SICR-Day 7, 7.16 Fatima School

This is the post I am most excited to write.  I taught school today.  TAUGHT being the key word.  Memories of last year's Peruvian experience come to mind and I just start shaking my head.  Today was beautiful.

We visited Fatima, a small outdoor school just outside of Atenas.  It serves 84 students in grades K-5.  The school is small with just 4 classrooms, so the K-2 group comes in the morning and leaves after lunch, and the 3-5 group comes at lunch and leaves at 4:00.  The director is also a teacher.  Three teachers plan for and teach two grades each, one in the morning and one in the afternoon.  Their planning time is like ours, during a special or at home.  Teachers of art and music visit one day a week; and an English teacher comes two times.  A typical day consists of math, Spanish, sciences, and English.  (Interestingly enough, if a teacher is sick, that class is cancelled for the day.  If it is an extended illness, the Minister of Education will send someone to the school to teach.)

Members of our group debriefing in a classroom

Some of our donations

We visited on the first day back after vacation.  The students were starting in their new grade levels. The group split up to team teach groups of ten students.  Gerri (my co-teacher in North Carolina) and I paired up to work with first and second graders.  Fitting, right?  We played a short introduction game with each group, and then played a fun little bingo game called Zingo.  We would show a picture card and the students had to find the picture on their boards and say the word in English to receive the card and cover the board.  It was quite entertaining to watch them fall all over each other shouting the Spanish word before the light bulb flashed and one would finally say the English word.  Gerri and I conducted the game in Spanish and the students spoke to us in English.

After last summer, I was quite nervous to be leading a class, but lo and behold, the Spanish somehow flowed through me in a natural conversational manner!  I spoke entirely in Spanish and the students understood me.  What a breakthrough for me!  I felt confident.  I even found the classic "problem-child" and managed him while speaking Spanish!  I am so proud of today and how far my learning has come.  Gerri repeated many times that it gave her confidence to teach Spanish-speaking students in her classroom.  That statement is a breakthrough for her.

The children were so sweet today. I wished we could have worked with them longer.  Many of us in the group have loved each day and the various opportunities, but agree that today was the most influential moment.