Monday, September 8th: First Day!
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| In my uniform, ready for my first day! :) |
At 8:30 am every Monday morning, there is something called "honores" or this honors ceremony. Each week, a group of students from a certain grade does this march/procession around the patio (concrete playground) with the flag during the national anthem and another song called "Toque la Bandera" This ceremony is done at every school on Monday mornings. After the ceremony, Leti called us up in front of the primary school and introduced us! It was quite the large welcome! :)
Once we got back from honores, Mayra asked if I wanted to TEACH! First day, first time meeting the kids and I have no idea what they are learning...SURE! Nothing like jumping in right away! Each week they have a different list of vocabulary that pertains to their main English workbook. I had to come up with two different sentences for each of the 20 vocab words to dictate to the students so they could practice their listening skills. It made me think on my feet! When was the last time I used the word deftly? It was really interesting to see how the students responded to having me teach them instead of Mayra. Student teachers aren't really a normal thing here but both Mayra and the students were so welcoming and made me feel that I was right where I was supposed to be!
My first observations about Mexico Education:
-The boys answer more often than the girls. I feel like generally girls are more often raising their hands in the US.
-Some students are very fluent in English! It's amazing that they are only in 6th grade and are bilingual!
-They live and swear by workbooks here. In the US, we have standards and content that we use to shape a curriculum full of lesson plans and objectives. In Mexico, they use workbooks for the curriculum. In Spanish classes, they have around NINE workbooks/notebooks (one for math, one for science, one for Mexican history, one for state history, one for grammar...the list is extensive!) In English classes, they use SIX different notebooks/workbooks. They have a set of Oxford Discover books (a text and a workbook) that covers a bunch of topics in English (i.e. we are working on bridges and tunnels right now.) Plus the English science book, the grammar and spelling book, the reading book, a Cambridge English book (complete with British accents on the CDs...) The rest are the corresponding notebooks. My first impression was that this was A LOT! Everyday the teachers must work on these workbook pages, crank them out and move onto the next one. I don't think that there is a lot of freedom to create their own lesson plan. The way they plan out their day is simpler than the ridiculously long ones we've done at Edgewood, just focusing on the workbook page, the objective and a simple activity. It is definitely a different way of teaching and learning.
-Everything that the students do, must be checked and "ticked" with a green pen. Literally, EVERYTHING. These green pens are extremely important. A student's workbook gets "ticked" because then the parents see that they are doing their work. Parents here are extremely involved in their children's education. They want to see proof that their child is doing work at school. They get a lot of homework too for the same reason, to show them that they are doing something. The green pen idea is very interesting.
I am with the 6th grade from 7:15-11:00am. They switch everyday so I have 6B Monday, Wednesday, Friday and 6A Tuesday, Thursday. They have recess at 9:00am (this is when they eat "lunch" sort of- so different and early!) At the first recess, I met my other cooperating teacher, Margot, the 4th grade teacher! She is so sweet and so nice. My cooperating teachers are friends because they are both new at the school and have graciously added me to their loving friendship!
At 11:00am, I switch and go to 4th grade with Margot. We walked to another part of the building to enter this giant oddly shaped classroom full of 30 super loud and chatty 4th graders. It was an immediate change of energy than 6th grade. There is A LOT going on with 4th grade so I will try to explain the best I can!
A bit of background information on the 4th grade...
-For teachers, it's a game again numbers because there are 30 of them in one class where normally this would be split in half.
-The room itself doesn't lend any help either because it's a long rectangle so the students at the back of the classroom can barely see the board (if at all) and can completely shut out the teacher if they aren't loud enough or engaging enough.
-There isn't much classroom management. Last year, in 3rd grade there wasn't any enforcement of rules or the teacher didn't teach any basic behavior or classroom management. I found all of this out after school when I talked with David. David is our liaison with the colegio's English department. He is an American ex-businessman that moved to Cuernavaca and became an English teacher by necessity. He explained to me that they placed me in the hardest classroom in the entire school. It's the hardest class they've had in years. I told him I had my work cut out for me and I accepted the challenge!!
After Margot introduced me to the class and got them as prepared as she could, I started to teach vocabulary, similarly to how I did in 6th grade. I explained their new vocabulary definitions and gave examples. It was such a different vibe from the morning. There was this constant level of chatter and buzz. Students were constantly getting up out of their desks for no reason, shouting out, chatting with their neighbor, and overall just misbehaving. For me coming from the US, it threw me for a loop. In general, behavior management here is very relaxed in comparison and there is little pre-meditated classroom management. They basically just "SHH" them until it's quiet for a few seconds until it starts back up again. And if you let them go for too long, it's near impossible to get 30 students attention all at once. Meanwhile, I am observing all of this chaos of 4th grade, my brain is firing on all cylinders brainstorming and writing down ideas for classroom management, attention grabbers and ways to keep them engaged.
