Don't know much about geography

I told one of my private classes that the following week would be our last class together.

"And then you're going home?" Alvaro asked.

"Yes, that's right, to my country."

They looked puzzled.

"Which country are you from?" Juan Manuel asked, which disappointed me since he's also in my regular classes at school and it's the kind of thing I'd think he'd know by now.

"I'm from the United States. Do you guys know where that is?"

"Oh yeah! Right next to France!" Alvaro looked gleeful in his knowledge.

"Ummm, not next to France, no. You know how there's an ocean near Arcos? The Atlantic? I'm on the other side of the Atlantic."

The kids still looked confused. Then Alvaro spoke up again, "Okay, so not next to France but above France?"

I shook my head. Juan Manuel jumped out of his seat. "I know!" He picked up a marker and began to draw a crude outline of Spain and France on the whiteboard. "Okay, here's where we are, and here's where you live," he said, indicating approximately where the UK is.

"No, I'm not from England, I swear," I said, but Alvaro was already agreeing with Juan Manuel.

"Yep, yep, that's where teacher lives."

Finally I found a book on Christopher Columbus and showed them an egregiously out-dated map. I pointed at southern Spain, showed them England, and then showed them where Minnesota would be, relative to them. Their eyes widened.

"You live all the way over THERE? That's so far!"

"That's right," I said. "Nowhere near France."

Dani the Saint

On Thursday, I had my after-school group of thirteen-year-olds discuss what they would do in certain situations to practice conditionals. First, I gave them an article about an American man who deposited a fake check for $95,000 on a whim and, to his surprise, the bank credited him with the money (a true story: you can check it out at http://www.goodthink.com/writing/view_stories.cfm?id=11&page_id=2). Would my students keep the money? There was near-consensus: six of the seven kids there said yes, they would, no question.

We got around the table to Dani, a tall, skinny kid whose hair is the only thing that's out-of-control about him. Whereas the other kids run around, lock each other in and out of places (including the balcony outside our classroom and a nearby refrigerator) and generally go crazy during our breaktimes, Dani always stays seated at the table with hands folded, looking at me with an expression of "Kids, what can you do about 'em?" He's well-behaved, but also well-liked; all the girls wanted Dani on their team last week when we were creating rules for new sports.

When it came to the question of keeping the money, Dani was appalled. "No, I would not keep the money because it does not belong to me! I would not want to be a robber." I told him that technically the money was not the man's, but the bank had made the error in his favor. Dani was immutable in his opinions. He would keep the money under no conditions. I applauded him and moved on to the next question. What would the kids do with this extra money? Their answers showed their confusion about what $95,000 can buy these days.

"I would buy many houses and nice cars!" said Javi, whose sentiments were echoed by Alba and Pedro: nice houses, nice cars, maybe a few islands in the mix (Pedro also thought he might be able to buy his way to the presidency of the United States--"I'm the second Barack Obama!" he assured me). At the other end of the spectrum, Maria asserted, "I would buy a dog;" Nieves agreed. She too would buy a dog for just under 100 grand. Meanwhile, Jose Maria contemplated the question, then said, "I would buy Spiderman." I raised my eyebrows. "No wait, I would buy Spiderman and Superman. And then I would conquer the world."

Again to Dani. "Dani, if you legally had $95,000, what would you buy?" He looked very serious as he replied, "I would study at Oxford." None of this materialist stuff.

We moved on to a game where one person leaves the room and everyone has to come up with a solution to a problem. The person re-enters the room, listens to all the solutions, and then tries to guess what the original problem was. I gave them the problem of being on the sinking Titanic. Dani's response: "I would jump off, then swim behind the rescue boats."

"Why wouldn't you get in a rescue boat, Dani?" I asked.

"Because they would be full of women and children. It's okay, I would get used to the cold water."

To which I pretty much slammed my hand on the table in shock and shouted, "My God, this kid's a saint!" Dani turned bright red, making him look only more like the cherub he is.

You say potato

One of the difficulties of teaching British English is that, well, I don't speak it. Sometimes I try to affect a British accent so the kids will understand me better (especially with the letter t in the middle of a word: thirty, Peter, etc), but it often comes off as a ridiculous mockery. For instance, I tried to fancy up the word "computer" and said something akin to "com-PUH-taah!!!" which is recognizable to none (for some reason, I feel the need to say everything more exuberantly when I speak "British"). The English teacher, Lola, was quick to assure me I could use my own accent and tried to copy me, coming out with the sound "com-puh-rur."

