Lest you think that two governments are funding mere frivolity in providing me with money for tapas, sangria, and maybe vespas, let me assure you: we auxiliares are about to get to work, and I couldn’t be more excited. On Tuesday we had our first meeting with our coordinator, whom we had met briefly at the Fulbright welcoming reception during orientation.
It’s important to note that this will be a big year for the Comunidad de Madrid’s bilingual program, as the program is expanding to a much greater number of schools. My school has been bilingual for the past several years, and our coordinator, Claire, a straight-talking, enthusiastic Brit has been here for most (if not all) of that time. This doesn’t, however, exclude my school from feeling the effects of the transition. Teachers have moved to different schools; some who were not teaching in English before and who may not have much confidence in the language are now forced to give lessons entirely in English. With the current crisis económica, the schools lack resources, and the bureaucracy of the public school system is taking away much of the individual schools’ autonomy.
Sounds a bit rough, yeah? Claire laid all of that out for us, acknowledging that this year will be a challenge for all of us, from the directors to the teachers to the auxiliares. But we’ve got a great opportunity in all of that. Each of us Fulbrighters will probably end up working one on one with teachers who need a bit of assistance with their English. We’re going to be creating our own resources: presentations, worksheets, etc. to go along with the teachers’ lessons. And our biggest goal?
To make reading fun.
Umm, I live for books. I have this passion for literacy. Plato may have kicked the poets out of his Republic, but I’m all for a world where words matter.
During my layover in Dublin on my way to Madrid, I started to read, Julio Cortázar’s Rayuela, which the Argentine writer published in 1963. This line jumped out at me: “Cuántas veces me pregunto si esto no es más que escritura, en un tiempo en que corremos al engaño entre ecuaciones infalibles y máquinas de conformismos.” (So many times I ask myself if this is nothing more than writing, in a time in which we run the risk of deception among our infallible equations and the machinery of conformity - the translation’s mine and not perfect.) Writing, in this chapter at least, serves as a way in which “inventamos nuestro incendio, ardemos de dentro afuera” (we invent our fire, we burn from inside out).
That’s our goal as auxiliares: to create in our students a passion for learning, and we’re doing this through language. Our position offers us a unique opportunity, as we’re not teachers. We’re not responsible for grades. We’re in these schools this year to support both the teachers and the students, and that allows us more freedom to come up with creative and fun projects to expand these kids’ educational horizons. Because we’re only here briefly, we’re less accountable to the imposed bureaucracy inherent in any public school system. We’re not considered a threat to established educational equations, the conformity imposed by the Comunidad. We hold that cliched blank slate (only today it’s a smart board), and we’re going to make something of it. All of this makes me very excited to get into the classroom on Monday.
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