Classrooms!

 Por fin! The chance to get into the schools and see what is going on in education in Costa Rica! Half of our volunteer mornings were running 3 ish hour activities while the kids were on vacation and their parents were working. I ran Summer Camp games with two other fantastic educators who were both in the higher levels of Spanish classes in the afternoons. I would explain a game with A LOT of infinitives and miming, and if the kids were TOTALLY confused, one of them would help me out with a few correctly conjugated verbs. It was so much fun. BUT not really what I was hoping to see.

Finally, school vacation was over and we got to get into classrooms! I was assigned a 10th grade Social Studies class, a 9th Grade Spanish "public speaking" class and that same 9th grade class's Social Studies class. Important to know- 11th grade is "Senior Year" and is the 3rd and final "cycle" of typical schooling. So I have written and erased my attempts to explain the system, and decided, if you're interested, follow this link to the first post I found in a google search.

Anyway I had a great time working with these kids! The first group was doing a project that I don't FULLY understand how it related to the historical content, but it was very interesting. At the end, each group "taught" the rest of the class on their theme. One group was about empathy and why empathy is important. Another group spoke about time, and the time they should spend with their older family members because they won't be around forever. But also the time they as a class have left, since it's only one more year before they graduate. The third group continued that theme by making an activity where they wrote one line about a person in the class on a piece of paper, and teams needed to guess who it was about, to show how well they know each other after all these years. The last group went in a different direction and wanted to speak about the importance of remembering the ongoing effects of the Russian Invasion on the Ukrainian people when you want to complain about rising gas prices. It was a VERY interesting mix of kids in that class and I wish I got to spend more time with them.

I enjoyed my time with all 3 teachers I got to work with, but the Spanish teacher and I had a BLAST together. She and I had VERY similar teaching styles, but she had the freedom to implement in ways I never have. On the first day, she started class by explaining the project and used a really neat web program to present the information in an interesting format (we agreed that formatting is MOST of teaching). The presentation included where students should be in their process each day and the "characteristics" of each part of the project which felt like a translation of my "what this project requires" speeches.

But the part I was SO jealous of was the way that, through the whole project, she would share what they needed to do that day, and then she SENT THEM OFF TO DO IT. They went outside (when it wasn't raining) and worked at the picnic tables set up around campus. Or they worked in the main covered courtyard. Or just outside the classroom. Or on the carpeted floor in one section of the classroom. Or from their desks in the classroom. Seriously, it was what I have DREAMED of. Letting students go where they fell most able to do their work and being able to trust them to do it. We communicated only in Spanish, but it was so much fun talking shop with another teacher with the same kind of teaching philosophies.

Also a shared love of Don Quixote

In the last class, the focus was on moving from the middle ages to the age of enlightenment. It was also taught by a "same wave length" teacher. At every step that I would pause to ask a question, either to confirm understanding or to force students to think beyond the facts presented, she did the same. It was the hardest class to assist in because it was mostly lecture in Spanish but it was great to see how other teachers work.

So when I started this program, it was to learn spanish to communicate with the families of many of my students. However 3 days before I took off for Costa Rica, I landed a new job, and for the first time in my career, I am NOT going to work exclusively with English Learners. Spanish language or Spanish educational language is no longer the pressing aim of my time in the program. Which I am actually a bit thankful for. I have definitely focused on my listening skills and on the kinds of issues parents might bring up and how to respond. But for each part of the program, I am able to take a step back and enjoy the process, rather than focus entirely on how I need to use what I am learning. I felt that especially at the school. I am so happy I was able to see more than what my specific goals would have been.