Being the Teacher Part 2

                As soon as I stepped out of the taxi in San Salvador on Monday morning, there was a text from my teacher, Vanessa, saying that she was in the hospital and therefore would not be at school today.  So, could I “please help the children.”  I was very glad that Vanessa had let me know about her absence (even though it would have been nice to know earlier!) especially since, in the past, she has not let me know if she would be late or absent.  This meant that I felt empowered to be the teacher from the very beginning and didn’t have to wait around for when she might get there.

            When I walked into the classroom, the kids were sitting in two groups on the floor in the back of the classroom playing “Hi-Ho-Cherry-Oh” and “Go Fish” - the two games I have brought in and taught them.  I am very proud that they are now able to play these games themselves - so far they have not lost any pieces and they take the games out and put them neatly away by themselves, these are things Vanessa has never trusted them to do.  It is so nice walking into the classroom and seeing them happily playing these number games rather than watching TV!

            I let the kids continue to play while I taped together long sheets of paper.  I ended up with three “kid-sized” pieces of paper that I would later trace three students bodies on.  First, however, I led the kids through the basic morning rituals: taking attendance, writing the date on the board, and reading a book.  I read them a book with riddles and had them guess the answers.  Then I had three volunteers lay on my pieces of paper while the rest of the class gathered around as I traced them.  This involved a lot of giggling and having kids volunteer, but then be too shy to be traced.  It was fun to have this interaction with the kids.  We are learning about careers, so one group got the outline of a student and had to make this person look like a police man/woman, another group had to make the outline into a fireman, and the third group was to make a chauffer.  The kids worked together to decorate their person with crayons.  It was fun to watch them work together and there was only limited fighting from one group.

            After recess, I had each student draw, on a blank piece of paper, what they want to be when they grow up.  Some kids started drawing police, firemen, and teachers right away, while I had to talk to others about what they might want to be, one on one, before they started drawing.  It was interesting because, I think, a lot of these kids have never been asked what they want to be when they grow up before.  Whereas when I was their age I knew I wanted to be an artist.  Also, all of the kids had very practical answers - no one said astronaut or movie star like you might here in a classroom of 5 year olds in the United States.  My favorite answer and drawing (below) was Rene who wants to be a tractor driver.

This is Rene´s drawing of him as a tractor driver and "all the other vehicles he will own."  As a side note, he has been writing "Ben" on all of his papers for the past two weeks because Ben is his favorite Japanese cartoon character.

            After lunch, I had the kids do some addition, subtraction, and writing.  The substitute teacher had not been in my classroom all day because he was subbing for the 4 year old classroom whose teacher was also in the hospital.  The principal and the substitute decided to have the sub in the other classroom because that volunteer knows no Spanish.  It felt good to be recognized as competent rather than just forgotten about.  However, the sub came into my classroom 15 minutes before it was time to go and turned on the TV.  It was frustrating to have him take over like this, but truthfully I was thankful to be off duty for the last bit of class.

            Although the kids were crazy (like always), I was proud of how I handled the class.  I think I had a successful day because of my past not so good experiences when Vanessa hasn’t been there and because of how much my Spanish has improved.  Although, a couple of times, I did catch myself saying random Spanish words or saying words in English with an o or a at the end…when this happened I would have to catch my breath and make myself think about what I was trying to say and try to say it again.  Although my Spanish is not the best, I am excited that I was able to spend the 5 hour day speaking only in Spanish and I was able to get my point across - this was proved by the kids successfully completing the activities I had assigned.  Needless to say, I was exhausted at the end of the class and for the whole next day.  However, if I can lead a whole class in a foreign language, then there are endless possibilities for what I can do next!

Working on coloring the outlines

Final Projects