The second week of work has come to a close. Man, time is moving fast. I can't believe I've already been here in Chile for three weeks. On one hand it feels like I've been here for a while, and the other, it feels like just yesterday I was lazing on my parents couch eating their food. (Hey Ma and Pa, love you! hahaha).
This week at school was my first week of really teaching, and boy was it a learning experience. On Monday and Tuesday, I started at Dario Salas, the elementary/middle school, where I'm teaching 5th through 8th. The students are just so adorable, they call me Tia, come up and greet me all the time (even if it's just walking around Padre Las Casas), and overall are just good kids. Cesar, the head English teacher I work with, is pretty strict with them, but I think the structure it provides them really works. They know a fair amount of English and many are excited to learn. At Dario Salas, we spend the first 45 together working on grammar, and then I take 12 kids or so, the ones who were really good that day, or working particularly hard to another classroom. With Dario Salas, it's a lot easier to teach the kids then in the Liceo Forestal, whether this has to do with their age, their location in Temuco, their being hand picked by Cesar, or a combo of all three. I'm doing my best now to figure out how to best proportion out 45 minutes. It's really tricky because some things you think would be really easy, end up taking a long time, and other times, the thing you planned for the whole 45 minutes ends up only taking 15 and you're shit out of luck. I'm starting to get the idea to overplan, to always have a backup plan in hand, because if you let control get away from you, or let them get into other antics, it can spiral quickly.
The Liceo is frankly taxing. I'll feel really energetic starting there, but as soon as I have one class, I'm down for the count. They are just work. I know some of them are really kids, and in my head, I understand where they are coming from. Life for them isn't the easiest, that's my job, to help them just have fun, maybe learn a little English, but be a way for them to get involved and actually like school for once. When I first got here, my teacher told me that many of the kids have really hard home lives, where drugs, alcohol, mental problems, and prostitution are not that far off from their daily lives. To connect that with the behavior problems I encounter in class is hard. They're just kids, so I try and walk this fine line of maintaining control of the class and being firm (otherwise they'd eat me alive!), and also not being too hard on them, because outside inputs or a bad day can have a big effect on these kids daily outbursts.
The other hard part I've found at the Liceo in teaching is getting them excited or interested enough to participate. I've planned a few games a few times (as we're supposed to-incorporate a lot of games), but they just didn't buy in. I went to play charades with our equivalent of high school juniors, and they just weren't feeling it. I had to quite literally drag kids up to play. It was a good game to practice the grammar we were learning, (present continuous-He is running, etc). But, they weren't feeling it. Then, to add to this confusion of how to get kids interested, I played charades with the seniors on the same day as it was in my lesson plan, but for some reason, they did like playing. It seems like it all really depends on the mood of the class, just because they're kids doesn't mean they're going to want to play games with me. I just wish I could get rid of that whole teenage attitude of "I'm too cool to participate", but I guess every parent has been trying to get rid of that attitude much to their consternation.
As for the family, things are settling in. The two older sisters have come to visit this weekend from Santiago to meet me and hang out with the family. The oldest one is 26 and the next 23, they're both really nice, look a lot like they're mom and sisters. It's kind of hilarious. Sometimes I find myself glancing between the all of them and their expressions and manners of talking, and I just kind of giggle to myself. I've been caught a few times, but I just wave them off. It's really great having them here, we went out last night to see the stadium in town and walk around a park, and just hung out. We then sang karaoke after once, hahaha. Too great. The house is full of people, and on one hand, it's great, on the other, you find yourself missing your family and the happy ease and comfort that comes from being with people who you can completely be yourself with.
Today, shall be interesting to say the least!
Why will today be interesting?
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