First Week of School!

COLOMBIA TIP #35 – When they say the students are loud and chatty here, they weren’t kidding.

Well, I survived my first week of school!  I think it’s safe to say it was the longest week of my life.  Getting on the bus at 6:45am, teaching 4-5 hour long classes filled with loud, crazy, curious, funny, tricky Grade 9 and 10s, and not getting home til around 3:45 or 5pm is enough to kill a person.  Probably only the strongest will make it, and I plan to be one of them.

The first day of school was actually pretty good!  I was not nearly as much of a wreck as I thought I would be.  Little Ms. Wilson is growing up!  First, all of high school/middle school went to the Gym/”Coliseum” as they call it for an opening assembly.  Little did we know that the principal, Mr. Loiza, was going to introduce all of us new teachers in front of everyone!  One by one as we stood up and awkwardly and waved, the students in the crowd would start up the chatter every time.  For the rest of the day, I had one Grade 9 class and both Grade 10 classes.  The hardest thing is to get them to be quiet!  It seriously doesn’t work.  Then you find yourself repeating instructions cause they didn’t listen the first time.  I’ll need to figure out a system for this.  The second hardest thing is getting them to speak in English.  I tried to explain how a major part of why they came to this school was because they want to learn English, and as much as I want to learn Spanish (cause seriously, it seems like the slowest process ever and I still feel lost going around town), I want them to practice their English in the classroom.  I’m going to have to come up with some form of bonus for when students actually do use English in class.

One of the major things that was stressed to us about the students here is that you really need to get to know them.  I kind of thought, “Well, yeah…” but apparently some teachers don’t really think that way and want to keep school completely separate from personal life.  I think that is going to be tricky sometimes here, working in and living in the same city.  Heck, I ran into one of my students on the elevator the other day.  There’s no avoiding that.  But anyway, on the first day of school, I had a bunch of pictures of me and asked the students what they thought of when they saw them.  The first thing they said was, “You play futbol!”  Yes, soccer is big here!  The second thing they said was, “You have a boyfriend!”  And every time, I would laugh – “No, actually that’s a picture of me at a Toronto Maple Leaf game with my BROTHER.”  Then I also had the picture of Camilo Villegas and I up and I only had one student know it was him!  But once I mentioned the name, everybody knew who he was.  I also had the students fill in a Get-To-Know-You sheet and there were some pretty funny answers including:
-What is one thing you would like me to know about you?
“Sometimes I won’t do my homework.”
“I was born in Toronto, Canada but I don’t remember anything.”
“That what ever you need and that I can help you with you can count on me.”
“I get bored in class.”
“I talk a lot.”
And though I don’t think he read the question correctly: “How many years you have?  Your cell phone, your facebook”
And my personal favourite:
-How do you learn best?
“I learn best with a beautiful teacher.”
I also had a few moments of “Wow I watch that TV show too…” when I read that some students’ favourite TV shows included Glee, Grey’s Anatomy, and Pretty Little Liars.
So ask you can see, they’re pretty normal kids.  They are funny, nice, and just plain talkative!  But we’ve gotten off to a pretty okay start, so let’s hope I can keep it up!

Yesterday, after second period when the students get a 30 minute recess, Bill came over to my classroom and said, “So we’re going to immigration in half an hour, so if you want to whip something up for your next couple classes…”  WHAT?  That is another common theme here – last minute announcements and events are quite common.  Luckily the lesson that I had that day was pretty student run as they were moving around to different stations.  So I quickly wrote a note to the substituting teacher (in English, so I was really hoping they could understand it) and ran over to the staff room.  I then found out that Lina, the High School Counsellor, was going to be covering my class.  I breathed a sigh of relief – she speaks English!  And did I mention she’s Vero’s and my new roommate?  So if anything were to go crazy, she would for sure let me know.  So we went to immigration for about an hour and a half to get more fingerprints taken and a picture that I was not really ready for (I hate my hair).  When I got back to school, it was halfway through the next period and Amber was covering the class.  They were all over the place, lying on the floor, walking around, some looked as if they were doing work, but most were not.  It took a bit for me to corral them up and assign their homework for the weekend (“Nooo Miiiiiiissssssss, we have homework on a Friday?”)  Amber later told me that they were being really good and she was sitting there thinking to herself, “Wow, what happened to this class, they’re so well-behaved now!”  If that’s the case, I do not want to know what bad is.

School was also only for half the day yesterday because the teachers were all invited to go to a Finka (farm – but when they say “farm”, they mean “5 star hotel resort type thing.”  We had a big lunch and had the chance to go swimming, talk to teachers not about school things, learn some more Spanish, and DANCE.  Oh my gosh, I was coaxed into dancing probably about 10 times last night, which was 10 times too many.  I kept saying, “No puedo baliar” (“I can’t dance”), but the Colombian teachers are too nice and said, “Nooo you can!”  I think they were just saying that.  Somehow, I also found myself dancing with someone who may have been the President of the Parents’ Board three times and my principal twice (who is also one of the parents of my students).  But it was really fun!  I needed that time to relax and have some fun after that long week.

Me, Matt, Sheryl, Elia, Bill, and Vero – the new teachers at GI!

Outside school, we finally got a new washing machine!  It was actually a really good deal for $750,000 pesos ($375) but it also came with a microwave!  We were so surprised when they came to deliver it that same night and installed it the next day.  Colombian time didn’t come into effect in that scenario.  I’m really looking forward to doing some laundry today, but I’ll have to figure out the Spanish labels on the buttons…