After all, a lot of exciting things will be happening at IES Máximo Trueba in the next few months, and I want to be ready. My segundos will be participating in a pen pal exchange with the Spanish I classes at Baseline Middle School in South Haven. (If you happen to be a Baseline parent who’s stumbled upon this news: you’re not behind the times. Parent letters will be arriving soon.) Though the kids really want to stick to email and facebook friending of their new “pen friends” (my school used to belong to the British Council’s program in Spain, which means that I learn all sorts of fun Britishisms on a daily basis), some of them have never written an actual letter, and their teachers and I want to make that happen.
My cuartos are going to be reading Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, which means I get to give a lesson on the Great Depression. We’ll be comparing it to the economic crisis of today of which the kids are very aware. A friend’s class of first years wrote New Year’s resolutions recently, the top resolution being to save money. When the auxiliar asked them why that made the top of the list, one of the kids exclaimed, “¡Mujer! ¿No sabes que estamos en una crisis?” (Woman! Don’t you know we’re in a crisis?)
I’m also going over the cuartos writing assignments from the holidays with them individually, which has been fun. I have a nerdy obsession with correcting grammar, and I haven’t had a chance to get to know these students outside of the larger class. I’m enjoying learning about their lives outside of school: some ice skate, some ski, and some like to make up stories about romantic interests and then confess their fictitious nature to the auxiliar.
My favorite hours of the week are when I pull out small groups of the bachilleratos from their English classes to work on speaking exercises. I love my segundos, but they’re in that stage where they constantly question everything the teacher tells them. I adore the cuartos, though some of them have a too cool for school air about them. My bachilleratos, though, have gotten over all of that, and will wholeheartedly participate in whatever crazy speaking activity I’ve found for them that week. My favorite so far has been an idea I found online that I explained to them as they got to class: “We’re all on a ship at sea, but it’s going down, and it can’t hold all of us. In order to save as many people as possible, we’ve got to vote some people off. We’re going to go around, and you have to explain why you should stay on the ship. Then we’ll all take a vote, and one person will leave. And if you get voted off, don’t worry too much - we’ll give you a life jacket.” The kids got totally creative and came up with love triangles, political scandals and impressive careers with which they formed alliances and made enemies.
It helps that I heard through the grapevine of the other auxiliar who also pulls them out of class that “the bachilleratos tell me they like your activities better.” It made my day when one of the kids told me himself that the one hour every third week when his group sees me is his favorite class. I’ve realized since coming back to school that I depend on that positive feedback because, if I’m completely honest, I have no idea what I’m doing. I’m making it up as I go with the help and guidance of my coordinator, teachers and fellow auxiliares. I wasn’t an education major and am certainly not qualified to be teaching lessons on ancient and medieval history or the fractional distillation of crude oil, both of which I’ve done (the science lesson completely on my own) in the past few months. Half of my time at school I feel like I’ve prepared for the wrong thing, which is something that would be fixed if the schools actually wrote syllabi or lesson plans.
My role, though, isn’t to overhaul the school system. I’m here to support the students. At the same time, I’m learning to be more flexible, to go with the moment rather than the plans. I can do it now. Before break I hated to walk into a thirty student classroom and have the teacher hand me a sheet, “Here, teach them this,” with no advance warning. Now, the results might not be the prettiest, but the initial moment of panic is gone.
A week ago I was convinced that I could be completely happy returning to the US right then, but now I’m remembering how much I’ve still got to look forward to. Besides school activities, a few more trips loom on the horizon: the midterm Fulbright grantee meeting in Pamplona in March, possibly a jaunt to Belgium around then as well, spring break riding in Portugal with Alex, a bachelorette party in Salamanca that I probably told Leah we’d throw her the instant I learned she was engaged at orientation back in September, hopefully Valencia and Asturias as the weather warms up and Andalucía again (Granada, Córdoba, Sevilla) before I come home in July.
Plus we auxiliares are planning to throw are students a prom at the end of the year. So very American (they don’t typically have school dances), but so much fun.
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