I had some difficulty pronouncing foods for my third-graders today. I tried "WAH-tuh!!!" then my own accent--"WAH-der"--and then just had to show them the flash-card for the kids to understand I was talking about water. I thought I was so clever to preempt confusion and say toh-MAH-toh instead of toh-MAY-doh. Then I tried poh-TAH-toh. Ubiquitous confusion. Can you believe it? Potatoes and tomatoes don't rhyme in the UK. Guess that song is lying.

Always the last to know...

I’m living in a haze of misunderstanding, and it’s not always due to my lack of fluency in Spanish. One of the phrases I have heard most often in my school is, “Oh, no one told you?” This has been followed with endings such as “…that we’re having a party tomorrow?” “…that we don’t have class?” “…that we don’t have school on Monday?” etc etc. Sometimes it turns out to be a nice surprise: I found out that I don’t have my weekly English conversation time with teachers tomorrow since they’re having a fish fry instead (and thus I can use the class I already planned for them for next week).

Sometimes, though, it’s more of a panic-inducing surprise, like when I went outside today to meet up with Ana, whom I assist in her first-grade English classes. Instead of Ana standing at the front of the line, Javi-the-gym-teacher was there.

“Where’s Ana?” I asked.
“Not here,” he said, shrugging (the implicit message: “no one told you?”).
“Oh…so are you doing P.E. with them now?”
“No. You are the teacher! You will do the English lesson!”
“WHAT?!”

Luckily Javi stayed with me for the whole hour, because my Spanish is definitely not good enough to control a roomful of screaming five-year-olds. The first few minutes were a little scary, though, because Javi kept asking me where different supplies were in the classroom—teacher’s book, CD for listening exercises, flashcards—and I didn’t know. But we found all these things, and soon got the kids on track (the nice thing about five-year-olds: activities need not be very difficult to keep them entertained; they spend their days counting, coloring, gluing, and singing). By the end of class we were having so much [educational] fun I almost didn’t want to leave. With all my frustration of feeling constantly out of the Spanish loop, being with the first-graders is the best reminder of why I love this place and this job so much.

The Flamenco Project

Before I left home, I got an information sheet about my school, CEIP Maestro Juan Apresa (CEIP stands for Colegio de Educacion Infantil y Primaria…I trust you can translate all those words pretty easily), including contact information and a tiny blurb about Arcos. At the bottom there was a line titled “special information;” following this designation was “This school has a flamenco project.” This, as might not surprise you, was exciting for me. But what would a “flamenco project” entail?

As it turns out, almost no one at Juan Apresa is completely sure either. Most of the teachers have little knowledge or interest in flamenco; one teacher told me she actually has a strong dislike for flamenco singing (I nodded politely, meanwhile thinking, “Are you kidding me, lady? This stuff is incredible!”) The flamenco project is basically a pet project of one teacher, Paco, whose passion happens to be all things flamenco. Paco is an elderly man—old enough, in fact, that he should be retired by Spanish regulations. He stays on at Juan Apresa simply because he enjoys teaching and because he wants to impart his love of flamenco to his students. He has set up flamenco guitar lessons after school for interested students and is teaching his fifth-graders the different categories of flamenco songs (I got overwhelmed by looking at his worksheet of classifications—there were at least forty different types of flamenco music listed).

Today, though, was a special treat. Or, at least, a special treat for Paco and me and perhaps a few of those students who are as in love with flamenco as we are. Paco invited a guitarist and singer to come perform for the fifth- and sixth- graders. I sat in the back, completely enthralled (and, at times, half-heartedly admonishing noisy students, though I doubt the look of utter joy on my face did much to intimidate them or assert my authority). The singer was a woman in her late twenties who was very beautiful as she was introducing songs, but whose face contorted with pain when she began singing. She also incorporated all the flamenco hand movements and general body language with her singing. After a half hour of Jenna-paradise, the woman announced that they were about to perform their last song. This was to be, she said, a “buleria.” She sang, she sang, and then…she danced. She got up and did the buleria steps. And I recognized them. She did the llamada, and I recognized it, the signature buleria “tiro-tan” as my dance teacher calls it, and I knew it, and the entrance and the exit…the whole sequence was familiar to me. I was beyond excited. Why? Because I am not a dancer. I am not a person who knows much about flamenco. But this was something, a small piece of the enormous puzzle of Andalusian culture that I now know how to place.

