I’ve always loved “back to school” season. As sad as it is to see summer vacation come to an end, there’s something so refreshing and energizing about starting a new school year, seeing all of your friends again, showing off new outfits, haircuts, and summer tans, and who doesn’t love shopping for new school supplies? That was always such an exciting day for me when I grabbed my school supply list and hit up Office Depot to pick out all my notebooks, binders, and pretty new markers. And remember what a big deal it was in grade school to see the class lists posted a few days before classes started, or in high school getting our schedules in the mail, and then promptly calling EVERYONE to figure out who was in each of our classes?
And then there were the college back to school days. Showing up at Logan Airport with my neon green luggage and waiting for some kind friend to pick me up then chatting the whole way back to Worcester, moving into new dorm rooms in the August heat and humidity, shopping sprees at Target to decorate, trying to figure out which books you don’t really need to buy in an effort to save a few hundred dollars at the bookstore, and frantically running around campus to find all the people you haven’t seen for 3 months. Those were the days....
Well here I am going back to school again, confused because it’s March and not September, and because for the first time in my life I am not returning as an eager and excited student, but as a nervous and inexperienced teacher. These past couple weeks have definitely been a little weird for me, trying to get used to my new role in academia and figure out what the heck I’m doing, but overall I think it’s safe to say I’m off to a decent start. At the very least I didn’t show up on the first day to kids sitting on their desks and throwing paper airplanes at my head...luckily that kind of behavior would never fly here. I'll be teaching English to preschoolers (3-5 year olds), 2nd and 3rd grades in primary, and the advanced group of 3rd years in secondary. I'm also "co-tutora" (kind of like homeroom teacher/counselor/overall go-to person) for the first years in secondary. I'll be working with Carlos, the same teacher who led Mes de Mision and who's also in charge of the choir/all things music and campus ministry related around here so I already know him well and will be working with him a lot over the next 2 years.
To give you a snapshot of what life is like here at Colegio Miguel Pro, I’ve come up with a few major differences (some good, some slightly frustrating) between our school and the school system I’m used to in the States.
Top 10 choques (culture clashes) I've experienced at our school so far:
10. When I walk into a classroom, all the kids stand up to one side of their desks and greet me with, “Buenos días Señorita Maureen” like little robots. All the formality seems a little unnecessary to me but it’s kind of cute and can definitely give you a power trip.
9. Maybe this would happen in the States too but I was pleasantly surprised at how entertained my third graders were by simply singing “Head, shoulders, knees and toes” over and over again at varying speeds.
8. Showing up five minutes early on the first day of school with one pen, one notebook (covered in Marvel comic book characters I might add-it used to belong to a student), and no schedule and getting here before the principal.
7. Being handed my schedule for the first day at 8:40am and then walking into class at 8:45.
6. Having all the teacher meetings begin after the first day of classes to talk about things like schedules, goals for the year, mission of the school, etc...why waste vacation days to plan those things in advance right?
5. Not having any sort of supervisor or department head telling me what I need to teach, nor following up to make sure I’m actually teaching English in my classes. Our “supervisor” if you will doesn’t really speak English, she just checks in with us once a week to make sure we’re still sane and talk about whatever problems we’re having.
4. Kids nearly in tears when they realize the notebooks they bought are lined and not graph paper (everyone uses graph paper notebooks here). That happened in Cara’s class, not mine, but I thought it was pretty funny.
3. Shopping for school supplies in the old cabinets in the teacher's lounge instead of at the local librería. I could easily spend my entire stipend on new materials if I wanted to, but since we're trying to live simply I'm just going to borrow indefinitely from the JVs and former students of yesteryear who have left things behind.
2. Two + weeks into classes and still no set schedule...they finally gave us a working schedule last Friday but a lot of us are still double-booked certain hours, missing classes, or both in my case. They try too hard to make all the teachers happy with their schedules which makes this process impossibly complicated, but hopefully they'll figure out a way to fix it this week so I can actually go to all of my classes.
1. And my favorite thing about working here so far...walking to school everyday and being bombarded by hugs, kisses, and shouts of Profesora, Miss Maureen, Señorita, or Tía Tía! by hoards of little children. No better way to start the day. :)
As soon as I figure out a more efficient way to upload photos I'll try to post a visual summary of our February travels which were wonderful. But in the meantime Happy St Patrick's Day tomorrow (I'm going on a hunt for green food dye today since I'm on dinner duty tomorrow...), and happy almost spring to all of you in the northern hemisphere! I guess it's fall here but our seasons would be better described as hot and less hot, always dry and usually sunny. We're still in hot and sunny season. Oh and 2 exciting sidenotes: after many days of waiting around in Lima and hassling the migrations office Seamus and I are finally legal residents of Peru!! We got fancy little DNI's (ID cards) with fingerprints and everything. This is excellent news for several reasons: 1. we can no longer get kicked out of the country, 2. the police can't fine us for not having ID when they randomly pull over the city busses and ask for it, and 3. we can finally cross the border into Arica, Chile where my housemates tell me the ice cream is to die for. Second piece of news: we don't do daylight savings time here so that means I'm one hour closer to everyone in America (unless you're on the east coast in which case you're now an hour ahead of me). Keep this in mind if you ever want to make my day with a surprise phone call.
That's all for now friends! Hope all is well wherever you are and I'll do my best to keep you posted on my adventures in the classroom. There are sure to be many...
Mucho amor y paz,
Profesora Señorita Miss Maureen
