steveblog

OK, so more than two months in, and I haven't mentioned anything about my actual job. You know, the whole reason that I'm here in Spain. Well, in case you were wondering, yes, I have been working at a school in Spain and no, I don't spend all my time dog watching. Although I do find myself thinking about dogs while in school, but that is a whole different story.

A portrait of the author preparing a lesson for his students

Teaching in Spain has been a surprisingly familiar experience. In a lot of ways, it's like Student Teaching 2.0: Spain Edition. Like my previous student teaching, I'm a guest in someone else's classroom, with only partial control over planning and classroom discipline. I'm continuously straddling the line of respecting the teacher's authority and expectations, and carving out my own place at the school. I expected this, though, and it hasn't been much of a surprise. The teachers and the staff at my school have been welcoming and allowed me a comfortable amount of autonomy at times. For example, once a week I'm given a whole period to teach a class from the time period the students are studying.

There are quite a few new and surprising aspects of this job, however. One thing I didn't expect, was the amount of students and classes that I would be apart of. Last year, I taught 4 hour-long classes everyday, with the same 90-ish students and I taught one subject (9th grade World History). During my busiest, I had to prepare two different hour-long lessons each day (these are known as "preps"; so, I had two "preps" a day) since not all of classes were studying the same time period. This was pretty normal and I think pretty typical, albeit less intensive, of most teachers in Seattle.

Here in Spain, I have 10 separate groups of students (somewhere around 290 students) and 7 distinct subjects/grade levels. Due to the way our school is set up, I don't see every class everyday, as I was used to in the States. Instead, I see some groups of students once a week for one class; I see other groups of students three times a week for two separate classes; or I might see some students in a special project group (I'll talk about that later, maybe). The main difference is that I am not the main teacher in any of these classes (except for the special project, sort of). I do not see any of the students for 100% of their class periods for any given subject.

Here's an example. For one group of 2nd year students (roughly equivalent to American 8th graders), I do not see them at all on Monday or Tuesday. On Wednesday, I have them for one hour for World History. On Thursday, I have them for an hour of Citizenship with a different teacher, and then have them again on Friday for World History. For another group of 2nd years, I have them for two hours in a row (Citizenship and World History back-to-back) on Monday and then I don't see them again until Friday for World History again.

The point is, that it can sometimes be difficult to get into a rhythm both in terms of planning lessons and building a rapport with the students. I can never be quite sure what the students have covered or where exactly we are in a unit. And since I have so many students, I am nowhere near learning all of their names. It can be difficult for the students and teachers too. The students don't quite know what my role is (especially since their are other native-English-speaking assistants who are performing a different-but-extremely-similar job from me), other than the fact that I sometimes teach in class and sometimes sit in the back. The teachers, who are happy to have me, don't always have time to figure out how to make use of me. We are all riding along together on this weird journey.

The plus side is that despite the inherent awkwardness of everything, it seems to be working. The students are slowly getting used to me, the teachers are using me more and more, and I'm starting to feel comfortable.

There are still daily battles, mostly with technology. Each room has a different set up, it seems. Some classes have a computer, speakers, and a projector, while others have no projector, or a computer that can't connect to the internet, or absolutely nothing at all. This can make planning a little difficult; you really can't rely on technology. But perhaps this is a good lesson as a teacher on being prepared for anything.

Oh, and chalk. All the classrooms only have chalkboards. AHHHH!

Here are a few more tidbits that you may find interesting, but that I am too lazy to write out in a coherent narrative:

• Students do not move classrooms. This is not the case for all schools in Spain, but it's fairly common. At the end of every period, the teachers pack up and go to their next class. This was very startling for me because it means that a) teachers are limited in their ability to make their classrooms a unique or welcoming place; b) the students "own" the classrooms. Stepping into a class, you enter into the students' territory, rather than them entering the teacher's realm. This subtly but fundamentally alters the teacher-student dynamic. It is much more difficult to bring order to chaos when you are a guest. In addition, the students are with the same group of peers all day every day for the entire year, and in some cases, multiple years in a row. It's a wonder they don't all hate each other.
• There is no lunch break. The students and teachers one 15 minute and one 20 minute break in the day, but no structured lunch. This is partially due to the fact that no one eats a proper lunch until about 3pm anyway, but the flow of the day is oddly different. There is a cafe that serves food, but it's more of a corner store than it is a traditional school cafeteria. The cafe is open all day and is run by a husband/wife team. There is a huge selection of chips, candy, and soda that the students can purchase. Thankfully, they can also make coffee and other hot food. Every day they make a large number of bacon sandwiches, so I sometimes grab one of those for 85 cents. One thing that took me a long time to figure out, especially with my awful Spanish skills, was that you can preorder food and drinks from the cafe and they will be waiting for you when you go to the teacher's room for break. A lot of the long-time teachers seem to have a standing order since the same thing is delivered every day. I generally get a coffee and toast for the first break.

A typical breakfast