The Christians and the Pagans

In preparation for this week, I was listening through a CD I brought with me of Halloween songs, stories, and sound effects appropriate for children. The only song that seemed like it could work was “Dem bones,” since the third-graders are working on parts of the body (the head bone’s connected to the what bone, children?) But I wasn’t so sure about the line “Oh, hear the word of the Lord.” I know my kids have “religion” class (learning the tenets of Catholicism), but I didn’t want to step on any toes.

Today with the sixth-graders, however, I got a little clearer on Spanish understanding of religion. I was reading aloud a description of the history of Halloween, which began with a section on the pagans’ role in the inception of the holiday. Lola, the teacher, questioned the students if they knew what “pagans” were. They didn’t. They weren’t familiar with the word in Spanish, either.

“Pagans don’t believe in God,” Lola explained in English. “Christians and Pagans—they are opposite words.”
“Uhhh, ‘opposite’?” I thought, feeling my politically-correct self cringe.
“You understand the meaning of ‘Christian’?” Lola asked. “Christian is Catholic, catolico, you know?”
Luckily, I’d been forewarned about this assumption, that Christianity and Catholicism are one and the same, so no major cringing there.
“And God, you know the meaning of God?” Lola asked, unintentionally philosophical.
The children looked on, blankly.
“You pray? You pray to God?” Lola asked, pressing her hands together in prayer.
A child raised his hand: “Ahh, fantasma!”—the word for ghost. (Not, incidentally, the word they would use for the ‘holy ghost’).
Lola got slightly exasperated. “Not ‘ghost,” God! Dios! I can’t believe you don’t know the word God!”

I suppose “Oh, hear the word of the Lord,” wouldn’t have upset any public-school administrators in this country…

Night and Day

Some of my students have an interesting grasp on geography. This morning, one girl asked me if it was nighttime in my pueblo at that moment. I said yes, excited by her understanding that other parts of the world exist in different time zones.

“Then,” she reasoned, “you must be very tired.”

Rock, paper, scissors, bing-bong fuera!

Thursday, my first gym class with the second-graders. I am amazed at how often children fall down. Running seems to be a generally new concept for these seven-year-olds. Tag becomes a violent sport, though the contact involved is between victim and asphalt below. Knees are scuffed, hands scraped, and yet the children get back up with smiles even larger than before they fell.

After tag is rock-paper-scissors, which the gym teacher tells me is good for working their arm muscles (in Spain you hide your hand behind your back, then punch it forward). I learn the Spanish words--Piedra-papel-tijera, bing-bong-fuera!--and teach the children the English words. First I teach a group of four children. Then four more add themselves on. Then a few more, and a few more, until I have a circle of twenty-five children around me, the rock-hands pounding the scissor-hands, the scissor-hands chopping at the paper-hands, the paper-hands grabbing the rock-hands, and the fire-hands incinerating them all. Fabulous chaos ensues. It is the happiest classroom moment I´ve yet had.

And we named them and it was...good?

The sixth grade English teacher and I decided to rename the children. For all the Franciscos, Antonios, and Mari-Carmens, we chose good, solid, English names. "Frank, Anthony, Mary," we wrote, crossing off their names in the attendance book.

Presenting the names in class, however, led to mixed results. Some of the children beamed at their new names (especially, I must say with pride, the girl who became Jennifer); others made faces when I told them how their new names were spelled (Sergio, who became Sean, was confused at how S-e sounded like S-h...I shrugged my shoulders). I chose the name "Hannah" for the Fátima in each of the sixth grade classes, thinking the vowels, at least, were similar. I doubted the children would be familiar with the name, showing my ignorance for the widespread effects of popular current American culture. As soon as I spoke the name Hannah, children in both classes erupted with cries of "Montana! Hannah Montana! Hannnnnnah Montannnnnna!!!!!!" (If you don´t know who that is, consider yourself lucky). The two Fátimas, both somewhat shy, blushed with the attention. I hoped they at least were Hannah Montana fans.

A José in one of the classes became Josh, since we already had a Joseph (José María) and a Joe (José Juan). This time there were yells of "Josh Bush! Josh Bush!" With a Spanish accent, Josh and George do indeed sound pretty much the same. While trying to explain that the two names sound very different to English speakers, I did at least feel glad that the Spanish children were aware of Americans other than a teenaged Disney star.*

Meanwhile, my own name constantly confuses well-meaning Spaniards. The most common pronunciation is something like "Chain-a" or "Chen-a" (really not too far off). In flamenco class, however, one woman decided that my name is "Sana" because that was easier than what I was trying to tell her. Perhaps I will revert back to the name I was given in my second-grade Spanish class. From now on, I´ll tell everyone to call me Juanita. Juanita Lafín.

*I can´t say I´m any better at being culturally aware. While Barack Obama makes the evening news in Spain for campaigning in red states, I am just now learning the names of the Spanish president and Spanish celebrities. Although I scored points with the sixth-graders for telling them my favorite soccer team is Real Madrid (the only Spanish team I could think of), I had to go with David Beckham when they asked me my favorite player. Well, he used to play for Real Madrid...

The British are coming!

During orientation in Sevilla, there was one session in which a Spanish woman told us to “be careful with your American words.” The Spanish prefer their English learning to be done in the Royal British tradition, which I say is complete bollocks. Today at school I realized more than ever the difference between American and British English.

My sixth grade English classes were working on school subjects and school utensils. Lola, the teacher, encouraged the children to shout out vocabulary they already knew to get them started. For school subjects, the children said: “English! History! Maths!” I thought Lola would correct them, but she wrote that plural up on that board like it was completely normal. I wondered if I should say something, and then I saw that their book also had it written as a plural. I held my tongue. I guess “mathematics” is plural, so why not the shortened form? Well, because it sounds ridiculous.

Then we moved on to utensils. Again: “Pen! Book! Pencil! Book! Rubber!” That one made me cringe. Sure, these kids probably won’t travel to the United States any time soon and ask for an eraser in the stores, but if they did they would get some VERY weird looks.

So we know vocabulary is different. Not a huge deal. But then at the break time, I was in the teacher’s lounge talking to a woman named Inma who has a very strong British accent. Her English is so good I was lured into thinking she actually was British until later, when she launched into a rapid Spanish conversation with coworkers. She asked me about my education and I told her I “majored in English.” She looked completely lost. I explained that a major is like a concentration, specialization, main area of study, whatever. She nodded, but still looked very concerned.

“I just don’t understand,” she said, “why you would study English. Where is the job in that?” She looked extremely flustered.
“Well, for instance, I’m, you know, teaching English. This year.” I hoped that would make some sense to her, but it didn’t.
“But afterward?”
“My concentration was in Creative Writing…”
She finally looked relieved. “Ah, so you’ll be a journalist or something like that.”
“…Yes. Yes. I want to be a journalist.” I left it at that.

I forget sometimes how uncommon the American system of liberal arts universities is. I felt grateful, though, that we are not required to decide what we want to do with the rest of our lives when we are only 12 or 14 or even 16. Hurrah for the American allegiance to a lifetime of being noncommittal! If I’d had to choose a career when I was in elementary school, perhaps I would have chosen to be a maths teacher. And, in other countries, that’s not something you can just rubber out.

Primeras las guapas

I have become slightly more accustomed to Spanish catcalls. Now that I’m living in Arcos, however, I often think to myself “I might be your son’s/niece’s/friend’s schoolteacher” when someone makes a comment in the street. Not that the comments are particularly rude. Usually they consist solely of the word “guapa” (pretty girl) or slight variations (I heard “guapaguapaguapaguapaguapa” the other day).

In school today, I noted that the boys might be conditioned from a very early age. As it was my first day, I came into classes and introduced myself, and then the children asked me questions that they’d been practicing.

In a fifth grade class:
“What’s your name?”
“My name is Jenna.”
“What’s your favorite color?”
“My favorite color is green.”
And then, from a little boy in the back:
“What’s your telephone number?”
“Uh….”

I said it anyway to them practice with hearing how numbers are pronounced. At least a few wrote it down.

In a sixth grade class, I entered the room, told them my name was Jenna, and a little boy shouted out “Jenna, princesa!” There were many questions of the “What’s your favorite….” variety. Nothing too scandalous. One boy did ask me if I was married, though. At the end of the class, he came over to me, shook my hand, and said, “Pleased to meet you” while batting his eyes. 22 is a little old for a 12-year-old, buddy.

All in all, though, it was a great first day. I loved the students and my coworkers are extremely friendly. I was feeling totally happy as I walked home from the school, hardly noticing anyone else passing in the street. As I was walking up a tiny sidewalk, a man on a motorcycle was coming down and had to stop to let me by. I smiled at him in thanks and he replied, “Primeras las guapas.” The English equivalent might be “Ladies first,” though usually that isn’t used in a salacious tone. I suppose “Beauties first” is a more accurate translation. But hey, if it means I get right-of-way on the sidewalk, or a few more boys will pay attention in class, I guess I’m okay with that.