School Lately

Well, to start off, the Thanksgiving presentation thing was about as much of a disaster as I thought it would be—half my students came with a costume and half didn’t, just about all of them forgot their lines, they skipped like a whole page of the play, and, worst of all, Squanto was a no-show. Hahaha. How can you have a first Thanksgiving play without Squanto? It’s actually kind of hilarious to think about it now. I would do soooo many things differently if I could do it over again—for instance, doing the play with just a couple students who wanted to (seconds before he was supposed to go on, one of the pilgrims was like, “awww meees do we really have to do this?”). Haha. On the other hand, the essays I had the tenth graders read about people in the school they were thankful for (a teacher, administrator, janitor, cafeteria leader, etc.) went over really, really well. I was wishing I had had the twelfth graders do that too. Oh well.

And speaking of doing things over again, I would probably do about 10834823498 things differently if I could start the year over again (give or take a billion), starting with telling people I have a VERY serious bf back home (of course, then I would miss out on the 11^th graders’ daily poems to me—the most recent being “If I had to choose between my life and you, I would choose my life, because my life is you.” Bahahaha wooooow…if he spent half as much time on his homework as he did on his poetry he might actually be passing my class…). Anyway, though, I would do so many things differently. I guess that’s to be expected as a first-year teacher though, even though I feel like I should have known better having studied education. For instance, I would institute some rules on day 1. Not that I didn’t go over rules on day 1, but I never really handed them out or posted them on the wall or anything. It’s just so different because I have 9 40-minute class periods a day and how was I supposed to know that my seventh graders act like fourth graders?! (Not that I’m making excuses for myself, because class rules are preeetty basic.) So I’ve decided I’m going to institute some hard core rules—for seventh grade, anyway. I was debating doing it now, but considering we only have two and a half weeks till Christmas (and that last week is really just practice for the Christmas program), I decided I’m just going to continue with my random and somewhat inconsistent punishments for behaviors that my students have never really been told by me that they can’t do. However, I couldn’t wait till after Christmas to institute some quiz and test rules, because the cheating is just getting completely out of hand. I couldn’t handle it anymore—I was catching two or three students on any given day. So I created some quiz and test rules, put them on a poster, and went over them with all my students. Then I gave them a mini-quiz (with what I thought were ridiculous questions), with questions like:

1.       There is only one person still working on his quiz. What should I do?

a.      Go over to him and look at his answers to the quiz to see if he’s almost done.

b.      Go up and beg Miss Erickson to check the quizzes—just my quiz! Only one! Come on! Just mine! Please!

c.       Continue to work on other homework silently at my desk.

d.      Walk around the room and talk to my friends about the party this weekend.

e.      Yell, “Pucha! Apurate and finish your quiz!”

So my students were cracking up because they thought the possible answers were absolutely hilarious—but the most hilarious part for me is that there were a couple of questions that they honestly weren’t sure about. Also hilarious was that as the students were reading some of the bad, ridiculous answers, they were like, “Hey I do that!” No kidding. Now stop, por favor.

So I had them read these quiz rules and sign it and give it back to me, and their behavior has actually gotten shockingly better during quizzes. (I also gave them a new seating chart for quizzes, which has also helped immensely, because now they don’t argue with me when I tell them to move because they know that’s where they have to sit!) I haven’t caught anyone cheating in several days…although some of their quiz grades have gotten worse. And today I had quizzes in all of my classes (which I won’t do again, because it’s too much grading and having to watch students like a hawk all day to make sure they don’t cheat), and miracle of miracles, I didn’t give anyone a zero or catch anyone cheating. Really, that is incredible. Also, I met one of the eighth graders’ grandmas who works at the bookstore, and the eighth grader told me the next day: “Yeah, I told my grandma that you were good but that bad thing is that you don’t let us copy.” Success. The one thing that still drives me up the wall is that they can’t seem to be quiet after they are done, or when there is like one person left working on the quiz. I’ve realized it’s because they’ve never had to before—I go into another teacher’s class during a quiz and people are talking, or the teacher is grading the students’ quizzes with students hovered around them and other students still at their desks talking and working on their quiz! It’s craziness. But I’ve started giving them word searches or other stuff to work on after their quiz, and that has helped sooo much. Seventh through ninth graders just can’t seem to understand the whole “find something else to work on silently when you’re done,” so I guess I’ll just have to give them something to do.

