Where´s Dora when you need her?

Yesterday I wrote a post. It registered pretty high on the angst-ometer so I thought I´d let it sit over night and see if I still felt like posting it. I didn´t. I´ll summarize for you now:

School is boring. But now I don´t even have boring school. Two months of vacation. I don´t have anything to read. My brain is dying (whiny nasally voice).

Obviously it was a little more detailed than that, talking about the many hours I spend every day home alone and various things that are not fun. Not anything that needs to be shared with the world. THANKFULLY……I have an update (and an exciting one at that)

Remember in one of my first blog posts how I talked about living in my fancy rich house in a “low resources” (as the Mexicans would say) neighborhood? It turns out that while my fancy rich brothers and I go to some of the most expensive private schools in Villahermosa, all of the “low resource” children are sent to a little public school around the block.

The school schedule is 6 am (not a typo) until 1 pm Monday- Friday. It has two classrooms and one concrete outdoor play space. It teaches K-6. There are seven teachers. The school uniforms are grey.  I didn´t know these things until today, because usually I go running in the late afternoon when the school is deserted. But, the other day I saw a loud, crazy, recess in session. I decided I was going to walk over there and ask if I could help with the English classes. Really- I´m sitting in the house all morning, I miss volunteering with kids and I´m bored. If I have time to do unnecessary research on liver disease I have time to do something productive, right?

Before I actually went to the school, I ran it past my parents who told me I would need permission from the club. When I went to the Rotary meeting they stressed it upon me that it is ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL I am accompanied by a Rotarian when I go introduce myself. Ok. So I found a willing Rotarian and we made a date for this morning. This is how it went down:

Rotarian: Good Morning

Principal: Good Morning

Rotarian: I am a Rotarian.

Principal: That´s nice.

Rotarian: My wife is the president of our club too!

Princiapl: Wow- how nice

Rotarian: Our club is Real de Grijalva.

Principal: Ok

Rotarian: This is Elaine. She´s an exchange student.

(silence that hopefully felt longer than it actually was)

(Elaine realizes she needs to talk)

(Elaine babbles and tries to explain why she is there and makes a joke about being a gringa which makes the principal like her and explains that she´ll teach free English classes and has a completely open schedule which makes the Principal like her more)

Rotarian: Yes- that´s it! Ok then Elaine, stay here, talk to the director about your schedule and I´ll see you later- Bye now!

In retrospect, I think the Rotarian escort thing was a way for the club to show that they supported me than anything else. Then again, I´m not sure they would have opened the school gates if I didn´t have a middle aged man in a suit by my side. Whatever, it worked.

So the principal called a meeting of all the teachers and explained what I came for. They immediately began to disagree whether we should offer classes to all of the kids or just the good kids. This was surprising to me. I think their main point was that the “bad kids” will make it impossible for the “good kids” to learn. It was a little uncomfortable for me-I really couldn´t say anything, I mean, I wanted to teach all of the kids, but at the same time had no idea what they meant by “bad”. Eventually they decided that all of the kids should get classes which made me feel better and that they will have a teacher on hand at all times for “disciplinary enforcement” which I´m assuming will help a lot. By this point I had figured out that there apparently are no English classes in the school at all and I would be starting from zero.

We had a meeting for about an hour, during which all of their students were completely unattended doing “independent study” (Kindergarteners? Really? I digress….). They decided I should teach 5^th and 6^th grade every day, an hour each (because they´re closest to high school) the other grades will just get two or three hours a week. I will show up at 8 o´clock every day until Feb.15^th, when I start school. Each class period will be an hour. I can give out homework. I don´t have to discipline. They´ll talk to the parents. Don´t worry.

 I start tomorrow. One thing that really struck me was how quickly they gave me these responsibilities. There wasn´t any criminal background check, they didn´t ask to see my school ID, they don´t even know if I am in the country legally, but suddenly I am teaching 20 hours a week. English must be REALLY important to them, because they´ve never even seen me talk to a child but have reorganized all of their lesson plans so that I can spend as much time as possible with the students.

I wonder what would happen if a teenager with a thick Hispanic accent and no teaching experience showed up in one of our elementary school back home offering to teach free Spanish classes for a month. Probably not this.

This isn´t going to be a “pull out your workbooks” kind of class, because they don´t have any. I am REALLY starting from zero. I have no materials, no experience, and no teachers that speak English in the school. Scary?  Yes. A little overwhelming? Yes. Exactly what I need to be doing right now? YES.  So, short term, this blog has been turned into: “Adventures in ESL” with Miss Elena. I will try to post funny stories, embarrassing stories, cute stories, or at least what I´m teaching.

I start tomorrow morning with Miss Lupita´s fifth grade (33 students) Followed by Miss Tania´s sixth grade (39 students) and for the other two hours I will be teaching either kindergarten or third grade (no child count given). I went to the store and bought two notebooks and a bunch of construction paper. If you think of it, pray for me.