When I got the reins back, I decided to teach them some simple attention grabbers or call and response. I taught them the call and response when the teacher says "1-2-3 eyes on me" and the students respond in unison "1-2 eyes on you!" (Normally, I think these are done in younger classes in the US but here they mature slower, which is actually a very nice thing. It may be because there is less of a media presence or less of a care for what others think of them. It was refreshing actually to have kids act like kids!) I taught them the call and response and at first, they looked at me like I had two heads! Hah! They had no idea what I was doing. By the third try, they got it and it gave me goosebumps that we could go from chaos to attentive silence with just a little trick!
So, my first day was an absolute crazy, fun, overwhelming and exciting day. I got to teach on my first day of student teaching and learned a lot about what I will need to do to make the next eight weeks run smoothly!
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| The bulletin board in my 6th grade room. The classroom is really small! |
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| 6th Grade Room- very traditional and not as "warm" as US classrooms. |
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| Part of the awkwardly huge 4th grade room. The board seems like a mile away from back here! |
Tuesday, September 9th: Day Two
6th Grade:
I met my other half of 6th grade (6A) today and I taught the Oxford English pages about bridges and tunnels, the science pages about the nervous system and I read a story of Robin Hood from their reading textbook. It was hard being thrown into the content. Mayra asks me to teach them something right before I teach it. I was a little nervous because I haven't necessarily studied up on my types of bridges or parts of the nervous system in a while but I managed to do just fine! The morning seems to fly by because I am already teaching and we are always busy!
4th Grade:
I came mentally prepared to start to formulate some sort of classroom management today. Margot is so open to new ideas so I shared with her the need for some sort of classroom agreements. We created our own with the students and they wrote them down to keep for the year. This already made a shift in the classroom environment. It may have also helped that Margot told them that I asked her yesterday if they knew how to behave because it didn't seem like it...a little white lie but it did the trick! I taught another call and response today. I used "All set?!" "You bet!" I wish I could get some of this stuff on tape because writing about it doesn't do it justice. After explaining it, I called out "All set?!" and a few quiet unsure voices said "You bet?" It was hilarious and so innocently adorable. We tried it again and they got it! Even after two days together, I can sense that little changes are allowing us to have more of a classroom community. I taught the pages from the science unit about nutrition and food. Day two was a total 180 from yesterday but there is still work to be done!
Wednesday, September 9th: Day Three
6th Grade:
Mayra taught the beginning of the morning and at recess she asked me if I could teach the rest of the morning by myself (9:20-11am) because she had to leave the school for a bit. I was SO nervous but also excited that I have only been here for two full days and they already trust me and want me to teach by myself. I, of course, said YES in my usual overly enthusiastic way and was ready to go! I taught Oxford English books, the reading text, and the Cambridge books. It was INTENSE trying to finish all of these different pages and activities before the clock struck 11! I managed to do it and thankfully the students were working with me to get them done.
4th Grade:
Margot knew that I taught 6th grade alone so she decided to do the same and leave me with the 4th grade...AHHHH! I was even MORE nervous and anxious to see how this was going to go after the tumultuous two days I had had with them!
I first had to take them to the Book Fair in the adjacent building. Nothing like the book fairs we have in the US. It's still Scholastic but instead of cart after cart of books they had like 50 books total strewn out on tables. It was like herding cats getting the students there and back- hilarious!
Once we got back to the classroom I taught them a new warm up. Most of the English classes do some sort of "switching" activity to get their brains working in English. I chose a math game where instead of giving them problems I just gave them numbers and they had to create their own problem and solve it. I used a deck of cards to give them random numbers. This game allowed for them not to only activate their brains but to also work on writing word problems in English. It went surprisingly well and the students LOVED it. It worked perfectly too because the early finishers could come up and pull two, three or four more numbers. Everyone could continue to create problems at their own pace with their own numbers. It was a really cool activity and something totally different for them. I was so happy it went well because one, I proved to myself that I can handle 30 English Language Learners by myself on my third day of student teaching...! And David was also sitting in the back of the room observing so I am really glad the activity went well!
After recess, Margot returned (thank God!) I led the lesson on poetry in their reading textbook. It was poetry about different dinosaurs and I obviously got super into it using sound effects and my best T. Rex impersonation. Hah! Margot loves when I read because I have "beautiful native pronunciation" (gee, thanks Wisco!)
