A lot seems to have happened in the past two weeks and everyday when I come home from work I want to write about it, but usually only have enough energy to prepare for the next day, eat, and zone out to a movie I might find on cable. Plus my computer is on the fritz so it takes forever to type anything! Like now, for instance. So forgive me if this is choppy, but I am working with less than adequate materials.
I had forgotten just how exhausting teaching can be - everyday after work, after the adrenaline has faded, my entire body feels completely exhausted. I know from experience that it takes a while to get used to teaching-mode and I will build my stamina back up, but at the beginning it is hard. And the language has been hard. And the commute. And the toxic cleanser fumes on the commuter shuttle (I've begun opening a little window and gasping for air during my ride, even though that air is toxic highway exhaust! Perhaps I'll purchase a face mask). And in the classroom we are trying to figure out how to do elementary Montessori from primary training mixed with the aid of elementary Montessori teachers through emails and phone calls.
This week I've started with the art and drama workshops and the 45-minute English lessons at the end of the morning which have been nearly disastrous because it's been difficult coming up with lessons for children that hardly know English and only a few can read and write. This will get easier as time goes on, I have faith that it will, it has to. I need to figure out a way to make this portion of the day Montessori, rather than a traditional lesson. I will need to find new ways to constantly hook the interest of these energetic children bursting at the seams. This is definitely a different plane of development from primary.
I wanted to simply not think about school for most of the weekend and just have a break, but after an English pictionary game we played on Friday that turned into chanting, screaming, and pounding on the tables, I have been desperately searching for solutions.
Griselda, the other teacher, is hanging in there. I could tell by the end of the week she was a bit fed up - constantly being corrected by the director and receiving hesitant answers from me when asking if a material she prepared for class is okay. It is really hard to make someone get how to teach Montessori in just a couple of weeks without being able to explain it in a language they can understand. I just hope that things continue to improve and that Griselda doesn't lose faith in this project altogether. She seemed pretty unenthused during our class meeting on Friday, an important time for this age group because it gives them a chance to be heard, fostering justice and fairness in the classroom, essential for establishing peace. I also found out last week that at 25 she is married, has two kids, and is at her other job until 530pm each day.
Even with all the craziness and chaos, the children have learned a lot in the first two weeks. Right now we're discussing the solar system and doing related activities. Along with that is reading and writing and math. We have a volcano in the room that we made and they can watch it explode when adding sodium bicarbonate and distilled vinegar together, an experiment to go along with our discussion on how the earth was made. We get outside to play games when it's not completely muddy or raining (it's rained almost everyday for the past month, it seems) and out of the small, stuffy classroom (we have to keep the windows closed because the noise from street traffic bounces off the concrete walls and you can't hear anything). For the drama workshop, I had the children make animal masks and one boy, who seems to be a quiet genuis, made a bat mask and turned into a different person when he put it on, flying around and terrorizing all the children.
At the beginning of the week we had the official school commencement day and celebrated the opening of the first Montessori elementary classroom in Argentina. All of the parents came and since it was early, I slept in Lujan at Guadalupe's home and enjoyed a late-night chat and sandwiches with her and her husband and slept in her daughter's mickey mouse bed while the girls slept with their parents. Of course, this meant I got probably 4 hours of sleep, but I thought, this is all part of the experience I was seeking. This was after a weekend of going out both weekend nights, and on Saturday, since it was my Italian-American friend from Spanish class's last weekend night, I ended up staying out until 6am. I thought throughout the night, as a group of us sat and watched some crazy accordian players in a huge warehouse that had a giant toilet paper roll hanging from the ceiling, playing on a stage behind plastic netting, all coordinated by an orange umbrella-holding plastic hot-dog-throwing MC, that oh, yes, this is that old familiar out-of-body feeling brought on by complete teacher exhaustion (and perhaps the setting had something to do with this sensation). I hadn't felt that way in a long time, where I have absolutely no energy that I just float along, resistant-free. Of course when feeling like this it is essential that I am staying with safe people at safe places or this can be a hazard to my health - or maybe a sign that I need to go home. Oh well, I am still finding a balance, how to be able to teach and still live a life in BsAs. But when you show up tired to teach, the children find the little holes, tear into you, and eat you alive. Knowing this is enough to get me into bed on time.
Last night I went to a friend of a friend's birthday party at his parents' home outside of the city. We didn't get there until nearly 10pm and I was already getting that out-of-body feeling. I found the best thing to do was sit down and not move for the entire evening. This actually worked well and I spoke to people all night without a problem. Interestingly enough, the birthday boy's great-grandfather was an interim military president of Argentina some years back and two of his sisters are English teachers - one seemed rather bent on telling me all about the Montessori method; after telling her that I was trained and had some years of experience, she continued to explain.
I also learned some unsettling things about the beef industry here, why it is so cheap. The government will not let the ranchers export most of the beef and they are forced to sell it at cheap prices so that the people feel that it is a gift from the government, that all, poor and rich, should be able to eat the country's great beef. Well, this is forcing the ranchers to sell their cattle to ever-growing feedlots (rather than the traditional grass-fed) and some are killing their cattle because it is too expensive to raise them and not make any money. There is a preditction that the cattle industry will be wiiped out by 2011. This was all told to me by the parents', worried ranchers themselves.
All in all, it was a great party with great people; some were there from the river cruise on the Delta back in January, apparently they had no recollection of what a silent starer I was that day (not that I asked or anything); there were others that I had met at another birthday party back in December. And when asked about what I'm doing, why I'm doing it, etc., I explained that I really enjoy being able to live somewhere and work, to live like a local and gain a deeper understanding of another culture; like being invited to a friend's parents' home for a birthday party.
Well, it's a beautiful day out and I have my whole Sunday free to wander around town, enjoy a cafe con leche, and try not to obsess too much about my job (although I woke up with my head buzzing with ideas this morning!). Ahhhh. Free time is nice.
Thanks for reading.
P.S. In my ESL class on Friday we had a little stereotype discussion as a lead-in to a dictation about eastern European stereotypes, a letter wrtten in by a Pole to the Economist, and when I asked my students what sort of stereotypes they had of the U.S. they replied: Homer Simpson, he is the typical American.
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