Mañana, mañana

It was recently brought to my attention that I've been slacking on the blog posts. My apologies, but July was a busy month. I spent the better portion of July either running around LA getting ready for Spain (thankfully I received my visa a few days after my last post) or glued to my computer, creating lesson plans for my TEFL certification course. The end of July I spent "observing" an ESL class at Venice Adult School. I had observed two other classes at UCLA Extension, which were great, but very different from my experience at Venice Adult School.

I walked into the Venice High School building and for a moment imagined what my life would have been like had I gone to public school in LA. My only other memory of those over-painted walls or wobbly wooden tables and chairs (the ones with multiple etchings and gum stuck to the bottom) was during the SATs at LA High. I always feel a bit of nostalgia for the stereotypical high school and college experiences I never had. In any case, I walked into a classroom with pictures of the USC football team, the Gondoliers (evidently the Venice High mascot), stickers about saving the planet, and posters about how bullying is wrong (even cyber-bullying!). In this classroom were about 35 students seated in traditional rows facing the teacher in the front.

"I would rather be blind because I love to listen to music," said one student.
"I would rather be deaf because at least I could see where I am going," said another student.

The teacher had passed out a list of 35 "would you rather" questions and students were giving their opinions on them. Let's just say I was not expecting to listen to such advanced conversations my first day of observation. This class had younger and older students that ranged from 4th grade reading levels to 12th grade reading levels. There was one guy who spoke English so well that I asked him what he was doing in the class...he had some difficulty with reading comprehension during test taking. Ah, the joys of standardized testing. In any case, I was thoroughly impressed with this teacher who was able to find activities that were really engaging to all students (I was even excited to get involved with the "would you rather" questions...you know I always have an opinion about everything). She was knowledgeable (with her masters in applied linguistics), culturally sensitive, pleasant, and encouraging. The class was so large that I ended up having my own group of students to work on reading, writing, and speaking. This was by far the best part.

I loved getting to know all the students in the class and hearing about their life stories. One night we were discussing whether or not parents were the best teachers when one student said some parents can't be good teachers because they abandon their children. Another student responded saying some parents don't have a choice in leaving their children behind for better opportunities. She continued by saying that she left Mexico 3 years ago to be able to work and support her family so they would be able to go to college and live a decent life (she has two sons who are 15 and 22 years old). While she struggles with this decision on a daily basis, particularly being so far away during these formative years, she ultimately feels like her financial support will offer more life chances for her children.

It was a great experience at a professional and personal level. I'm more confident about teaching English in Spain and feel like I gained so much from working with this group of individuals.

Life has been stressful the past couple of months, but things will calm down soon enough. The thought of packing is overwhelming at this point, so I've adopted the Spanish mentality of "mañana" for now. Y quizas mañana tambien.

Below are two videos of the legendary bailaora Carmen Amaya: