The First Week

I finished the first day successfully!  Two of my classes I have for an hour and a half and the other two I had for 45 minutes, and the 45 minute classes should be fine time-wise, but the longer classes are the older kids, and I definitely did not plan enough for them.  I ended up talking about basic art stuff (like primary colors and basic vocab) and fashion in classes when I needed more time.  Fashion: the first creative thing you do every day to express who you are.  The only thing that communicates something about you without you even saying a word.  I found this really great quote I put on the board:

" A dress or an accessory not only satisfies social and emotional needs but it is worn on body and it becomes part of our physical being. A part of this strangeness of dress is that it links the biological body to the social being, and public to private." - Elizabeth Wilson

I only lectured about this to my 9th graders, but they seemed to really like it.  One of the girls told me that she really likes my class at the end as everyone was leaving.  And I really like that class, too!  They're just super into class and pay attention for the most part, and they're the old kids   We start with the boring stuff next week.

Behavior-wise, the kids are way better than I thought they were going to be.  I gave out one detention on the first day for a kid talking back and sentences to half of one of the classes for not having thier dictionary with them.  The second and third days pretty much followed the same pattern.  But being told to expect the craziest, most malbehaved kids you could imagine, and getting what I have, I feel pretty good.  When you lay down the law, they all wise up quick.  It's great when they're scared!  Plus, I think I'll be able to find the mutual respect, strict, but still fun (but not too fun) thing my teacher sister was telling me about.  Sometimes I felt like I have it, anyway. 

The 7th graders are great!  They got really into my lecture about the rules (which is the most boring thing I'll be talking about all year), and laughed at my jokes and all looked when I pointed at the door that had gum on it and looked under their chairs for gum.  I love that age; they're still so excited.  If I were to become a teacher again, or do it more long term, I would love to teach 7th.
The 8th graders were apparently little devils last year, so I was really worried (and that's why I was more strict than I probably needed to be), but it turned out ok.  I reinforced the respect and "mature and appropriate behavior" thing a lot in that class during the rules lecture, so I hope it sunk in.
The 9th graders a great, too.  Super chill most of the time.  Plus, the class is about 10 people less than 7th and 8th each, which makes it easy.  Those big class sizes are going to make it hard to do art and music projects.

None of them said anything about my appearance, which is nice.  The returning teachers were saying that last year the female students would constantly comment on the female teachers' appearance.  Like, "Miss, you look so fat today!"  "Miss, you hair looks weird..."  "Miss, that shirt looks so bad on you!"  I only got one at the open house that she likes my hair.  So far, I'm winning.  But I'll probably give detention if they insult me.

During the fashion segment, one of the kids stopped the class to ask what white people wear, white or black?  I was about to make him do sentences saying something like: "I will not base my opinion of people on their skin color."  But then he clarified that he was only asking because he's white, and he just really wants to know which color would look better on him.  He's not white.  But that's also a thing here.  If you're a little darker you're black and if you're a little lighter your white.  If your eyes are a little slanty, you're Chinese.  I told him that the class isn't about him and moved on.

And!  Over the summer my co-workers and the kids I was working with were trying to figure out Simba's song in The Lion King and no one could remember how it went.  This was about a month ago, now.  In one of my classes, I was asking the kids what musicals they like so that maybe we could do a musical this year, and I said it could be a Disney movie.  One of the kids said he really likes The Lion King and asked how Simba's song went and it just came to me and I sang it to the class really excited.  And I actually sang well instead of what I usually do of making myself sound bad on purpose when I sing with people.  The kids were really surprised, but I think it gave me more cred as the music teacher that I have a good voice.

 These are just street shots; I wanted to show what I see everyday.  My roommate and I were walking around town in an area we don't normally go to, and it was way beautiful.  It was more what one would think of when they think of Central America, so I'm hoping to do some city hiking and exploring the area.  There will be pictures.

 This is the street to my barrio... 

 And this is a funny sign.