Anyway. The highlight and funniest part of my day (besides not catching anyone cheating and watching my basketball team attempt to do lay-ups) was finding a snake in the classroom during eighth grade English today. Sort of a weird highlight of the day I guess, but it was absolutely hilarious. So I’m about ready to hand out their quiz and suddenly one of my students starts flipping out and I see a snake crawling out from behind the file cabinet. It wasn’t that big—I mean, bigger than a gardner, but not that big—but of course everyone FREEEEEAAAKED…especially since the class is all girls except for two boys. It was absolutely hilarious…I was pretty much dying…and then I called the science teacher in to take care of it.

Well, what else? I guess I haven’t even written about Thanksgiving…I had the best weekend in Tegus! Maybe Justin will write about this in more detail (ahem, Justin, get back on the blog), but to give you the short version: Thursday we went over to one of the other teachers’ houses all day, which was really nice—she made us a bunch of food (and like normal food like banana bread!) and we played scattegories and bananagrams with her and her kids (they are some of Justin’s students). Then we had a big Thanksgiving dinner with all the other American teachers—there are like 20 of us—from all the Vida Abundante schools in Honduras (there are 6 schools). So it was nice to see them all again (I had met them all at the beginning of August when we all arrived, but hadn’t seen them since then). We had the dinner at the Pastor’s house who founded all the schools, so it was super nice. And they made the best apple crisp I’ve ever had in my entire life (sorry, Dad, it’s better than yours). Friday we went to visit Valle de Angeles (a touristy town I’ve been to several times) with the group, and Saturday Justin and I ditched the group because they were going to La Tigra (which is a hiking spot that Justin and I had already been to before), and went to the pool/hot tub instead at a hotel in Tegus. It was soooo ideal. So it was a great weekend—and I got to take several normal, hot showers, which I didn’t realize how much I had missed!

I made it!

...well, almost. We have one more half day of school tomorrow -- which consists of a Thanksgiving celebration (assembly) in the morning, followed by "Thanksgiving" dinners in each of the classrooms with the homeroom teacher. I say "Thanksgiving" dinners because each class got to decide what they wanted to eat (it's up to each homeroom teacher to coordinate their own class -- the tenth graders invited me to eat with them)...so, for instance, seventh grade chose Chinese food...not a bad choice considering that Chinese place is $$$, but not exactly Thanksgiving. Well, whatever floats their boat I guess. 


So you might be wondering why they are celebrating Thanksgiving...well, since it's a bilingual school, they try to celebrate the Honduran holidays and the American holidays. Shockingly, they put me in charge of the whole Thanksgiving celebration, so it should be interesting. I think it'll be okay (I'm learning that things always seem to come together here even when you think they won't) -- I'm having some of the eighth and tenth graders give little speeches about things they're thankful for (real creative, I know), and then the ninth graders are doing a skit about the Mayflower and the Pilgrims and Squanto etc., which I'm a little nervous about. We "practiced" today (they weren't really paying attention) and they didn't know any of their lines...so it should definitely be interesting...I decided I'd be an awful play director. Anyway, I'll be relieved when it's over and I'm on my way to Tegus -- I decided I'm not bringing any schoolwork!


