono. I think he is a pompous egomaniac. A tour guide in Ireland once told us that he will go to the local pub in his small town and not take off his sunglasses and talk to the people. How messed up is that?! He claims to value the people of Africa, but won't show respect to his neighbors? Is it just not fashionable enough? The weekend before training, we were in an Irish themed pub in Madrid and we began chatting with a guy from Dublin. As this particular bar closes it plays U2's "With or Without You" even after 2 years. When the song came on he told us that everyone in Ireland hates U2 also. In the span of 20 seconds, this guy validated my whole point. Even the fecking Irish hate him. But I digress...

Another thing I also hate is elevator music. My uncle listened to "smooth jazz" in the car all the time. It drove me nuts. Thank God his favorite smooth jazz station was shut down. Now lets combine the two musical things I hate the most and push play. It was so bad I almost laughed out loud when she said she was going to "put on U2, but without the words." As in, I thought she had somehow learned about my hatred of these things and was challenging me. Oh no, she was for real.

The Day Eduardo Threw the Pens

Spain is different than America. Quite an astute observation, I know. Anyone can tell you after a few days in Spain about their apparent love of ham, whereas Americans tend to value chicken. Or possibly about their notions of personal space (or lack thereof?) compared to our less touchy society. But one of the shocks I was not prepared for was the teaching style of elementary school teachers.

I told you before how we were encouraged to use physical means of praise in the classroom, that a pat on the back means more than just a simple "Good job!". What they did not prepare me for is the level of yelling in the classroom. I will do my best to explain what happened, but please remember that some of the importance of the story is lost without actually seeing it take place.

Today I spent my day in the 4th grade classroom with Eduardo, who is also the bilingual program coordinator. The first half of the day was spent with 4A. These kids were generally good. As expected there were a few chatter-boxes and some distracting behavior, but all in all not a bad morning. The first time I noticed a difference in teaching styles was the number of times Eduardo "called out" kids who either didn't have the homework, or were clearly not listening. This kind of public attention to their bad behavior is something that I hardly remember from elementary school. When I was younger, behavior and listening problems were dealt with one on one, not in front of the class. But this is Spain, and things are different here.

The afternoon though was when I got my first taste of Spanish classroom control. After lunch and recess the 4B's came into the classroom to get working. Eduardo did not walk them in, so as they came in on their own and took their seats they were chatting with one another. I've come to expect a certain level of noise from Spanish kids, and didn't think much of their chatting. Apparently I was wrong, because when Eduardo entered the room he did not waste time yelling about how they know how to enter a classroom and how that was not acceptable behavior. The yelling, though, wasn't enough to quiet them. While Eduardo was writing something on the board, his back half turned to them they insisted on continuing the chatter. Rather angry because they ignored his lecture he chucked the whiteboard markers to the ground and turned to face the class. This is when he began to yell in Spanish. Most of which I could follow, and it wasn't particularly pleasant.

I've learned very quickly that the upper level teachers do know how to discipline in English, so when they switch over to Spanish it is an indication of a serious level of anger. Kids whom were not listening to the Spanish lecture were instructed to put their names on the blackboard, step one in a three step process towards a note to the parents. Once the yelling was over, he asked them to get out the workbooks to correct the homework. About 5 of the kids did not have the homework, all of them put their names on the blackboard, and a second Spanish chastisement began.


After struggling through the homework check, it was time to read about Enrique Iglasias' family. For this part I read out loud while the kids followed along in their books. Eduardo had asked them to take out a pencil to follow along, but instead asked them to use a finger. Many of the kids began to fidget with the pencils. After a good number of dropped pencils and incidental noise he threatened to take their pencils, break them in half and throw them away. It was at this point I began to wonder just what I had gotten my self into.

As I continued to read the paragraphs about the Iglasias clan, I was forced to call Julio Jose Iglasias "good-looking" (believe me, Enrique, mole and all, is far more cute, but that is neither here nor there). In a class room of 8 year-olds, the discussion about what "good-looking" means comes with a few giggles, but one boy couldn't keep it under control. After a stern warning, he giggled again, which is when Eduardo flipped his shit and outright yelled at this kid in particular. I feel like we are going to be playing Good Cop, Bad Cop all year... Luckily I get to be the good one.

I should point out that the most frustrating part about this whole fiasco isn't exactly the yelling, but rather that I don't yet know what causes the yelling. I have no idea what Eduardo's breaking point is. Sometimes the same level of volume is ok, others it is way out of line. One second he is praising them for trying or for answering correctly, the next he is angry. I think I need to observe more in order to get a better feel for it, but it is still rather uncomfortable to watch kids get yelled at, to the point that would have made an 8 year old me cry.

In better news, I called about my residency card. This time the person could fully understand everything I was saying and it is all accurate. Now I just have to wait until January 27th to be an official resident!

2 Weeks Down, 39 to Go!

Alright, I made it through a second week. The major events of this week were the orientation sessions for the Auxiliares program and the beginning of work in the schools. Since posting I went to work for one more day, which was kind of a mixed bag.

