Ah, the Spanish Lifestyle...

The more I'm here, the more I'm loving the lifestyle. It really is something to sit back and relax for a few hours everyday. I'm used to always being on the go; I still am trying to get used to stores being closed between 2 and 5 everyday and being closed at other random times on the weekend. I'm so used to being able to run out quick at midnight to CVS to get some supplies I need for tomorrow's lesson or going straight to Target after school to pick up some snacks for tomorrow's lunch. That is just not possible. At first I thought I wouldn't be able to get used to it, but it's slowly getting easier. I might just like this lifestyle afterall! :)

On Sunday, Leslie, Amy, and I climbed the walls of Avila with my 2nd grade teacher, Vanesa, and her 3-year old, Jimena. In Avila, there is what is called the "old city," which is the part of the town that is still walled-in. You can now pay a fee to climb up the walls and on a clear day, you can see miles and miles of Avila. It was an absolutely perfect day on Sunday, and the view was gorgeous!

Beautiful Avila

Las Murallas (The Walls)

Amy, Leslie, and I on the walls-you can kind of see the mountains in the background!

Looking Down from the walls

 

 

:)

 

 

 I started with the third grade this week. This will be a challenging class! The majority of the students miss a lot of class, are way below grade level, and/or have other major behavior problems. One of the big controversial topics here, it seems, is the way to handle the Gypsies. Although I don't know much about the Gypsy culture, the general attitude towards this group of people seems negative. The children don't often show up to school and are usually two or three grade levels below where they should be. There is one girl in the third grade who is still working on understanding how to properly hold a pencil. The third grade teachers are clearly stressed out and spend most of their time yelling and trying to get students to just sit down and be quiet. There is hardly enough time to work on academics! And when they do finally get the chance to work on actual school work, the students have a really hard time understanding it. I'm sitting here blankly staring into the Science and English textbooks, completely unsure what I should do for tomorrow. It seems important that I continue teaching from the textbook instead of doing my own thing, like I did in first and second grade, and though I am happy to finally have some guidance, thinking about all the different types of students that I need to cater to is literally making my head spin. For all of the complaining that I have done about the American education system, I'm beginning to think that we're doing okay, especially when it comes to identifying problems and intervening. Do we always do it right? Absolutely not. But at least we're doing it. Here, students are simply expected to all be the same: come to school with textbooks and supplies, sit down, listen, and do the work. I can see that the teacher I'm working with is frustrated and I hope that I don't end the week wanting to pull my hair out. We'll see how it all goes!