Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead, a Mexican holiday), Dia de los Muertos, DIA DE LOS MUERTOS...is in about two weeks has descended upon my classroom.
And it's so cool.
So, week two went swimmingly well. There were mistakes--as there should be--but I'm learning from them. Some of them--particularly the student's written warmup--are a bit more noticeable than others--such as the fact that I still need to keep studying Spanish to really get up to fluency. Overall, though, things are going well. I've learned more kids' names, had opportunities to try new things, and am learning more about the school culture. One of my favorites: the last day of every week is a dress up day, and I love costumes. This week (I was so excited all week for this) was twin/ triplet day. So I asked my cooperating teacher (CT) if she wanted to twin it up. She said yes.
BEHOLD, the wonders of amazingness, the flamboyants of fashion, the tiers of ties:
| From left to right: ____ (my wonderful CT), my self, and ____ (the other Spanish teacher). |
Yes, I did show them how to tie the bows. Yes, I can do it without a mirror. I did it that way so that I'd be able to do it anywhere.
Oh, and here's the classroom (it's different now. Pics next week.):
| Not too traditional, if I do say so. |
And an example of a word wall:
| This is up ALWAYS during class. |
So, basically, here's the daily schedule of each class (until Dia de los Muertos happens):
1) Students walk in with Spanish music BLARING ("Do you dance to it?" You may ask. "Have I feet?" I reply.)
2) Attendance (rather good for learning names, not as good with mumbling faces)
3) Fuego [warmup]
4) Frantically check fuegos, and convince myself that a] I have time, and b] I must shoot for 100% accuracy, because that's how they'll learn, and c] I might not be 100% accurate now, but that's just so that I'll be 100% accurate later.
5) Go over Fuego
6) Work on story as a class
7) Work on Dia de los Muertos. 7th graders research & work on their posters, 8th graders build their altar and research their person. I usually walk around the class, and try to check in with each group at least once per day. That last part can be a little awkward with slow-working groups, because they say, "same as yesterday," and I don't really know how to respond. At this point, I don't want to say, "you're wasting time,"--because I'm the kind of person who processes in the background, looks like he's not doing stuff, then does everything when my brain stops percolating, and I don't know the kids nearly well enough to know the difference--but I know that I will need to soon.
8) Students estimate their own participation score, and go.
And that's the basic class. For four periods every day (one period is for prep, and one is for Social Studies). I know that it might not sound exciting, but I'm loving it. There's just such a positive, frantic energy to the classroom, the kind that I haven't really felt since Japan. In my experiences, I never felt anything like this working with elementary schoolers. We were always too nervous about them getting lost.
Anyway, the fun thing about working in a school will always be the stories that I can get out of it. First off, the narrative stories. Yes, I got to guide a group through the first part, which starts with an image, and gets into developing a character. It reminded me a lot of improv club, at times. Basically, the teacher elicits answers by asking a question (in Spanish), which the students are expected to respond to in Spanish. Here's an example of a character that we made (written by me):
| My handwriting is so much better than it was... |
So, the CT's leading. We have our image--pan (Spanish for bread)--and she's asking for names. "Three Grain Variety" one students says. "Garfield," says another. Then we get down to the last student. The quiet one. The one who never says much, but clearly has a lot going through his head. The teacher calls on him. "Peter," he says, muttering a second word. "?Que?" The teacher replies. "Peter pan!" He calls out. And the entire class promptly loses it. Because, quite frankly, it was one of the more creative names of the week. So, naturally, we are writing a story about Peter pan, and it is glorious.
One last note: Social Studies. The teacher had the kids go through a simulation the other day, based on the plague. See, they've been studying the medieval period, and he wanted them to get an idea what the spread would be like (also, side note: the textbook failed to mention that the plague was probably spread by the fact that the mongols like catapulting dead, plague filled bodies into cities. Really, it makes me question just what they find important.) How it worked was the kids went, "city" to, "city," and pulled beans out of a bag depending on the number of nights they stayed. If they pulled all white beans, they were fine. If they pulled out a red bean, they got the plague, while a speckled bean gave them cholera. They then spread 1 or 2 beans to the next town, and rolled to see if they got to be the 1 in 36 who survived (none of them were). All that I can say is, my goodness, but there was a lot of death. about 1/3 of the kids dies of the plague while about half the kids died overall (cholera was a bigger threat than normal. C'est la vid). Still, it was a fun experience. The kids then started talking about it online. It was fun to see their posts, ranging from insightful to...lacking a certain ju nu se pa...such as depth, or more than two words.
Anyway, time for bed. Tomorrow begins another week, a Happy Monday, and desolate faces wishing for a longer weekend.
This has been another (actually) exciting adventure in the Austentatious. If you liked it, tell your friends. If you hated it, tell your enemies. And if you don't care either way, then tell everyone. Good night.
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