Work has taken a huuuge turn for the better over the past week. Since I’ve started working with Lizeth, I’ve had tons of work and have felt really productive. This week we celebrated Earth Day with programs about recycling, crafts that you can make out of bottles and boxes and such, and other fun programs for the kids. I went over to Lizeth’s house last Sunday to work on crafts to show the kids. Her son, Alejandro, an adorable little four-year-old, helped me make things like a pirate ship (milk carton) and binoculars (bottles) to take to school the next day. We presented the kids with all of our crafts and toys that we’d made and they really seemed to like them. The next day, we brought the kids to the library by class and showed them a video about recycling. Lizeth taught the first two and then led the class in a group discussion. (Group discussion for second graders is more like a billion little kids shouting at the same time, but I’ll take what I can get.) After that, she asked me to teach the class. I was a little nervous the first time through, especially because I was teaching in Spanish to a bunch of kids who didn’t know me or have extra patience for me because I’m their English teacher, NOT their science teacher. But I made it through! I taught the same class 5 times in a row and, by the end, was actually feeling pretty good about it. It was fun to get to contribute in a different way and actually feel productive about what I was doing with the kids. We talked about ways to do recycling at home and more crafts that they can make. It felt like a much more sustainable kind of lesson to teach because we’re instilling good habits in kids who will grow up to instill good habits in their kids. And who doesn’t want to save the world when you’re in Costa Rica?
English class was also really great this week. Clara had asked me to prepare some flashcards to help teach the kids family vocabulary and work on family trees. I asked if I could make it more personal and bring it pictures of my family and do an activity with the kids. I made a partial family tree with pictures and names of my own family which really got the kids’ attention. It was so much fun to see the kids get engaged (they love when you share something foreign) and I had lots of fun getting to present my family. The whole class period (times 3 or 4 classes through the afternoon) was designed by and led by me and it was a lot of fun too. It was really great to see the kids be more involved than they are in the normal activities too.
As a sidenote, I also got to break up my first real fight today. It’s nice when you’re twice the size of the kids who are fighting. Two girls in on of our fifth grade classes started going at it in the middle of class. Neither Clara nor I ever figured out what happened between them, but they were maaaad. Lots of swear words, fists flying, and hair pulling. When we finally grabbed them, their fingers were would so tightly into each other’s hair that we just had to hold them still until they finally listened to Clara’s commands to let go. Yet another thing I don’t understand about Costa Rican education systems: discipline/tolerance for violence. This fight didn’t even necessitate a trip to the principal’s office- just a sit-down with the teacher outside to ask what was wrong. Go figure.
The past four work days have been really encouraging to me because I’ve gotten a waaaay bigger perspective on what’s going on in the education system. I’ve gotten to spend an entire day with a single class and see what they’re doing when they’re not “learning” English. Turns out they actually do have class sometimes and even actually learn some things. I got to do math and social studies and science with one class and see a little more of the continuity that I miss when I jump from class to class. It’s also been cool to work on curriculum stuff with Lizeth because the science is right up my alley. Instead of being frustrated by the “distractions” and festivals and such, we’re actually creating them. I’m starting to see how the pieces fit together more than before. The first month, I just saw stuff from the “English angle” where all of our class time was getting eaten up, but now I am FINALLY starting to see how the elementary education system works.
This week, I’m supposed to start working with an adults’ English group in the evenings with Projects Abroad. It’s going to make for a really long week, but I’m so excited to finally be having lots of work to do and feel like I’m finally contributing to the work that’s being done here.