First Day of School

Monday
August 27, 2007

Today was my first day of school. It pretty much sucked. The high points were that I finally found a way to get to school by taking just one bus. The annoying thing is that the bus is absolutely packed by the time I’m supposed to get off and between the foggy windows, the dim morning light, and the stacks of people, it’s always a craps shot as to where I’m actually supposed to get off. It’s still better than the bus-to-metro-to-bus route I was taking before. I’ll be moving to a neighborhood called Polanco on Saturday so I’ll have to figure out transportation all over again but it is a nice feeling to know that I was able to narrow down my vehicles by two thirds.
I wake up at 5am and am out of the door by 6 to walk to the metro Zapata. It’s a nice walk because I enjoy seeing all of the street vendors setting up their carts. By the time I near Santa Fe at around 7am, the sun is coming up and I get a great view of the city with deep blues and purples in the background. I love the cool air, especially after getting off the hot bus.
I arrived at 7:30, just in time to take some quick photos of my classroom and to see some of the parents dropping off their kids. One thing that I like about taking public transportation, or at least why I haven’t bothered to arrange a carpool quite just yet, is that in some respect, it keeps me grounded because as soon as I step off that bus, I am in fresa land. The parents are mostly Hispanic but there are quite a few Asians (just Koreans that I know of so far), and a bunch of Americans. So far I have had many Mexicans, two Koreans, three Brazilians, a few Colombians, a Nicaraguan, a Venezuelan, and a pair of Swedish brothers who literally know no English. The brother that is in second grade, named William, started crying in the middle of class. I felt so bad for him and hated that I couldn’t communicate with him to let him know that every day is only going to get easier…hmm, sounds like I should take my own advice. Anyway, of the kids that know hardly any English there are two Koreans, two Brazilians, and the two Swedish brothers. I can’t even imagine what they must be going through. The principal was passing around a sign up sheet for anyone interested in getting paid to do after school tutoring. I would absolutely love the chance to tutor William and his brother not only because I would like to be able to help them on an individual basis, but because I think it will be fascinating to closely follow their progress throughout the year.
My role at the school is to take the kids, grades 1st through 6th, to provide extra help with English while their classmates are in French. What is tricky about my job is that although each class has students from just one grade, they are at all different English proficiency levels. So far the hardest is going to be 5th grade because there are 13 students. Another tricky class is the 3rd grade class because they have huge behavioral problems. What makes my job harder yet is that the school is totally disorganized and nothing is done, on the administrative side, to help us. Oh, add to that the fact that I have no idea what I’m doing.
Today I taught the kids whose teachers anticipated their needing to be in ESL. I may end up having more and I may end up having less. There are a few who I don’t think need to be with me so I’ll need to keep in close contact with their regular teachers to make sure they are doing ok in their regular English class.
In the morning I have 6th, 5th, and 4th respectively. I had them ask me questions and then I had them write a question on a piece of paper. I mixed up the questions and had each of them practice asking their partners. This worked well but in a class with 13 kids, it’s really hard for me to get a feel for whether they should be in ESL or not. Tomorrow and Wednesday they’ll be taking a diagnostic test which will hopefully serve as reinforcement to the assessments I will make by the end of the week.
The students had a welcome assembly in the morning. A lot of it involved national anthem playing and singing of the school song. They all stood in straight lines to sing and with the combination of their uniforms, a foreign anthem, and the position of their hands (in Mexico they hold their hand to their heart but palm down and parallel to the ground), it looked very 1930’s Germany-esque as Jezz, the British science teacher, described it. It was weird to see the kids like this because I always associate such scenes with film footage of radically nationalist countries far away from my own. These, however, are my own students. This also brings up an interesting bias against the US that I often hear from foreigners. Many have told me that they view the US is too quick to fly their flag and demonstrate patriotism via anthem playing. For the first time, I considered the US to be quite moderate in this respect.
