Colegio Manuel Bartolomé Cossio

Today was my first visit to my school: Colegio Manuel Bartolomé Cossio. I always learned in Spanish class that "colegio" meant the equivalent of high school. In Spain it does not. It actually means primary school. That was kind of a shock for me. "Instituto" is the Spanish word for high school. The school system is divided up a bit differently here than back home. Instead of elementary, middle (junior high) and high (senior high) school they have just two schools. Colegios are basically 1st-6th grade and Institutos are 7th-12th grade. There are also escuelas infantiles for 3-5 year-olds.

Within the colegio there are 3 groupings (cíclos): 1st cíclo is 6-8 year-olds
                                                                          2nd cíclo is 8-10 year-olds
                                                                          3rd cíclo is 10-12 year-olds

I'm not sure what cíclo I'll be working with just yet, but I had a chance to see a classroom of each. They're all adorable!! And have so much energy! And a little over-zealous with their questions! They of course wanted to know my name and where I was from, but they repeatedly asked how old I was and if I had a boyfriend. Too funny! I also got asked what my favorite Spanish food is and if I spoke Spanish. I can never ever not even a little bit let them know I speak Spanish. They will pounce on that, and we'll never get anywhere. I am only allowed to speak English in the classroom and they are only allowed to speak to me in English. I even made them practice my name over and over until it sounded something like "Caralyn", because my name is NOT "Caroline". I will not answer to that.

No one in the entire school knew St. Louis, but they all recognized Missouri. Weird. I blame that on Mark Twain. One mention of Missouri and everyone immediately thought of Tom Sawyer...which is also weird because Mark Twain's most famous book is about Huckleberry Finn...
I honestly had no idea that the works of Mark Twain had made it to Spain. I hope they don't think I live on a raft in the Mississippi River!

The teachers were all very welcoming and eager to show me around. I was a little worried about this because at orientation they scared us into thinking that the teachers would be threatened by us and maybe not use us in the classroom as much as we hoped. They couldn't have been more wrong. They were thrilled to have a native speaker and made it a point to tell their students that they will learn better from us, the auxiliars, than the them, the teachers. I don't think that's necessarily true, but it was nice to know they supported us being there.

I also found out that there are 3 of us that are full-time auxiliars and 1 other who will split their time between our school and another. So we have one auxiliar per cíclo and we will be divided as such. I know this sounds irrelevant, but to me it means this school is organized and they know what they're doing. That is such a blessing!! I'm sure chaos will arise at times, but I'm glad to know that they've done this a time or two and seem to have found a system that works. I've heard the horror stories. I am thankful that will not be the case with me.

And one last thing...I get to take the train to school!! I didn't put 2&2 together before, but I just realized that both the metro station by my apartment and by the school are also cercanías stations. And there's actually another cercanías station much closer to school. How sweet is that?? I had no idea. And my monthly transportation pass works not only with the metro but the buses and cercanías trains as well. Another blessing.

I start on Monday. That's all for now.

~Caralyn