Anyway, here are a few things that help sum up my first week of teaching.
1. I am a softy when it comes to little Spanish speaking students with big brown eyes.
2. I love hearing my kids call “teacher teacher!” or “profe, please you help me?”
3. I love walking into the room and starting the morning with this dialogue.
Me: “Hola clase!” (hello class)
Students all togther: “Hola teacher!”
Me: “Como están?” (How are you?)
Students all together: “Bien, gracias. Y usted?” (fine thank you, and how are you?)
4. I love walking through the hallways during recess or at the end of the day and hearing so many of my students say “hello teacher!” or “good bye teacher!”
5. I love hearing some of the parents of my students say how grateful they are to have me here so their children can learn English from a native English speaker.
6. I didn’t think I would get much practice using Spanish at school because I am teaching in English, but already I’ve found out that that is not true. Most of my students ask me questions in Spanish all the time. I also have to use Spanish when talking with any of the other teachers, administrators or parents.
7. I thought that my students here would be more quiet and respectful than my students during student teaching. However, although they are respectful they are used to being allowed to talk whenever they want during class so things can get pretty chaotic. And, although several of the other teachers and myself are working with them on this, the students are not used to raising their hand before talking. If I ask a question most often 5 or 6 of them will blurt out the answer at the same time.
So those are just some of the highlights of the week. This weekend has been fun too. Besides spending lots of time working on lesson plans and the exams that I have to have turn in this week, I got to spend most of yesterday hanging out with the young adults group from the church I’m attending. A group of 35 of us went out to a ranch outside of the city of Escazu where we had a devotional time then rode horses on a trail that wove through the hills. The scenery was beautiful! It was sunny but not super hot and it was really cool to ride our horses through the beautiful trees and vines and through little streams. After our ride everyone hopped in cars and drove down the road a ways to a little restaurant where we all enjoyed some comida tipica. Everyone was running on tican time so not only were we an hour late leaving for the ranch but we more than 3 hours late getting back so we barely had enough time to run home and change before heading to church at 5:30. At church we met up with some friends of Leslie who teach at a school in Escazu. They had just gotten back from being in the states for their summer break. Leslie wanted to catch up with them we all went out to a little restaurant and ended up talking until about 10. It was really fun to get to know some other teachers who are kind of in the same boat as us. We talked about the differences between classes here and in the U.S. and about our stories of how we got connected with the schools down here. It was really fun. We are hoping to go hiking with them on Tuesday because we have the day off because of a national holiday. Well, I need to get back to writing exams. Right now, our coffee table, kitchen table, and both my and Leslie’s desks are covered in books and teaching materials. I guess this is a good representation of the life of a teacher.
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