Anyway, to switch the subject here, I decided one of the things I do love about Honduras is that you just never know what’s going to happen on any given day. Of course, that can backfire (ie: see last post), but mostly it just makes life pretty interesting and unpredictable (for better or for worse). Saturday morning I woke up to a girl yelling “Buenas!” through the gate…I debated getting up but she wasn’t stopping so finally I let her in. Turns out she was one of Marialouisa’s fifth graders who was coming over for extra help. I guess she failed math this year (the school year for the public schools just ended last week—now they’re on summer break). Anyway, so she has to go through some “recuperacion” classes. So who knows where the rest of my family was—who leaves before 8am on a Saturday morning?—but no one was home so I just kind of sat there and chatted with her for a bit, and then another student came over too. So it was super random, and finally I decided to go eat breakfast, and I offered them some corn flakes too…so there I was just sitting at the table eating corn flakes with some random fifth grade girls. And here I thought I didn’t have any plans for Saturday but I ended up spending four hours doing about a zillion long division problems with them until they finally understood (I think)…and who knows where Marialouisa was this whole time…she came home and acted like it was nbd that she had been gone. I guess she was up at school finishing something.

Anyway, the two girls seemed to think it was really funny that I just gave them the bowl and spoon and milk and corn flakes and told them to serve themselves. And I’m realizing that that’s not really normal here. For instance, Marialouisa always just serves me food—never asks me how much I want, what I want, what I like on my food/sandwich, etc. I think that’s a big cultural difference I’m just starting to really realize. In the states we are always concerned with pleasing people and making people happy—I would never serve a guest in my house a hamburger with tons of mustard and ketchup and lettuce and onions and tomato and everything on it (like they do to me) without asking the person first if they liked all that. I mean, I didn’t know how much cereal or milk the girls wanted! Why would I pour it for them? And well, I can’t really explain it but it’s not like that here. It’s not that the people here don’t want to make other people happy, but this culture is definitely more of a cultural where you have to ask for something if you want it (and it’s not rude). You have to be a lot more forward, which I’m just not used to. People don't often offer you anything unless you ask for it -- or, on the other hand, sometimes it's the other extreme: they just give you something without asking you if you want it. (Which was maybe why the girls didn’t know what to say at first when I offered them cereal.) I think that’s one of the things I struggled with the most when I first got here too—the other teachers were nice, but no one really offered me help. No one told me how to put in grades or the specific format I had to have in my grade book, how to get copies, how the discipline/demerit system worked (really how anything worked), or even gave me a place to put my zillion big language and spelling books and curriculum guides since I don’t have a classroom. They literally just handed me the books and left me standing there, and I had no idea what to do or where I was supposed to go with them. And I guess I’m used to people just offering to help, or, probably more likely, being able to do things by myself without needing help. But here it’s not like that, and I can’t do things by myself because I don’t know how anything works (and I don’t have a car either). You have to ask people for things—or even just command them to do things for you. But, like I said, it’s not rude to do that. Teachers all the time hold out their hand for students to give them some of their cookies or food or whatever, which I remember thinking was kind of weird at the beginning. And even the way people ask for things here, directly translated to English, would be “give me” (without please). And my students command me all the time: “Meeees, come!” They never say, “Can you come here?” or “I have a question,” like students would do in the states. I didn’t get it at first but I’m realizing that they are just directly translating.  I think I’m starting to get it now, but I’m still not used to it—I’ve noticed that I still ask people, “Can you please give me a ride?” (directly translated), while I don’t think anyone here would eeeever say it like that—they say, “Give me a ride.” It just still feels rude to me to say it like that. But, well, I guess I’m just gonna have to get over it. 

Lastly (this blog is really disorganized and full of random topics without transitions and I'd probably give my students a bad grade on an essay if they wrote like this, but anyway), I was reading my seventh graders' journals and came across a few interesting entries:

• "If I could live anywhere in the world I will choose Spain because in Spain is the Tower of Pizza."  (Are they thinking the Leaning Tower of Pisa in Italy, or is there really a Tower of Pizza in Spain? I'm not sure.)
• "I like the guns, animals, flower, butterfly, the girls, and money." (Rather interesting juxtoposition of things to like.)
• "I’m afraid of being alone in the Earth with zombies." (Playing too many games of plants vs. zombies? Or just watched the movie Zombieland?)
• "What would you change about the world to make it better is the electricity doesn’t go out and in the forest have more trees and the people don’t get killed." (I think every single student mentioned the electricity going out...after living here for only a few months, that would be on the top of my list too. It's funny because I never would have thought of that a few months ago. Most mentioned the forests too...for some reason everyone here is really concerned about conservation. You'd think there would be less trash in the streets then.) 
• And, lastly, my favorite: "Yes, it is hard to be a Christian because the things that are bads sometimes are more funny than the good ones." (Valid point.)

