The joys and pains of working in a bilingual school

Despite the fact that teaching english is the reason I am in Madrid, I have yet to really blog about my school, the students, what its like, etc. It is nearly impossible to describe everything, but something that is unique at the school i work at is that it is a bilingual school (hence the reason I am here) where I work solely with teachers that speak english. While its not their first language, they all have a good enough command of it that we are able to communicate (most of the times). What I find so novel about this is that things can be said in the classroom that couldn´t normally be said because it would be considered inappropriate for the kids to hear teachers say such things, but since the kids don´t really know english, anything can be said and the kids are completely oblivious. So for example, there is a kid in my 1st grade class that is constantly misbehaving and the teacher was completely fed up with his antics so he says to me ¨you see that kid right there, sometimes I just want to cut his ears off!¨That is just one example, but similar things have been said numerous times. It´s like we have a secret language and there is no rules about what can be said!

So that introduces the topic of discipline. First, discipline is not as strict here as in the states and classrooms easily get out of control. They warned us about it in orientation, but it is something you really can't be prepared for. I really am tempted to introduce the idea of "class bathroom breaks" instead of letting kids go just as they feel the urge or as boredom sets in. They move around the classroom with the luxury that wasn't granted to me until I was in college. No joke.

Anyways, I digress. Because I am with 1st and 2nd graders, there is a lot of telling on people. I am starting to understand some phrases, but sometimes kids will come up to me "Profe! Profe!" and tell me something that their infliction makes me assume is a matter of life and death, and I can't understand A THING! Sometimes I feel really bad because they tell me something that is apparently something SOO important I must be told with extreme urgency, and I couldn't repeat it if they begged me because I didn't hear a single word of what they said just "khdskfhasdkljhavkjnadkljahsf". Other times, its kind of a relief because I don't have to deal with discipline issues. I just tell them "repeat" and point to the main teacher.

While there is a team of about 6 english speaking teachers, nobody else in my school speaks english. Rumor is some know a little bit, but will not speak it with a native speaker. While this may not seem like a real problem, it really is. Particularly because i'm not always with english speaking teachers. So for example, today one of my teachers asked me to go make copies. Easy enough right? Well I go to the copy machine and start copying and see that it doesn't have paper, and next to the copier is a sign in spanish that says I need to go ask Rosa for paper. WTF. So I go ask Rosa for paper in my best attempt in spanish, but she starts ranting in really fast spanish and stomps up to the copy room. I tell her I need 39 copies of each. Easy enough. Of course not! She starts trying to resize the copies for some reason and I tell her no, I want it all. Well once again, she starts ranting and raising her voice at me, and the other teachers look at me like I am a complete idiot so I can only assume that was the gist of her rant. Imagine putting an infant that has an extremely limited vocabulary in that situation, and that is how I felt.

In other news, I was walking from the metro to my school last Thursday and two girls come up to me and ask me if i'm an auxillary (keep in mind I wasn't speaking/reading english but they still knew I was an American-- I guess the hair really gives it away that I am from America for some reason). They were both from the States as well and had renewed so it was their second year. They tell me that they both work at the elementary school next door, and i'm like "there is a school next door?" and they proceed to tell me that the school i work at is for all the social-rejects and "socially undesirables" and all the other "good" kids go to the school next door. Pretty messed up, huh?

True Story: I am having a hard time telling the difference between boys and girls in my school. Seriously. Last week I referred to this boy that had a ponytail and gold earrings as "she/her" all day until I heard someone call him Juan...oops!

Non School Related news: I went to see my first movie in Spain. Don't be too impressed because it was "original version" which means it was in english with Spanish subtitles :)