Monday, November 25, 2013

Life at School

So I know that for the most part I’ve been posting about my travels, so I thought I’d make a post about some things that are going on at school and some differences there are between high school here and high school in the U.S.  Since I’m teaching at an Instituto, which is basically a high school I’ve noticed a couple differences that are neither good, nor bad, just differences.  Some I could live with, other’s I’d much rather live without.

1.) RECESS

Yup, kids get recess, no matter how old you are, these kids get recess, here’s it’s called recreo.  But it is a bit different.  It’s 30 solid minutes where the kids are set up loose on the playground, basketball, fenced in area.  They are all allowed to be outside and eat a snack, what they call breakfast, and just chat and hang out.  In theory it’s great, and then you realized that they aren’t allowed inside during this time, and if it’s cold they have to stay out there…that sucks. 

Also, the teachers get recess! Yup, we get recess.  They set the whole school of kids outside and then the teachers leave.  Yup, they leave.  haha, it’s actually encouraged that you get out of the building, go grab some desayuno at the closest bar and chat with your fellow teachers.  It’s totally cultural here, you go out, grab a seat at your daily bar, get some toast, coffee, tea or any other preference of a drink and chat away.  And the best part is, it’s mostly not school gossip, they are friends and they just talk about their lives, what they did on the weekend or pick up the weekly magazine and talk about the styles are are in the magazine, and who looks good with what outfits.  It’s actually quite fun, and it’s considered strange if you don’t go out for something to build your relationships with the other teachers.  Because we don’t have a cafeteria at school the teachers have to go out, or some bring a small sandwich to school, but going out is better and way more fun.

2.) CUBBIES

my cubby

I taught my coordinator this word the other day when I told her she can grab my materials from the cubby if she wanted to use them.  She looked at me kind of strange and ask what I just said and I told her I called my little boxed locker a cubby, and that’s what I called them in school when I was younger, and we still call them cubbies.  Anyways, teaches have cubbies and the students stay in their classroom.  So the teachers have to keep all their stuff in a tiny cubby with their name on it and run back and forth between the staff room and their classroom every period.  The teachers move.  This is something I could do without, because I like the idea of having my own classroom.  It also saves a lot of time if you’re not always switching classrooms and having to bring up anything you want to bring up on the computer.

But for now, this is how things are, and I’m getting accustomed to having a cubby.  And I got to put my name one it.  Mostly I did it so big because everyone still calls me Jenny, even though that’s clearly not my name.  The last auxiliary was named Jenny and apparently my name is just too close to that and my name is too hard for some Spainards. :/

 

 

3. ) IF YOU’RE WRONG, YOU’RE WRONG, NO SUGAR COATING IT

At first I was very unnerved when the teachers would tell the students “no, that’s bad/wrong” and then move on.  Or when they yelled at them multiple times and said “pay attention you lazy boy, stop fooling around, do you even care?”  All of these things said in front of the whole class while the student just looked at them.  The teacher would stand there and yell at a whole class saying “why don’t you get it?” “listen to me!” or “no, that’s wrong, you need to try harder”.  If a teacher said these words to a student, much less in front of the whole class, in the U.S. we’d be yelled at by the parents for humiliating their child in front of the whole class and making them feel bad.  Here, it’s the opposite.  If the student is wrong they are wrong, and they don’t sugar coat it.  And the students don’t even blink.  This is just the way it is and they take it and say “okay, I’ll change my answer” or “okay” and start paying attention.  There’s none of this stupid feel good nonsense here in Spain.  This is something I could get used to. haha

4.) I HAVE NO MORE CLASSES TO TEACH TODAY, SEE YA!

And it works the other way around too!  If you don’t have class or anything to do until 10:30, you don’t have to show up until before then!  Yup, so the teachers just come and go all day long, some come in later, some leave earlier, and it’s just all together very strange.  For example, on Thursday’s I have a prep class with one of my teachers that I work with, but it’s not until 10:15, and she doesn’t have anything before that, so she literally just shows up about 5 min before 10:15, or sometimes even 15 later, because she can!  And other days I don’t ever see my coordinator because she comes in after I leave, or leaves before I finish my day.  It’s so strange, but I’m not hating it.

So those are the main things that are different in the schools here.  None of which are big problems, and some of them I could live with.  Like not showing up at least 30 min early at 7AM and staying until schools out, and being encouraged to leave school in the middle of the day for coffee.  But there are things I definitely like better about school life at home.  All in all, every day introduces new challenges and gives me insight into the different lives that people lead here, that I guess I lead here now….

Until next post, love you all. <3

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