Thanksgiving break, where are you when I need you...

I seem to remember a few posts ago Justin saying something like, “The thing I like about Honduras is you never really know what you’re saying yes too,” or something like that. I agree that you never really know what you’re saying yes too. The problem is that it’s not always a good thing.

I think the problem with me moving here by myself is I’m starting to lose my sense of what’s normal and what’s not. If I had a lempira for every time I did something they told me in teacher education class never to do, I might actually be making enough money to make a living down here. So let me explain. A few of my students were talking to me after basketball practice Friday and invited me to go to church with them on Saturday night. I was like, “Sure, why not?” I mean, I guess even that wouldn’t be normal in the States, would it? But anyway I said I would go (things are different here, remember?) and so they picked me up to go to church on Saturday. So that’s all I agreed to, right? Church. Or so I thought.

Then during the church service they whisper to me that afterwards they are going to an eighth grader’s going away party (she’s moving to Tegus on Monday). And I’m like, “well, okay,” but after I say that I’m starting to think…hmm, this could be weird if it’s a party with just my students. But then I’m like, “Oh no, it’s a going away party, I bet there’ll be all sorts of relatives and stuff there.” But after the church service (ps – found out that basically half of my school goes to this church) I’m beginning to get a bad feeling about this…I can’t decide if it’s more messed up that I actually went to a house party with my students or that I had nothing better to do on a Saturday night then go to a house party with my students. Anyway, we pull up to this mansion—literally, nicest house I’ve seen here—where there is this patio outside with all these palm trees and a big yard, trampoline, huge flatscreen etc. Looks like it’s from a movie. Anyway, not really the point. So there are literally all of my eighth and ninth grade students there. Of course they freak out that I’m there and immediately start trying to drag me on the dance floor. Yes, this actually happened. The music is blaring, there is a disco light thing, and the patio is essentially a dance floor. Now, for a minute I’m thinking this place is pretty sweet, and then I come to my senses and realize that I’m surrounded by my students. Basically I felt like I was like chaperoning a high school dance—except for it wasn’t at a school and there were no other chaperones, so there were no rules. So please just imagine for a minute how my students were dancing. It was soooo messed up. I basically sat by the chip bowl and stuffed my face in an effort to give myself something to do. The good news is I haven’t completely lost my grip on reality so I refused to dance (my students couldn’t seem to figure out why). Anyway, I could give you more painful details but let’s just suffice it to say that it was most awkward night of my life and it taught me a very important lesson: I need to be careful what I say yes to.

Then Sunday rolls around and I go to a birthday party all afternoon with my family. Turns out it’s for one of my student’s moms, which means that basically the other half of my students that I didn’t see Saturday night at church I saw on Sunday (everyone is related in this town).

So, don’t get me wrong here, my students are great. (Hmm…did I just say great? That actually might be a bit strong considering today I gave out demerits to 8 different kids – a new record for me – and had to physically break up a fist fight between two ninth graders…but that’s another story.) Anyway, spending the whole weekend with my students? Let’s just say that a trip to Tegus over Thanksgiving break (a week from today!) cannot come soon enough. 

Highlights of my week: Tests, tortillas & tipica

First, tests. One of my tenth graders got 100% on his spelling test! Afterward he comes up to me and goes, "This is the first time I have ever gotten 100% on a spelling test since we started taking them every week  in first grade." So I felt great about that.

