Teaching

            It was highly recommended to all the volunteers in my group to set up summer school classes. The description of how to set these up was different for every volunteer depending on the site, but the general idea was to get approval from the school. I had it a bit easier since there is only one school at my site, and the director is incredibly helpful. So helpful in fact that he is setting things up for me much faster than I can understand his Spanish. I was able to present myself at a parent teacher meeting, and before I knew it I was sitting in front of the director at his desk and he’s handing me the keys to the school, and giving me a classroom for my classes. The school is typically closed during the summer as most the teacher including the director are from the main town near by and thus do not stay here while there is no school. During our key transaction the director kept asking me about where I was living, and then repeated my host mom’s name a couple of times embedded in Spanish sentences that I couldn’t quite understand. I continued to nod my head in agreement assuming what he was saying made since. He told me he would put up an announcement at the school, and I should put one up at the health post, and he promised to come visit at some point during my classes. Pretty soon I was walking out the door, my head held high, feeling full of power with the school keys jingling in my pocket.

            The proceeding weeks seemingly every parent in the street approached me and asked about my classes. They kept using a work that started with ‘m’ that I was quick to assume was another way of saying English classes, and I would tell them the date and time the classes were going to start.  One night my mom approached me after the school graduation and asked me where I was going to hold my classes, and I assured her that they would be in the school. She looked a bit relieved because apparently our neighbor, who rented from us for three months and then one day left without paying for rent I might add, was apparently saying that the classes were going to be held at our house. I said that was ridiculous and we quickly decided that the neighbor was a gossip and not good. For two weeks I assured parents of the day and time of the classes and I was starting to get nervous that I would have too many students. I made plans of how I could divide up the classes in two, and offer more sessions.  At one point I was sitting talking with a local baker and she was telling me that the previous volunteers only had eight students in their classes, she assured me that she would send her kids to my classes so I could have more students then that, and a little part of me felt like I was winning the non-existent competition. I busied myself all week making alphabet letters with accompanying pictures, and posters with class rules on them. I dug up my best leadership games and worked out a progression for the games to build on each other. In other words instead of waking up with no purpose I now had reason to busy myself in my room and it felt good! I was called to the municipality to open up the school for some inspectors, which only built on my feeling of power in the community. While at the school I was surprised to see that there was no sign on the door about my classes, so that night I made one for the school door, and could watch out my window from my house as people stopped by and read it. I was getting excited to get to know the students of Levanto

Heading home one day I passed by my friends at the health post to chat, and they asked about my classes using that ‘m’ word again. Fortunately they can read my face a lot better then the parents on the street, and thus could see the slight confusion so they spelled it out for me. It turns out the ‘m’ word really meant registration and it was assumed that I would have a central place for parent to come and sign up their kids before hand. I laughed this off and said oh no I was going to do that on the day of, to which they responded oh Maddy you are only going to have one student. We laughed about this prospect, but I was pretty confident that since I had told so many parents about my classes this could not possibly true. The Sunday night before I started my classes I had a parent come to the house wanting to sign up her children and pay, so I quickly grabbed the new notebook I had bought and made up a registration list to fill out. I was pretty happy to have someone at the house that was specifically looking for me, it gave me purpose, and I ignored the fact that she was surprised she was the first one to sign up her kids. I went to bed that night a bit restless in anticipation for my classes.

I woke up early Monday, tidied up my room, and went to the kitchen to have breakfast. While I had told my host mom that I would be going early tomorrow, my earliness and hers did not quite align, meaning she was not quite ready with my breakfast so she served me some soup from the night before, a little disappointing as I was anticipating two rolls of bread, but I slurped it down.  On my way to the school one of our neighbors came running up to me to hand me her money for the classes, I was juggling the materials unable to pull out my notebook, so I told her she needed to bring her parent to the school to register this morning. I got to the school, proudly opened up the door and walked on in. I taped up my alphabet on the wall, and posted up the rules. My biggest anxiety was how I was going to handle helping the parents register and managing the class with the students that were already there. I had nametags for them to decorate hoping this would keep the students busy. At eight I was all set and debated waiting for the parents in the classroom, which was on the second floor or down at the school entrance. The convenience of the table for registration kept me in the classroom and there I waited. At 8:10 I had my first two students, the children of the mother that came by the night before to register. They filled out their nametags asking me what color they should use, clearly needing my approval, and then we waited. I walked out of the classroom, looked around, and then walked back in wondering where all the promised children were. At 8:20 I started to get nervous that the women at the health post were right that without a registration there would be no students. Finally at 8:30 the girl that had stopped me on my way to the school came with her father thus rounding out my class to a total of three students. Together we sang the alphabet song, built a tower to hold a glass of water, and learned the numbers. The nametags felt silly and didn’t stay on, and I didn’t even mention the class rules, as with only three they were very well behaved. At the end of class I told the student that they needed to find one friend each to bring to the next class and the obediently agreed.

Feeling slightly embarrassed I headed back home to my host mom. I dramatically complained to her that there were only three students, and her first reaction was ‘oh but its only the first day’, then seeing how dramatic I was being she changed the response to be more sympathetic. I was in fact comforted that her first response was that it was only the first day and perhaps this was normal.  That night before dinner I heard my host parents talking in the kitchen, and pretty soon my host dad pops his head in my room and proclaims: ‘I heard you had 30 students in your class today!’ I looked at him confused and then realized he was joking to which I laughed and said yes, so many I couldn’t control them! This became our running joke, having to eat a second serving of dinner because I needed to have lots of energy for my 30 students. As I left for my classes the next morning one of our neighbors on the street wished me luck handling my 30 students! Somehow being in on a joke made me feel even better than if 30 students had come to my class.

After only five students come to my class for the older students I decided to take matters in to my own hands. I set out for a walk with my registration notebook in hand, and just walking down the streets children and adults appeared from out of their houses to stop me to register for my classes. I proudly handed them the notebook feeling prepared and excited to have more students. Many students said they were coming but I have now picked up that these students only tell me this to please me, it is the ones that put their name on the paper and paid that mean business. I now have around ten students in each class, which feels like what I can handle, and I’ve taken a huge step forward in understanding how the systems work here.