I really love the people who work at the school. Thus far they seem like very wonderful, nice people. As teachers, I'm still on the fence. Thursday my schedule included planning time with Elena, the 3rd grade teacher and Eduardo, the 4th grade teacher and bilingual program coordinator. Elena had no idea that I was supposed to be there at 10 to plan with her and had to run off to a meeting. She and I discussed the class briefly, as she doesn't quite have the lessons planed out she just gave me copies of the science and English books so I could see what was coming up. I flipped though them, but I'm still unclear what my roll in the classroom is going to be. During our discussion Elena told me that this is the first year that she has taught 3rd grade in a bilingual program, this leads me to believe that we will be figuring it out as we go. Given her newness to the subject, I was willing to let her lack of preparation go while hoping that Eduardo's experience will mean he has a plan for me.

I left Elana's room and thought I was going to Eduardo's, unfortunately when I arrived there he reminded me that we have a half hour break, so I kind of made myself look silly. We went into the staff room where I found a spread of breakfast pastries, fruit and coffee. Soon the room filled with the loud, excited chatter, of Spanish teachers. I'm typically a quiet person, so this kind of thing overwhelms me. I will need to learn to deal.

After our breakfast break, Eduardo and I returned to his room. Once the 4th graders had sat down and were relatively quiet Eduardo introduced me to them. After I tried to explain where Oregon is (I used the reference point of the basketball player Rudy Fernandez, but that pretty much fell flat), the floor opened for the kids to ask me questions. They asked about favorites, and if i have brothers and sisters, along with a few tough questions like what I want to be when I grow up.

Finally it was time for the 2 hour lunch extravaganza. Eimear and I went to the computer lab so she could print a passport application (hers were stolen, both the American and Irish, whilst she was in IKEA). The computers hardly worked, so we gave up and went across the street for a small beer. Yes, I can drink at lunch and it is acceptable. I still felt slightly guilty to walk back into school with a faint beer taste in my mouth, but this is Spain and things are different here.

After lunch I had prep time with Eduardo. In this time he told me to go upstairs to look at the text books while he had a quick meeting. He came in a few pages into the English book and basically explained that for the first week he wanted me to watch the kids and basically assess who needs help and who is more advanced. He also admitted that he hadn't decided yet what the exact lesson plans for the year were going to be. Great, more uncertainty. The best(please read with a fair amount of sarcasm) was when he asked if I was good with computers and requested that I go back to the computer lab to make word art pages with the question words. This task would normally take, oh, 5 minutes. When the computer is in Spanish it takes about 20. So my planning time in both grades was a complete bust. I don't exactly know where I fit in with this program. Ugh.

The kids are great. Overwhelmingly they want to practice English and are really excited to see a new face. They want to ask questions and to work with me. But so far, I haven't seen exactly how that is going to happen.

Today, we went to pay our rent. I think while paying the second month of rent it started to sink in that this is for real. I'm really living in Madrid. For 9 months. On the way home, Melanie and I swung into an accessories store and another low-priced clothing store. While we looked around we kept referring to our first pay-checks, and how we were going to spend them. This kind of planning only cements the idea of living here.

When we returned home Melanie got a call from MariCarmen at Mosaic. Let me back track, while paying the rent we basically interviewed so Mosaic to see how well we teach English and what level we could work with. It was a bit frustrating because all that happened was we received a paper about superlatives and comparing words and were told to take 20 minutes to prepare to explain it to one of the English speaking staff. The interviewer really liked Melanie, so they set her up teaching a group 2 hours a night, 5 nights a week. MariCarmen also said that they are working on finding groups that would be right for Audrey and me. Hopefully this works out!

It would be great to have the luxury or not being preoccupied with money. While sitting around the apartment I figured out that making an extra 125 euro per week under the table would cover my rent and bus pass, which would leave my whole stipend for food and fun. Please don't think that I am suffering or anything, it is probably just the fact that this month I have no money coming in, the program doesn't pay us until the end of the month and I will have to wait until the end of October, just in time to pay November rent... Welcome to being a grown up, in Spain.

Yet another tragedy in the process of getting settled in Spain occurred today. After we paid the rent and mentally spent our first paychecks, I called to get my residency card. This involved telling a native Spanish speaker, over the phone mind you, my passport number and how to spell my name. The words for 3 and 6 sound really similar. My passport number has four 3s in it. We spent a long time going back and forth about which number I said and how that compared to which number she heard. When she read it back to me it sounded right, but I had a sinking suspicion it could be wrong, given all the confusion. Then I spelled my first name, that went fine. Next I was asked to spell my last name. What I thought I spelled was TURNER, there was some confusion on the first letter I gave her and example of the first T-word I could think of "tarjeta". I wanted to verify if everything was done correctly, so I asked Melanie for the website where you can go online to verify your cita (Spanish for appointment).

Melanie didn't have it off the top of her head, but while I was at the corner store buying bread she offered to look it up for me. When I came back in she said "I have some good news and some bad news". The good news was that she found the website, the bad news was there is no appointment under my passport number. One of the 3s had turned into a 6. The worse news is that my last name is entered as "GVRNER", really? Is this actually happening to me? It appears so. Son of a Bitch! ...or in Spanish, Hijo de puta!