Tortillas. I learned how to make them this week! So Mario Daniel's (my host brother's) girlfriend came over on Monday and showed me how. It's actually super easy...even though for some reason she kept having to "fix" mine before she put them on the pan. Whoopsie. I was just starting to get the hang of it when the power went out (shooock). Anyway, then yesterday another lady who comes over to our house sometimes to make tortillas was over and she started to make tortillas so I helped her. The power was "low" (shooock) so we made them and cooked them over a fire out back! Doesn't get much more legit than that. (When the power is "low" the TV or stove doesn't work, and the lights are just really dim.) My host dad insisted on taking some pictures so I'll have to post those at some point when he gives them to me off his camera. Anyway, it was really interesting getting to know this lady -- Lourdes -- who I was helping make tortillas with. She was telling me about her life -- how she quit school at 11 to start working, and about how she works now as a cleaning lady at a public school and is trying to raise two daughters as a single mother. I guess she had to send her daughters out to sell tortillas when they were little so she earn enough money to feed them. Anyway, she said she's going to come over again on Saturday to show me how to make flour tortillas (so far I just learned how to make corn ones).

Lastly, tipica. Well, the fiesta tipica, that is. We held it last Friday night at school, and all of the students and their parents came and dressed up. So it's really kind of ironic that it was called the "fiesta tipica" (typical party) because it was soooo typical Honduran party (except in ways I don't think they meant it or realized it to be):
1: It was supposed to start at 4, right? Well so the teachers were supposed to get there at 3:30 to finish  up some last-minute stuff (we already stayed till like 5:30 Wednesday and Thursday getting the decorations ready, and spent the entire day Friday in the kitchen cooking). So one of the other teachers is supposed to get me in a taxi "no later than 3:20." So 3:45 rolls around and of course I'm freaking out because I still have to finish cooking the elotes (corn on the cob, more or less) that I was in charge of. I need to learn to get on Honduran time still. Finally they pick me up at like 3:50, then we stop at the bank, and finally get there at like 4:00 sharp....and no one's there (not even the other teachers). Long story short, it started at like 5:15. Typical.
2: The power goes out at like 2, so we are wondering how we are going to do this without light (it gets to be pitch black here by 5:45). Typical. (Came back on at like 5 though...just in time.)
3: It was probably the most disorganized thing I have been a part of...we ran out of plates, napkins, corn after like 15 minutes, everyone was running around like chickens with their heads cut off, it was raining at the start so we moved all the chairs inside the cafeteria but then it cleared up so we moved them all back outside....once again, typical.

That being said though, it was really fun. Although selling the elotes was absolutely nuts. There was supposed to be 4 of us in charge of selling elotes and "gringas" (taco-type things), but of course it ends up being 2 of us for some reason or another (typical), and it reminded me of selling t-shirts at the state track meet, if you can appreciate that reference. We barely got to our food stand and people were lined up and pushing each other to get to the front. And I was trying to put the corn on a stick (this is corn on the cob, but not sweet corn -- more like the corn we feed animals), cover it with mantequilla and quesillo (probably the only two things that I can't stand here -- I would be in charge of that...), while crazy old ladies were trying to cut in front of people and give me their food tickets. Oh man it was crazy. And then we ran out so quickly (we had 50)! After we ran out I started selling hot dogs that were leftover from lunch. Haha...once again, sooo typical Honduras -- selling things that are so absolutely not typical Honduran food at a typical fiesta. Anyway, I discovered I love saying "hot dogs" like the Hondurans do with a accent. I also discovered I'm starting to talk like my students (I called the principal "meeester" like the kids do, and he was like, "Wait what did you just say?"). Haha. So a great time was had by all, even though I was so busy selling I really didn't get to see any of the kids' musical or drama acts. Oh well. So here are some pictures of the fiesta...

Here are the "champas" (food stands) we set up around the courtyard -- some of the teachers made them like the day before out of bamboo and palm leaves....pretty sweet. There were like 5 different stands each selling a different "traditional" (or, in the case of my hot dogs, the opposite of traditional) Honduran food. 

Some of my ninth graders.

And, finally, me with my hot dogs (notice the traditional Honduran garb I managed to scare up -- not quite as impressive as my students' dresses, but hey, I am a gringa, after all).