This week went by in a blur! I would've written sooner but I needed time to take it all in. Each day at school was a little different so I never knew what to expect. All in all things went smoothly and I now have a fixed schedule: I'm working Tuesday-Friday with the third cycle, aka the 5th and 6th graders (thank god!). There's two teachers in each grade, one of which is the English teacher. I'm working with Yolanda (5th) and Ester (6th) and thankfully they are some of the best teachers in the school. I totally lucked out.
Ok, to back up a little bit. On Monday I finally got to meet the rest of the Auxiliars at the school. There's 4 of us all together spread among 300 kids, give or take a few. Not too bad. They are Johanna from Puerto Rico, Ayan from Memphis and Kyra from Dallas. Good people. We get along great. The Assistant Principal, Mario, took us under his wing the first day and gave us a run-down of the school and introduced us in all the classes, English and Spanish. The we were sent off to rotate around. My first class on Monday was with Consuelo, the 4th grade English teacher...and I thought I was gonna die. Those kids were out of control. So loud! We all have 4th grade pegged as the Devil Children.
Tuesday was spent with the 5th and 6th grade. What a complete turn around. We've all decided that 5th grade is the nicest, quietest, smartest group. They're just wonderful. And Yolanda, their teacher, is very proactive in the classroom and seems to be the only English teacher who really sticks to English the entire time. She's a sweetheart too. I wish I had her for a teacher.
Wednesday was my first experience with the first cycle. I spent the morning working with the 2nd grade class...which was cute and frustrating. They were nice kids but their teacher, Rebeca, didn't really seem interested in making sure they did their work. It's funny how quickly you figure out who are the more involved teachers and who's going to support you the most in the classroom. Rebeca is not my favorite.
Yesterday I was back with the 6th graders talking about ecosystems and I got asked what a protist was. Hmm, how do you describe a protist? It's so sad because I learned about all this stuff in-depth in college but I don't remember most of it. I also now have a bunch of bizarre songs in my head, like one about the days of the week and one about how energy is passed through living things. It's so funny to hear all this stuff in a British accent! The students in 6th grade take a big test at the end of year that's carried out by an English university so it'll be interesting to see how they adapt to my accent.A few words they say that I think are very British are rubber (instead of eraser, not meaning condom) and clever (instead of smart).
I asked one boy to take out his notebook and another boy sitting next to said to me "Don't worry, he's not very clever". Hahaha. I also got confused when one of the 2nd graders asked me where to get a rubber...it took a second, but then I realized she was looking for an eraser. I had a girl call me over only to tell me her birthday is on Sunday. Another girl was constantly hugging me and hanging on my legs...I forgot what class she was in, and I have no idea what her name is! Ha! Almost all the kids say hello when they see the auxiliars in the hallway. It's pretty cool. They treat us like rockstars, which we are, of course.
First real day starts on Tuesday. I can't wait!
~Caralyn
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