¡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.