Reunión (Staff Meeting)
OK, so I got through the first week, still finding my way around the school and Santiago. On Monday of the second week I was told to go in and observe the other teachers in action. What I saw was a little scary at first - Miss Paola didn’t know any of the kids’ names and just shouted at them as “boy” or “girl”. It was very much “lead from the front”, telling the students what to read and when. However to my pleasant surprise she got a group up to do some drama and they all loved doing that and participated fully. It was an, erm “flowing” lesson…
On Tuesday I was expecting to be given my “job description” by Mónica. What it boiled down to was I had to co-manage the soon-to-be-opened Self-Access Study Centre and teach two regular classes. I sat in on Monica’s 7th basic class, admiring the contrast from yesterday - a slow, well-spoken calm classroom teacher. The students seemed to respond with due respect. After that I sat in on Rebecca’s 6th advanced class. Similarly respectful but a little (no, a lot) less colourful.
The department had a “reunión”, the first of many. To be polite, and for my benefit,they started and ended the meeting in English. However most of it (the important exchanges) were in Spanish and I couldnt help but feel I was missing out. We tried to deal with how we could all share the small space that was te staff office, office drawers, evaluation sheets for the classes, Then Carolina piped up saying there were different criteria for different classes. There was a reference to buying English books for the new centre and I was able to contribute that I had asked friends at home to send videos and CDs for the same. I thereby felt somewhat useful.