First Week of School

So this past Monday I started working in the schools full-time. This means that I’m at the primary school by 7:20 when classes start and usually get home just after 1:00. My schedule for this week, and the next 5 as well, is to work with 2 teachers per week. I planned out my schedule so that I am able to be in each class (Pre-Kindergarden all the way through 12^th grade) at least twice and usually three times the week I’m working with that teacher. Though of course, this is subject to many variables such as teachers not coming to school and holidays; the first Monday I was here was the day of the patron saint – San José – and next week there is not school on Thursday and Friday in honor of Easter and the re-enactments of Holy Week events that are put on here in Pesé. With that first holiday and the fact that I still needed to meet a few of the teachers and wanted to solidify my schedule and job description with everyone, I decided to wait until this past week (a full week) to really start working.

On the note of teachers not coming to school, so far I have not been to all of the classes on my schedule on any given day due to either a) the English teacher not coming or b) the primary teacher not coming. If the primary teacher doesn’t come, the students have the day off and just go home. But if the English teacher doesn’t come, the primary teacher just adjusts the rest of the schedule and sometimes the students get out early. So accepting the fact that my schedule probably won’t go as planned has been a bit of an adjustment, but roll with the punches, right?

Seeing the teachers in action has also been a great learning experience. The two I worked with this week both have their own strengths, but also have things I think that could improve. The main thing that I’ve noticed so far is classroom management. Of course this varies class-to-class and teacher-to-teacher, but it is not rare or strange in a classroom here to have students talking basically the whole class period, and when they have a question they either just shout it out, or walk up to the teacher at the front of the class and ask them before sitting back down. There is also a lot of yelling “Teacher! Teacher! Teacher!” to try to get the teacher’s attention. I’m definitely going to try to implement the raise-your-hand rule. But the teachers definitely do some good things too and they know what should work in this culture. So I’ll throw some ideas out there, and we’ll see what might work or not.

I also found out that Pesé has a public library that almost no one uses. I think I’m going to make it my new work space (Amy & Christine – I’m thinking of you two lol). I can’t work very well at home because to concentrate at all I have to lock myself in my room, and then I feel like I’m being rude and unsocial. But the tv is always on and there are always people coming over and talking – which is great for being social, but not so great for working.

A few days this week I also went running. I hope that I can get into a route of it. But my family has started wanting to come with me, so we go for walks sometimes. I went with Roderick one day, and then when we got home, I said I was actually going to go running. He still wanted to come with, but I had to say no. Less than 5 minutes into my run, I hear a bicycle next to me. I look – and it’s the boy that hangs out next door. Then I look back and there is his sister as well as Roderick, all three on their bikes following me lol. This definitely made me feel like I was working in another country – I had all of the kids following me.

Friday was one of my tougher days so far. We went into Chitre to go to the grocery store and then to dinner late on Thursday night and didn’t get back until after 10:30, and I couldn’t fall asleep until almost 11:30. With a 9:00 bedtime, this was seriously late. So working on Friday was a bit of a struggle, and trying to explain it to Bruni was also tough. But I think we understand each other a bit better now. I’ve also been on the verge of getting sick, so not getting my 9 hours of sleep the past 3 nights hasn’t helped with that. Today is definitely a relaxed day because I don’t have too much energy - I'm also fighting getting sick. Hopefully tomorrow I'll feel better.

But yesterday was also a lot of fun. One of the boys that lives around the corner – he’s a student at the secondary school and is 14 I think – invited me to go to a farm about 30 minutes away with his family. We got up there about 10:00 Saturday morning and over the course of the day I got to see a lot of the area around the farm. He asked me if I wanted to ride a horse – I said why not! So he saddled one up for me, and I rode around for a few minutes – even cantering some. Then he got another horse and we went for an hour-long ride down to a little store and back. It felt great to be on a horse again! And usually when I ride now, I don’t get to do much more than trot – so having the freedom to go as fast as I wanted was great (don’t worry mom – I didn’t go at a full gallop or anything).

We also hooked up the buggy to 2 oxen and made the 30 minute trek down to La Ciruelita river with a few of his cousins. It was a gorgeous, wide and meandering river that had some big rocks in it, so it was fun to jump off into the deeper water.

This coming week is Semana Santa and Pesé has a lot of re-enactments, so look out for some posts about that in a week or so. Also, I’ll be working in the colegio (secondary school) this week. So wish me luck with that!