They split up the class for computer class so then I was left with only half the class and we worked on their Oxford English which is talking about space. Another topic that I am glad I had some background on because I don't know the last time I discussed celestial bodies and space probes with nine year olds. We sat on the ground because there was only 14 out of the 30 so I felt like we were too far away from each other in their desks. They don't really do carpet time or anything on the floor here because one, the classroom set up doesn't allow it and two, you probably will get bit by some bug while you're down there...seriously. It made me miss my carpet time with Gail and my 2nd graders at ECS!
Thursday, September 10th: Day Four
6th Grade:
I taught Oxford English about bridges and tunnels, mind maps and the continuous present tense. It is interesting teaching English to ELLs (English Language Learners) because I know how to speak English but it's a whole different game to try and explain the reason behind everything. I asked if I could really observe the rest of 6A today because I've been teaching so much and I wanted to see if I was doing any of it in a similar way! Mayra is so enthusiastic but is also a straight shooter and tries to keep the class at a mature hardworking level.
4th Grade:
The half that went to computer yesterday stayed with me today and I did the same lesson. I've come to realize that transitions are a huge task for them. Transitioning takes forever and they constantly are interrupting or asking questions about what they should be doing. That is something I want to work on with them.
Funny anecdote of the day: I think I will have nightmares when I leave of students chasing after me yelling "Teeeeeacher!" "Miiiiiiiiis!" "I have finished!" or "I finish!" because the students here are very vocal about getting your attention if they need to tell you something or have a question or if they finished their work. They don't just finish and wait patiently, they need to tell you and make it known that they are done.
Friday, September 11th: Day Five
Usually we will volunteer on Friday mornings at a public school in a lower income neighborhood. In the afteroon, we will return to the colegio to work on one of the three big projects Leti has assigned us. The first is to organize, catalog and implement an online Scholastic reading program called TrueFlix and BookFlix. The second is to organize and systemize each grade's classroom library up through secondary. The last is to create a school wide book report system for each grade level to be able to use a different one each month.
Today, however, was a special day because we had a school wide Fiesta Mexicana for Día de Independencia! Mexican Independence Day is on Tuesday the 15th but no one has school or work that day and sometimes they cancel the day before too!
For the Fiesta Mexicana, everyone came to school dressed up in traditional Mexican dresses, suits and ensembles. It was so special! I even got to borrow a beautiful dress from Yucatan! Fun fact: each state has a different style of woman's dresses and set of colors that is specific to each state.
We had an honores ceremony and everyone partook in the "Grito" which is the speech that was the pronunciamiento of the Mexican War of Independence by Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, a Roman Catholic priest. Since October 1825, the anniversary of the event is celebrated as Mexican Independence Day.
On the night of the 15th around 11pm, the President of Mexico will reenact this speech to be broadcast on radio and TV.
We ate delicious taquitos topped with crema and queso, traditional "helote" or corn on the cob topped with mayo, chili powder, and cheese. It sounds weird with the mayo but it's actually really good and the mayo here has lime juice in it. We also had my favorite drink, agua de jamaica (cold brewed hibiscus tea).
Here are some pictures from the Fiesta Mexicana!
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| My cooperating teacher in 6th grade- the wonderful Mayra! |
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| My cooperating teacher in 4th grade- the marvelous Margot! |
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| The dream team! :) |
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| All of the teachers in their traditional dresses! |
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| Lindsey and I with the school director, Leti, during honores. |
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| Leti, me, Mayra and the 6th grade Spanish teacher Laura. |
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| The student teachers in our Mexicana outfits! |
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| My lovable crazy 4th graders during the Fiesta Mexicana |
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| The procession during the Honores ceremony |
The fiesta took up most of the 6th grade morning but I taught a little here and there. It feels like I've already been here for weeks and can tag team the classes with Mayra and Margot!
In 4th grade, we created solar systems to connect with our readings in our Oxford book. This was a very exciting activity but it also gave me anxiety! Most of you know that I am kind of a perfectionist and pride myself on organization and planning. This activity wasn't really planned. We had a plethora of foam spheres and wooden sticks the students brought in. The students didn't really know what size ball to use or what to paint which color or what order the planets are in. I taught them the mnemonic phrase "My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nachos" which they loved. There was about one bottle of paint per color and the students were put in random teams and were let loose. My teeth were probably clenched the whole time because I was waiting for a ball covered in wet paint to go flying across the room or a bottle of paint to hit the floor and spill all over someone's traditional Mexican dress! Surprisingly, there were few fires to put out and they worked together to decide how to put it together because we gave them little direction and a whole lot of freedom. At the end of the day, they looked really cool and we all were so proud of them. (Even if some weren't 100% accurate at the end of the day...) It was a super cute activity and gave me an insight on how they work in groups.
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XOXO,
"Teacher Estefani"
That's what my new students call me :)
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