Educación, Educación, Educación

Rachel and I have now officially moved into our new apartment! Although when I say moved in, I mean that I still have one suitcase to unpack, which is sitting open in the middle of my room. Oh well, I have 9 months to unpack.

Wednesday was the labor strike in Spain, so we had to walk about 30 minutes from the hotel to the apartment with our very heavy backpacks, which resulted in a sore back and the need to take a three hour nap. I thought I would be productive Wednesday and Thursday, but somehow the days passed without my accomplishing much at all. Carmen has been really sweet and has been cooking for us (we joke that she is like our mom), but the reality is that she is just a better cook than Rachel or I! Thursday night we went out for Tapas at Los Coloniales, which is in el centro near the catedral. Que deliciosa!

Today was my first say at the escuela, which was an interesting experience to say the least. I met first with Pepe, the bilingual coordinator for the school. There is another American in the school as well, Brett, who will split the classes with me. After much discussion we decided that he would take the younger kids (ages 3-7) and I would take the older (ages 8-12). We sat in on a few classes, two of which were art classes where the kids were left to do their own thing, one of which was an English class with Pepe. This class is an experience and a half. First of all, I never knew that 15 seven-year-olds could make so much noise. Instead of listening to the teacher like we did in America, they would all be constantly talking, running around, and jumping up and down without listening to anything. I thought that they would settle down once class began, but it seemed like class never began. Carmen has been telling us how education in Spain is “shit”, and now I believe her. For the past week, Pepe told us that the only thing this class has learned were the numbers 11-20. Seriously. I honestly don’t know whether it’s the lack of structure or discipline in the schools that is causing these kids to act crazy, or just the kids in general. I know that Spain does not recognize ADD or ADHD as actual diseases, which became very obvious when one boy, Ramon, kept running around the classroom and one girl, Lola, kept taking her shirt off and laying down on the floor. Pepe’s explanation for Ramon was that he was “nervous,” but that he had been nervous the past two weeks. Pepe’s explanation for Lola’s behavior was that she is “gitana”, meaning a gypsy. This somewhat racist assessment pretty much sums up Spain’s attitude towards the gitanos, and other races in general. In front of the entire class, Pepe felt the need to point out the two students who were not Spaniards (one Moroccan and one Peruvian), which left me not knowing what to say. Although American education is by no means perfect, or at the level that education should be, this one experience in a Spanish classroom really gave me some perspective into how well we are educated after all. Although I believe that ADD especially is over-medicated and over-diagnosed in the US schools, it is obvious now that there is a need to do so. At least I haven’t seen any seven year old girls refusing to wear shirts and being allowed to lie down and nap in the middle of class.

On the plus side, the kids all seemed really excited to have us americanos there, and all drew us pictures to take home. One boy asked me to be his novia. I respectfully declined, and then he tried to kiss me… he is seven.