My Cover is Blown!

If I remember elementary school correctly, the weeks leading up to winter vacation were pretty much a waste of time. We never really learned anything, and anything the teacher covered had to be retaught in January. As a kid, I loved this time of year. It was always super fun to go into class almost guaranteed not to work very hard. Thankfully, as a language assistant I can feel the same way!

In 4th grade the kids are preparing poems to preform for the Christmas pageant, so this means that I listen to them and tell them how to pronounce the words. Today I spent an hour working with a 16 line poem about packages. Many of the kids practiced at home, so they knew their lines very well. The only problem is they memorized several words incorrectly. For example, one pair of students has a line about the "postman's knock upon the door at 8 o'clock", they are pronouncing "upon" as "open" which makes little sense. It does make sense for them to say "open" because they hear the phrase "open the door" frequently, but rarely do they hear the word "upon". Therefore, I spent several minutes making them say "upon" correctly... of course I said it several times in between so they could hear the correct pronunciation. Since the difference is very slight I don't know if it will stick, but I hope so!

Aside from the Christmas pageant, I taught a whole 3rd grade class today. Elena was at a medical appointment this morning and I had to be in charge. At our school, when a teacher is absent instead of bringing in an outside sub, a staff member with a free period comes to fill in. For the first hour Lucia, who teaches 5th and 6th grade English, was there but she didn't teach. Technically, the language assistants aren't supposed to be left with the kids without a licensed teacher, but I could teach the class since I knew what they were working on. For the first hour we did English. We corrected their homework, and read a few paragraphs in their textbook, then did some exercises in their workbooks.

At 10 o'clock Lucia had to leave, but another teacher was coming. This other teacher was Matias, the PE teacher. Matias does not speak a word of English. When he came in the room the children got super excited because they thought they were going to PE. Not the case. Matias and I had to discuss what was going on. I explained that I wasn't allowed to be left with the kids alone, but that I would teach the class. This whole conversation took place in Spanish, and in plain sight of the kids. I could then see groups of kids pointing and saying "She speaks Spanish!!"

Until this point, I had maintained that I don't speak Spanish so that the kids thought they had no other option but to speak to me in English. If they were the really little kids I would have spoken Spanish with them, but my 3rd and 4th graders are really bright and can speak to me in English very well; that is, if they want to. I was surprised they hadn't figured out by now that I can speak Spanish, since they constantly run up to me and chatter away in Spanish and I answer them in English. Somehow they did not piece together that if I can understand them speaking in Spanish it means I can speak the language too. Oh how precious!

Once they were settled down and the shock of my amazing language skills had worn off we reviewed science. On average, these kids are pretty awful at science. I think it is because the concepts are difficult and usually require lots of new vocabulary. The combination of the two challenges is too much for many of them and thus they get low grades on the exams. I told them that if they were quiet for one half-hour of science review we would play a game. Sadly, they couldn't be quiet. For some unknown reason the 3rd grade seems incapable of listening or being quiet. Because they weren't quiet we did another activity in their English workbooks, with the promise that if they finished it quickly and quietly we would play. This was probably the only time I have seen them all quietly working and keeping each other in check.

The game we played was a modified version of "Heads Up 7-Up". For those of you who have forgotten, or maybe even escaped elementary school without playing this classic, goes something like this:

• 7 (or in our case 5) students are selected as the "choosers", they wait at the front of the room
  
• The rest of the class puts their head down on the desks with fist giving a thumbs up out on their desk. They are not supposed to be able to see, but peaking runs rampant in this game.
• The "choosers" walk around a tap one of the seated kids on the thumb, once they've selected they return to the front of the room.
  
• After all the "choosers" have selected someone "Heads up!" is called out. This is the cue that the seated kids can put their heads up and look around.
  
• The kids who were tapped on the thumb then have to guess who picked them. If they are right they get to be a "chooser" in the next round.

I would like to say that this simple game went smoothly, but that would be a lie. Not a round went by where someone wasn't accusing the other kids of peaking or cheating. Also, the choosers seemed to have difficulty with the idea of only picking one student. Alex, a kid previously identified as a favorite (a position he is in danger of loosing!) decided he was going to pick 5 people. I had to call a mulligan on that one and do it over. I mostly picked this game because it required them to be quiet, which is something I will now make them practice at any available opportunity.

In other news, I can't wait for winter vacation. The four-day weekend that just passed put me in the mood to never go to work again. I love the kids, and the school is fun, but there is something very delightful about sleeping until I naturally get up and cuddling up in my blankets until I feel like moving. I've never been a morning person, but this week has been especially difficult. This morning it took 3 resets of the alarm before I got out of bed, and entirely out of obligation to the school. I'm sure I'll change my tune when I'm bored or hanging around, just like when I first got here I couldn't wait for school to start.