Week of firsts: The Beatles, Tapas and Bus Protests

^Tapas at El Tigre. Thanks for the rec Katie! :)

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Week of firsts: First week of school

We have officially survived our first week of school! I am officially working Tuesday through Friday (3 day weekends!) from 9 to 2. I am only working with 6th grade, focusing on conversation with them so that they can practice for the PET exam. As a reminder, the PET exam is a test all 6th graders in Madrid take to determine if they go to a Bilingual secondary school or if they go to a Spanish only school. I LOVE the teachers I am working with: Carlos and Ana. They are both phenomenal. Even though I only worked for 8 weeks as a teacher for Summerbridge SF, I could tell these teachers were on top of it. They knew their lessons, made their students laugh, and taught the material. I know I can learn so much from them. I had some reservations about working in a primary school, but I am so happy with where I ended up. My students are great, my teachers amazing, and the hallways I work in has a Beatles banner welcoming you in (below). I think it was meant to be.

What really stood out to me my first week of work was the way that students and teachers interact in the classroom. There are so many things that the teachers do here that they cannot or would not do back in the states. For example, Erin had a teacher smack one of her students in the back of the head.

There is a level of casualness that is not exhibited in the classrooms in the states. Ana called out one of her students for not paying attention, saying "Marcos, is your head full of air?! Come on, pay attention!" The Marcos smiled, put all four chair legs back on the ground, and the class continued. On the first day I was introduced to Carlos, he jokingly said, "Oh man. You're going to have quite a tough time with them. They are all horrible children. Don't you all agree?" and the students shouted "NO!" in response. Then Carlos said, "No? What? But you don't give me presents!" and all the students started protesting and laughing. All of them adore Ana and Carlos. I feel like I've never seen or experienced this type of playfulness in a classroom before, probably because the classroom environment in the US isn't as casual. I kept telling myself not to be surprised, since I've been told over and over that the Spanish classroom is different and students and teachers are more touchy. For example, I was amazed at this interaction between Carlos and one of his students: In the computer lab the other day, Carlos was annoyed that one of his students kept looking at the answers. So he put his shirt over the boy's ahead and said, "Now you can't see the answers!! Hahaha!" The students all laughed and the boy wasn't bothered at all. It was just any other day in the class. I love it here. I think the students are able to enjoy class more and the teachers are still able to teach them!

Week of firsts: Tapas

I had my first tapa experience (picture above)! We went to El Tigre.

If you order a drink, you get free tapas! They are like little appetizers: pieces of bread with meat, cheese, tortilla (like frittata -- also known as a Spanish omlette), veggies...on top. El Tigre is a popular, stand up and eat tapa place. We paid 12 euro all together for two full plates of food and 3 drinks. We couldn't even finish the plate!

Week of firsts: Bus Protests

(^the bus station. The lines went down into the metro line. The station is NEVER this full in the morning. We always arrive to catch the 7:45am bus, but we didn't get a bus until 8:35am. The station was still packed by the time we left, and not everyone in our line was able to board the bus. Who knows how long they waited for?!)

It is the first week to school. Despite my continual lateness to class and my father's annoyance at my slowness, I do NOT like being late to work, appointments...etc. So imagine my frustration and anxiety when I ended up being late to work TWICE in my first week of school. This was thankfully due to no fault of my own, rather the cause of my lateness was because of bus driver protests. The bus drivers are continuously overworked and underpaid. So in protest, they are continuing to strike, which means that buses are running irregularly or not at all! Thankfully, the other 3 people who work with me were in the same boat as me, so none of us looked like slackers or liers. We were able to contact our boss, send pictures and explain that we would be late. Spaniards are used to this, and my school is very relaxed and kind, and they weren't worried at all. In fact, our teachers were more interested in our experience and wanted to know what happened to us. They weren't angry at all. Apparently, bus strikes happen quite frequently. Reminds me of Greece!

Week of firsts: Miscellaneous

Cereal Bar: We were exploring the area of Tribunal when we encountered our first ever Cereal Bar! Who knew such things existed? It's full of all of that sugary, brand name American cereal. Guess it's a novelty here in Spain. There were a lot of people being served brightly colored cereal and milk.

Metro Card: We secured our metro card this week. It's 20 euros a month for those under 26 years old. We were told that we had to make an appointment to secure a card - thankfully we found out that is not the only option! We went to a Tobasco Shop in Tribunal (like a convenience store to buy cigarettes) and got our card for 1 euro more. This was also good because the place we had made our appointments had cancelled our appointment the day before our appointment because the machine broke! I am so glad we secured this because I had already spent 48 euros this week on transportation to and from school!

Wifi troubles: Our airbnb is supposed to have wifi, however it hasn't been working. We have had to go to cafes with wifi to use it. It's nice in a way to not have wifi, however it is also not good as we need wifi to look up information to book and get to appointments (like our metro card, banking, TIE appointments...). Additionally, Erin and I were given assignments to work on for our classes. Erin is currently working on an overview of English Literature from the Arthurian Legends until now. My work is less intensive than that. I have to make a presentation about myself and the culture of the areas I am from. Ana also wants me to brainstorm activities and projects that my students can do to improve their English. I am currently drafting and outline for a travel itinerary project (they are currently learning geography and modes of transportation).

The lack of wifi has been stressful to try and work out with our airbnb hosts. Going to an internet cafe isn't a problem, except for the fact that every time you go you have to spend money. Since we do not get paid until the end of October, and we need to save money for our new apartment deposit, we are on a budget. Trying to balance being professional, courteous, and also straightforward that our contract guarantees wifi has been an experience. Hopefully we can work it out.

Indian food in Madrid: To celebrate our first week done, we had Indian for dinner! It might seem silly to have Indian, but the neighborhood we are living is known for it's diversity. For us not to embrace our neighborhood and try out the different cultures and foods around would be a waste, as people love living in this neighborhood for just that! There is also Greek food, Lebanese food, Italian...I want to be sure to take advantage of this neighborhood before we move to Chamberi.

Prueba de Clasificación: Erin and I took a Spanish placement test at a the University of Jesus Maestro. Representatives from the school came to our orientation to tell us about their Spanish classes. So, to see exactly what level of Spanish we are at, we took the test. We found out today we are at Basic 2, which is the second lowest level. It was rather hard to accept that since we've been taking Spanish for so long. However, after being in class with my 6th graders, I can see why we placed so low. The level of Spanish learned and taught in the US does not compare to the English taught in Spain. I mean, I only knew numbers when I was in 6th grade. These 6th graders can have full blown conversations with me (I mean, like I said, the first day of school two girls had a conversation with me about how boys think they're fragil and can't play soccer and how that's a untrue assessment)!

We are also discovering again that Spain is slow and communication terrible. We never got emailed information about the class despite giving our email to the representative. We took the initiative and made sure to find out the information online. But even then it took inquiry emails to confirm the location and registration of the placement class. And now that we have finished, we were also not updated about our results and had to travel to the school to find them. Erin's weren't even posted and we had to ask the secretary for help, who then went into the back room to find her results. We were directed upstairs to the Spanish department, which was closed, so we still do not know exactly what days the classes are and if the class we would want is still open (we want a Tuesday/Thursday class at 4:45pm). The secretary only dealt with payment for the class, so she also couldn't clarify why we were told that classes were only 2 times a week but the papers on the wall said they were daily.

I love Spain's slow and relaxed style, but this type of bureaucratic disorganization in communication and information is driving me crazy!

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