Independence Day

While most of us in California are familiar with El Dieciséis de Setiembre (Mexican Independence Day), most of us do not know--and formerly I was also part of this group--that Costa Rican Independence Day is on the fifteenth of September. However, I now count myself as having been one of its most enthusiastic celebrators. Lincoln School, wishing to instill patriotic spirit in all of its young children, declared an entire independence week of activities.

Guess who was put on the organizing committee for this week.

Ironically, in the group of seven organizers, three are gringas, and another three (with some overlap) are new teachers to Lincoln. You can guess how organized and gung-ho many of us felt about this. In the course of a week, we organized two assemblies, daily announcements, authentic music to be played fifteen minutes before school every day, and a lantern parade. One of my specific jobs was to teach my children some kind of poem about one of Costa Rica's national symbols. On the recommendation of the Spanish teacher I chose a poem about the yiguirro (with an umlaut over the u), the national bird. For those of you who don't know, the yiguirro is an ugly and ungainly type of brown robin. I let you judge the bird for yourself:
Anyways, I couldn't even say the word correctly, let alone lead the class in saying the poem. After my initial reading of it to the class, we had to have the discussion about the students not laughing at my accent because I don't laugh at theirs; we're all here to learn together, etc. etc. It was a very teachable moment. However, despite the language difficulties, my students not only learned the poem, but had it memorized for both assemblies. On assembly days, the students came in their "typico" outfits, and were really rather cute. Ask me to show you pictures when I come home; I'm not allowed to post them on the internet.

Luckily, we also had the actual 15th off from school. I celebrated by going to the local park and listening to some live music, before going downtown to San Jose in search of merrymaking. My housemate and I stumbled upon a parade, which mostly was made up of drum corps and flag-wavers with varying degrees of talent. However, I've always loved bands and drum corps, so I had a lot of fun. One of the best parts was seeing tons of kids wearing their typical outfits. It's neat seeing a custom that really is part of the local celebration, rather than something that's put on for tourists. But despite the fun, I think I'm pretty independenced out. I'm glad that I'll actually be able to get back to, oh yeah, TEACHING during these next few weeks.

This is a picture of my classroom all decked out to celebrate. The homeroom parents helped organize the collecting and putting up of the decorations. Sadly, most of the streamers fell down within the week...

My First First Day of School

Well, it really is official: I'm a teacher. In fact, I'm a teacher with and classroom and 23 students of my very own. This is of course, an important distinction to make because for many teachers in California (and some here at Lincoln, for that matter) this is not the case. Teacher, classroom, and students are no longer three items that can automatically be put into one group. But I digress. In the past two weeks, I've also started school and had my very first Parents Night. All in all, it's been a good--but very hectic--start of the school year. Here are before and after pictures of my classroom.

I'm not sure what the security guards thought of me as I trundled up to the gate with my classroom luggage, but it all started here. Of the four suitcases I brought, two were taken up with fun teaching things that I thought would help me get a leg up in the world.

Note the bare, stark look of things.

Now note the happy and welcoming atmosphere

that says, "hello small children and parents; this is a nice place and the room of caring, creative, and competent teacher."

I have to admit that I was almost ridiculously proud to see my name on the door.

And of course, a first day of school picture.

As I mentioned, I have 23 students in my class. Of the 23, I have four native English speakers who are officially classified as SSL (Spanish as a Second Language). One of these students started school a week after everyone else, so we've had fun doing some catch up there. The other students are a mix of four ADD students, one barely English proficient student, and a miscellaneous mix of huggy, affectionate children.

So far, the parents are almost as nice as their children. Parents Night was a little scary, but by putting in what felt like a million extra hours, I had a lovely, presentable classroom and an attractive powerpoint to show them. Since many of the parents speak less English than their children, I'm not sure how much actually got through of my well-spoken presentation, but oh well. Let's hope that the parents still like me by the time I have to brave Parent/teacher Conferences!

Victory!

The luggage has arrived! All of it, and in one piece. Thanks for the prayers!

Back Again

Traveling, I have heard, is supposed to be a "broadening" experience. Of course, no one ever says in which way you are supposed to stretch. It looks like my first few days in Costa Rica will be teaching me how to make do with very little. I knew I was tempting fate by taking down so much checked baggage; hoping to get all four pieces on time and in good condition was really rather optimistic. However, I didn't expect that I wouldn't get any. Luckily, I was not the only one to be missing bags. Based on the long, sleep-deprived line that queued outside of the Frontier office at 5:30 yesterday morning, there were quite a few of us that were less than pleased about being stranded without luggage. The best that the airline could do was to assure us that it would come soon and that they would deliver it to my house. Being the skeptic that I am, two doubts immediately came to mind: 1) Costa Rica doesn't use addresses in the same way we do, therefore leaving the exact location of this house a little vague, and 2) Costa Rican time is distinctly longer than California sense of time. By "soon," I'm hoping for sometime this week.

Nevertheless, I'm here in one piece and, after a good night's sleep, feeling in pretty good spirits. A little prayer about all (any!) of my bags getting here would be much appreciated, of course. At least I'll have a lot of time to recoup and take it easy until the bags arrive: nothing to unpack, either here or in my classroom!

Costa Rica: the sequel

It seems a little odd to be thinking of sequels before finishing the first story, but we have come to an important moment in the narrative: is it time to bring things to a close and shut the book, or should we hope to continue the story in many more block-buster volumes? I’ve heard that every good author is always looking ahead while they work. While it would certainly not be true to say that this author had the end in mind when she started this saga, it would be true to say that I’ve been giving the “what comes next” question quite a bit of thought. In the end though, it’s come down to this: I have decided to come back to Lincoln School next year and the story will go on. I don’t know what grade I’ll be teaching, but I think it will be in the lower-elementary area. To be honest, it’s kind of exciting to think about really having my own classroom. The idea that I will be personally responsible for 23 small children does seem a little intimidating, but I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it (in six weeks, actually). I will still be coming home for the summer, but I’ll be coming back here to Costa Rica during the last week of July for orientation. I’m realizing though, that many of you don’t know very much about the school where I’ve just spent the last four and half months of my life. So, here’s a quick overview:

Lincoln School is an American-based school that was set up in 1945. We use an American curriculum and every Monday morning, bright and early, we all sing the U.S.’s national anthem right after we sing Costa Rica’s anthem. There are slightly less than 1,300 students (about the same size as Westmont) and includes grades K-12. Costa Rica also has an extra grade between kindergarten and first called “preparatory,” which means that since students start school at about the same age as they do in the States, almost all of the students are a year older here than what we’re used to in California.

Lincoln has quite the impressive bus system! Over half of the students take the bus because many students live 45 minutes or an hour away. One of the funniest parts of the day is watching the convoy of 35+ busses leave school at the end of the day. It is quite the parade! I also take the bus to school, but I get to ride the teacher bus that stops close by my house.

Because Lincoln charges a fairly high tuition, it has pretty incredible facilities. There are two libraries (one for the elementary, one for the high school), two gyms (again, one for the elementary, one for the high school), and a science lab. Students have “specials” everyday where they go to another teacher for art, Spanish, music, and technology. These facilities are way beyond anything I’ve seen in California. Hopefully with all of the extra support teachers and time I’ll have to teach fun lessons, this will be an easy first year.

Looks like I can’t hang up my blogger’s hat quite yet…