Don't worry, I'll update you on the NIE fiasco and any other noteworthy events.

First Day of School

Today was the first day I worked at Rosa Luxemburgo. It took Eimear and me a long time to get there. When we looked up directions, the Internet said we could take either bus 160 or 161 from Moncloa station. I should have known the Internet tends to lie. We figured it would take us about 45 minutes total, 10 of them on the bus. Based on this estimate we decided to meet at 10:45 at Moncloa, that gave us about 45 minutes until the teacher break was over and we would make it in time to talk to Eduardo before our noon meeting. We took bus 161 because it was the first to arrive, unfortunately that one does not go anywhere near CEIP Rosa Luxemburgo. When we finally decided to get off the wrong bus and go into the regional train station to ask for directions, we found there was neither information booth nor a ticket booth to ask for help. We went back on the street and asked a woman at a near-by bus stop if she knew our school; she didn't but suggested we ask the bus driver of the next bus to come along. This bus driver was very friendly and helpful. He instructed us to cross the street and take the 160 back towards Moncloa, but to ask the driver to tell us exactly which stop was best. A few minutes later the doors to our savior bus opened and we were on our way.

We disembarked the bus when instructed, walked a few small blocks where we faced out next challenge, the door. To let you all know, CEIP Rosa Luxemburgo is actually an academic fortress. The whole thing is surrounded by a high, green, metal fence. We found some doors in the fence, but they were locked and it didn't seem that anyone was around. I surveyed the building and found there was a larger building with some flags hanging above it, maybe that was the entrance? We walked around the whole building trying to find a way in. When we returned to the first set of doors, Eimear noticed a call botton box. This box was probably our best bet. The numbers (or where they names?) had been written in felt-tip pen and blended together into large purple blobs. We pressed one, nothing happened. We pressed the other, the gate began to buzz, it was open! An hour and 20 minutes after we were supposed to meet up with Eduardo, we were inside.

Once inside we told the front office people that we were the Auxilares de Conversacion and one of them walked us to the real office. There we met a woman who had been in the US for several years and spoke fabulous English. She told us that Eduardo would be out of class at 12:30, so we'd have to wait 10 minutes, but in the mean time we should take a tour. She showed us the cafeterias, one for the 3 &4 year-olds, one for everyone else. Then she showed us to a few of the class rooms. We were on our way to the next building when we ran into the 2nd grade teacher for the bilingual program and she took us back for our meeting with the bilingual staff.

In the meeting Eduardo basically covered the same things as orientation about what we were expected to do, then he passed out the schedules. I asked for the 3rd and 4th graders, mostly because of my previous experience with 5th and 6th graders, but this could prove a poor life choice (read on for an explanation). Then it was time for lunch. What is FABULOUS about my school is that they have arranged for us to get lunch for free each day we are there, and the lunches in Spanish schools kick American School lunch ass. It was real food. Fresh made vegetable soup, steak, French fries, salad, fruit and coffee at the end. Aside from being tasty, this is going to save me a ton of euro. If I can have a big lunch for free that diminishes how much dinner I'll want to eat in the apartment and on my dime. (Please don't think that I am starving here, I just think it is better to spend my small stipend on more than groceries!)

After lunch I was with the 3rd graders for the rest of the day. They were little terrors. I am not exaggerating here. Terror came over me while I stood there and watched them. It took about 40 minutes for them to get through saying their names and their favorite colors. Granted, they did have to say the name and color of the previous people, but 40 minutes is a bit much. Once we had gone through the names, one of the boys presented a picture of his friends to the class, which took a good deal of time, between him speaking slowly and the kids continual interruption of their classmate. Then we started work on the solar system. They had a paragraph of text to listen to on the CD player, then they read it line by line with one kid taking each line. I stood in the back, where most of the rowdy kids were concentrated. A few of them noticed my presence and calmed down, others did not. After the reading, I had to draw Saturn on the board and write the sentence "My Very Excellent Mother Just Served Us Nachos" inside (The sentence obviously is a device for them to remember the order of the planets). If any of you know anything about my drawing and penmanship skills you know just how funny this image is. I feel like there should have been a workshop on how to write for English Language Learners, or at least a refresher course on cursive (i only print, and even that is bad...).

While they were supposed to be quietly coloring a diagram of the solar system there was lots of talking, and lots of kids out of their seats. Not to pass judgment, but I felt like the teacher hardly had control of the room. Even when she pulled one of the worst offenders out into the hallway, threatening to send him to the 3 & 4 year-old's class, because that is how he was acting, the fear only stopped them for a few minutes. Soon they were back to their old tricks. After class she told me this was the worst they had ever been. Nice that they set the bar so high... Hopefully once they get used to me being their, and the novelty has worn off, they will be better.

At 4 o'clock I took the bus and a few metros back to my house. I had to stop at the store for a few things, and this time the bags weighed a ton. They dragged my arms down. I was exhausted. Still am, but now I have spaghetti in my tummy, so I'm much better. Even though today was rough, I have hope for tomorrow and the coming weeks.