Fire Drill

Today we had a fire drill at my school, something I never really gave thought to until this morning before school started when the teachers were discussing where exactly they were supposed to exit the school from ten minutes before school started.  Back home the teachers know way in advance where exactly they are supposed to take their class when their is a fire drill.  For the most part these drills go smoothly and it's not complicated.  Tell that to the Spaniards.  I know for a fact that there are fire evacuation plans on every classroom because I've sat there and looked at them while I waited around for one thing or another so why exactly the teachers were confused on where to take their students, which door to exit through (there are three.  The school is not that big) and where they were supposed to go afterwards I really do not understand.  Besides, shouldn't this have been discussed days, if not weeks, in advance, not ten minutes before school starts?!  If there had been a real fire it would have been utter chaos, but thankfully that was not the case.  My first grade students did not quite understand that though.  When we got outside one of them asked me, "Is there a real fire or is this a lie?"  I replied no, there is not really a fire.  Thank goodness, although this fire drill just proves the fact that Andalucia is ridiculously unorganized. 

School and Teaching

Here are a couple more school observations:  First, one of the most popular words students say is a form of the word "mentira" which means lie.  Usually they will just shout "mentira!" at one another if someone says something they don't believe it's true or they'll call each other "mentiroso/a", or liar.  Pretty sure not a day goes by that I don't hear the word at least once.  Second, boys cry way more than girls do.  I can only remember seeing girls cry a few times whereas the boys cry over the littlest things.  I'm pretty sure they do it just for attention, but back home if a boy wants attention you most definitely would not see him crying about it.  Here is an example of two boys, in 5th grade, crying today.  As we all know, hitting each other is no big deal in the school so it wasn't surprising when two boys were punching each other.  One boy started to cry and the teach wrote the other boy up for it.  Basically all he has to do is get his parents to sign the paper.  So the boy who hit the other boy started crying because he was written up.  Boys.

This week I'm talking about geography and oceans in the 2-6 grade classes and the days of the week and months in my first grade class.  I feel like this is the most interactive so far the children have been although some of them still don't listen at all.  In my first grade class I gave them a more difficult worksheet (for them at least) where they had to put the months in order and rewrite the word and also unscramble the days of the week.  You definitely feel proud of yourself when you know that kids are learning something and once they understand what they have to do they do it all by themself.  Even though the kids still behave badly and it takes forever for them to be quiet before I can start going over the lesson it still makes me happy that they are (hopefully) learning something and I'm the one teaching them!

Dang, those kids are intense

Generally I like Thursdays best because those classes are usually the best behaved and I don't work Fridays, so it feels like a Friday.  There have been several times in the classes where I'm pretty sure a smackdown between the kids is going to happen and I always brace myself for inevitable shouting and hitting.  Take today for example.  My second class is one of the sixth grade ones and the kids are listening to a story in their book.  I have to read the dialogue and then the students take turns reading and translating it.  About half way through one of the girls sitting right in front of the teacher's desk decides she wants one of the boys to sit next to her and not the two other girls.  She decides to shove all of their things off their desk and yell in their faces to leave.  The other two girls yell back and pick their things up off the ground, setting it all back on the desk only for it to be shoved right back onto the floor again.  This continued for several moments and the girls continue shouting and I'm just waiting for the inevitable smack to occur.  I should say I was surprised that the teacher didn't intervene right away, but really I'm not becuase these sort of things are usually ignored.  She finally stepped in shouting right back at the girl who started it all and I'm just sitting there wide eyed.

On a better note, my school is finally getting internet and digital screens in all the classrooms.  Toma!!!!  Hopefully I'll be able to use it to my advantage and it'll be easier to do certain activities with them.

One thing I like about my school is that it's not unusual to find some sort of food that was brought in during the break.  They don't serve lunch or anything so the children bring a snack and so do the teachers, but usually someone has brought in food.  This week two teachers had birthdays and one brought in these amazing brownies the size of a sheet cake.  Today was another birthday and she brought in a bizcocho (basically a light cake) with powdered sugar on top and a slight lemon flavor.  Delicious.  As we were leaving today the two other teachers we're like 'ohh we forgot something!' so we went back inside and they were sneaking away some of the brownies.  Of course I couldn't resist when they asked if I wanted to take a piece home with me.