Fast Times at Liceo Experimental

High school in English is hard, well high school in Spanish is much harder. But, I must say the same teenage nuances seem to find their way into the lives of my 7th-12th graders… boy/girl friends, awkward body parts, incessant need to be speaking out of turn, the ability to know everything; and those are the good kids. Ha, I’m just kidding… well kind of. The kids have all these troublesome teenage woes, but they aren’t that bad. In-fact I am quite enjoying my first experience as a high school English teacher, well except for the not speaking their language part. My classroom is usually filled with laughter, either the kids are laughing at my Spanish speaking inability or the crazy motions, drawings and words I am using to give them directions or basically just teach them English. If you’ve had the chance to see the pictures I posted of my classroom, take notice of the one of my white board. At the end of each class period before I erase my board I take about a minute just to look over what I’ve been writing for the last 45 or
1 ½. Usually, it makes me laugh and question exactly what the kids may or may have not learned during our lesson. Fortunately, my students are very helpful with my Spanish… on occasion I will offend someone or say something very inappropriate unknowingly , which they then have to explain to me … usually it makes them quite nervous. But, I feel the more time we spend together the less awkward it will become for them to tell me to always put the accent above my n in anos.

I’ll explain this… anos can mean two different things which is determined by the accent that goes above the n. The anos with the accent means years… Tiene viente y tres anos (with an accent) … the anos without the accent means buttholes, which is the one I wrote on the board. Again NEWS-TO-ME, my students kind of blushed on this mishap. But we got through it and I have a feeling I’ll never make that mistake again.

I love having my own classroom. It feels like quite the accomplishment; since for the last five years I have been trying to navigate my career and life destination at USC.

My co-teachers are exceptionally nice people, even for Chileans. I have four of these God-Sent personas. One of whom came by room today just to drop off a jar of peanut butter and lemon granola bars. She told me she was in UniMarc (like a Walmart) and thought of me. She made my day, by the end of school this afternoon I realized I had peanut butter smeared from the top of my elbow to my hand. Quite the feat, but when you don’t have lunch spooning out peanut butter with your fingers in-between classes seems like a splendid idea. My student’s took a great interest in my peanut butter and misunderstood that it was a gift for me and not them. You can imagine their little faces when I had to unscrew the lid and show them where’d I’d been eating the doughy substance with my fingers.

Well, to sum up: I love my kids. They rock. I love my co-teachers, much like their students they also rock.

My Spanish is slow but coming along. I am not using grammatically correct sentences but usually able to make my point or explain what I am doing. Yes, I spend most of my conversational time with people having to make an explanation for something I just said or did. Chilean people are very curious and awfully nosey. The other teachers, janitors, students and a few visitors walk by room and just stop to stare in the door. Depending on my mood is how I react to these guests. Usually, I don’t mind being treated like a zoo animal but on occasion I get a bit annoyed.

I love you.