El colegio

It's been quite a while without a post, but I've been very busy, busy with work, busy with going out, meeting new people, busy with traveling.

So this one is going to be about my school that I work at in Madrid.  It's a colegio (an elementary/pre-school, not college) called Plácido Domingo in the Atocha neighborhood of Madrid.  Atocha is the main train station of Madrid, and it's probably about a 10 minute walk from my school to the north.  Also close by are the Parque del Retiro, Madrid's large and lovely park, the Prado art museum, and the Reina Sofia museum as well.

I first found out about my school placement when I was an hour away from the graduation ceremony for my master's degree.  I was in my cap and gown, waiting in the field house next to assembly hall, wondering exactly how everything was going to end up now that that chapter of my life was coming to a close.  My phone buzzed, and I checked my email, out of habit, and there was my placement letter.  Immediately, I googled the address and was elated to find out how close my school was to the city center.  The auxiliaries program places you by region, meaning that you can be placed anywhere in la Comunidad de Madrid, which includes Madrid, its suburbs, and the pueblos outside of the metropolitan area.

Although I was more than likely going to come to Spain regardless of where I got placed, it was definitely a clincher to know that I would be so close to everything.  Because of the metro, my placement also freed me up to live anywhere in the center.  My commute is about 30 minutes door to door, from my apartment to the school, with only a small line transfer right at the end.  I'm very very lucky.  Most of the other people I know have much longer commutes, many over an hour, with multiple types of transportation (metro to train to bus, for example).  On the other hand, I do envy those people who are placed in pueblos.  I feel like they get a double experience:  one part urban Spain, one part small town Spain.  At the same time, coming from the suburbs of Indianapolis and then the college town of Bloomington, I'm very content to be all up in the urban scene.

I work four days a week, for a total of 16 working hours.  In reality, I'm at the school 11-4 on Tuesdays, 9-4 on Wednesdays, 9-12:30 on Thursday, and 9-4 on Friday.  I have a 30 minute coffee/breakfast break from 10:30-11, and then a 2 hour lunch, which sounds extravagant, but most of the teachers have meetings and what not during this time, so it comes out to maybe a 45 minute lunch break. On some Wednesdays, we have bilingual department meetings, and on Fridays, I teach an hour long English class for two of the Spanish teachers.  They're both much older than me and don't speak much English, so it's been a lot of back and forth between Spanish and English, trying to explain rules in English in ways I have to think about on the spot for the most part, ranging from the rules of contractions to the differences in pronunciation between bear and beer.

Each class period is 45 minutes long, and on my full days, I have six different classes.  I'm primarily with first graders, so kids that are around 6 or 7 years old.  I also teach 1 second grade class and 3 third grade classes.  My colegio is a bilingual colegio, meaning that both English and Spanish are languages of instruction, with English being more predominant.  The way the curriculum is set up allows for English to be the language of instruction for every subject except for language (lengua) and math, which must be taught in Spanish.  So the kids have English class, but then they also have social science, natural science, music/art, and gym all in English as well.  My third graders for example have been learning about the solar system and the body systems, all in English.

It's really impressive, especially when compared to the foreign language education in the states, in which most people don't even start a foreign language until middle school.  In Spain, at the bilingual schools at least (and there are schools that aren't bilingual, so there is some degree of privilege that I'm not completely clear about), even the infantil (preschool) level children get at least a little taste of English, and they can be as young as three years old.  The infantiles are also adorable because they wear little smocks and when they walk through the hall or down the stairs, they all hold on to the smock of the kid in front of them, so they teeter totter around all connected.

In terms of responsibilities, I would say that I'm there for three reasons.  First, for pronunciation.  All of the teachers who teach English are Spanish speakers, and while most of their English is very good, at least some accent is unavoidable.  I'm there to be the native speaker.  Second, for cultural knowledge, which so far has mostly been centered around holidays.  There are two other auxiliares at my school, and our first big task was decorating for Halloween and constructing a haunted house for the halloween party at school.  Today, I was making a powerpoint talking about Thanksgiving.  Then we'll decorate for Xmas as well, and talk about what makes an American Xmas.  The third is simply providing assistance to the teachers, which is mostly working with the students individually or in small groups.

With this being said, it's been interesting because the kids are learning British English, which makes sense, but there have been several times when I've thought that something was wrong only to realize that it's just British.  There's also the differences in vocabulary.  During my first couple weeks, the kids were learning school supply material, and it was a little humorous to hear them call erasers rubbers, and further, to not be able to explain to 6-9 year olds why we don't call erasers rubbers in America.  The kids also have to take a sort of standardized test called the Trinities in 2nd 4th and 6th grade.  This involves each child talking to a British person, likely either from the Cambridge or Oxford organizations, one on one, which seems terrifying to imagine being a non-native speaker, and a child, speaking to an adult from a different culture.  But the pressure is pretty high, and I gather that it affects the schools funding, somewhat like standardized tests do in the US.  A lot of the work I do with the second graders is dictated by the requirements of the Trinities.

The first couple weeks weren't necessarily rough, but it was an adjustment, for all parties I think.  Each teacher has different expectations of me, and my role in each class is different.  So there was a definite feeling-out period in terms of what I was going to do.  I was also new to teaching or even being around young children, so that was an adjustment for me.  By and large, they are very sweet, although I have one class in particular that is a lot crazier than the others.  Still, to watch 7 year olds listen, speak, and understand a second language is quite an experience, no matter how squirrelly they might get.  It's better now because they've gotten to know me, and so I walk down the hall and have a lot of them greeting me Hello Tyler! or Hello Teacher!, some of them hugging me, and generally being happy to see me, which always brightens my day.  All of the teachers that I work with have been very warm and friendly as well, so overall I consider myself very lucky.  It's also been nice because we have fairly frequent holidays or what they call puentes (bridges) where you get a long weekend.  I went to Paris over Halloween weekend and was able to leave on Thursday and return on Monday.  It's a pretty sweet gig overall!