After the assembly I had my class of 4th graders and then a very large lunch break broken up at 11:30 when I introduced myself at the high school electives assembly. I am going to be coaching female varsity soccer. I had mentioned wanting to coach basketball ever since I applied to Westhill. The headmaster didn’t seemed too convincing that I would get to coach so last week I paid a few visits to the athletic director. The first one was to introduce myself and to let them know that I would like a coaching position. A few days later, after realizing that the positions were, as they led me to believe, full, I went back and did all I could to convince them of my talents and desire to coach. Apparently it paid off because on Friday I was told that I was going to coach soccer. It’s a bit of a joke since they practice for 30 minutes twice a week but they will have interscholastic competitions and there will be some traveling involved. I’m excited to finally see what it’s like on the other side of the sideline but I’m equally excited to become familiar with some of the high school students since I still haven’t gotten over my constant state of high school envy. My jealousy did get a break from approximately 11:42 until 11:44 while I was on stage absolutely terrified by the “big kids” whose only purpose in life can’t be anything other than to eat me alive. I’m hoping they didn’t notice my stuttering. Maybe my side of the auditorium isn’t so bad after all.
Lunch went slowly but I did manage to write up a set of reading comprehension questions for the upper level kids tomorrow. In the afternoon I had 1st grade, 2nd grade, and 3rd grade. The 1st grade was pretty tough, although there were only about six. It’s amazing how the one trouble child can make a perfectly good class awful. On my way home I realized a very important thing: it’s ok to be mean and strict. I felt bad when I seperated Nicolas (the bad one) because he wasn’t participating. At the time it seemed like a horrible idea because the point is for them to improve their English. How are they supposed to improve they are sitting on the other side of the room observing from a distance? If I don’t set the behavioral standards now, though, he will constantly act up and never be able to participate. If I crack down now, hopefully he will learn to cooperate and will therefore learn to cooperate with the class in a few weeks. Oh God, oh God: please let this be true.
The 2nd grade class was wonderful. There were about 6 and miraculously, they paid attention and treated each other with respect. In this class is the older of the Swedish brothers. At the beginning I had everyone tell where they were from and point to their country on the globe. I knew William knew no English and wanted to give him more individual attention but I had to attend to the rest of the class. We were working on salutations when I noted that William was sitting in the circle with teary eyes. I felt so bad for him. So, I gathered everyone around in a tight circle, sat next to William and showed them pictures from my book of photos from Arizona. This definitely calmed William down and the class was fascinated by the photos.
My last class, the 3rd graders, was miserable. They would not sit still and did not stop talking. It was HORRIBLE. I mentioned them to one of the 6th grade teachers and he said, “oh, I remember them.” They were so bad that I can’t even stand to write about them right now.
Now for some good news: I finally found an apartment. On Friday of last week, one of the French teachers mentioned to me that a former Westhill employee was looking for someone to rent a room in the apartment she and her husband live in. I called her friend, Flora, and made an appointment for Sunday evening. The apartment is very big and my bedroom is great as well. I’ll have my own bathroom and semi-walk-in closet. The kitchen is also pretty big which will be great since I’m hoping cook dinner for friends when I get the chance. Flora was born in Mexico but I think she has a French father. Christophe, her husband, is French and both have been here for quite some time. I’m excited because not only am I going to be speaking Spanish in the apartment, but I’ll be speaking a bit of French too! The apartment is in a nice neighborhood called Polanco. So far the only negative aspects of it are that it is in a nice neighborhood. There won’t be any cool taco stands near by and it’s not very close to the metro station. There is a cool skate park that is about 15 minutes away and apparently you can get to Chapultepec by foot as well. The obvious pluses are that it is in a nice neighborhood. Flora and Christophe have someone staying in the extra bedroom right now so I have to wait until Saturday to move in. I CAN’T wait. I can’t even describe how excited I am to have a room all to myself. I have had a really tough time with the cat here at Mauricio’s apartment and I am anxious to be able to leave something out without having it get ruined by scratches. “Cota,” Mauricio’s kitten, has absolutely confirmed my utter hatred of cats. It’s amazing how a single tiny creature can make someone so miserable. I fed Cota tap water yesterday hoping she would die. She didn’t. In fact, she is ripping up the straps of my backpack as I type.
Hopefully I will become more positive as the weeks progress I anticipate enjoying the city more and more but unfortunately, liking the school less and less. Until I finally move into the apartment, it’s hard to tell what emotions are in store.