Let the teaching begin!

!Hola Chicos!

Today was my first day of teaching. And to use my new favorite phrase: Vamos a ver (we will see).

The school where I am teaching is a school created by the government of Quito to showcase new and improved methods of teaching for children in kindergarten through high school. The objective is to more effectively teach these children the skills they need to suceed in work and advanced education. Some students follow a more generic course of study, while others focus on accounting, physics, chemistry. The school was founded about six years ago, and the first class of high school seniors graduated last year. Only about 25% of the students who started six years ago, graduated.

The school is located in the Carapungo district of Quito. It´s a 45 minute, two bus ride from my house. Today Gabriel, my guide, had to meet me at my house at 6 AM to show me how to get to the school. Gabriel is 19 years old, and is a night owl. Pobrecito (Poor Gabriel).

Carapungo is located at a lower altitude than central Quito which makes it bloody hot! Luckily it´s a dry heat.

My classes are daily. Classes start at 7:15 AM and end at 1:20 PM. I will teach four or five classes a day, with a total of 23 classes a week. There are 430 students in the school, and I will teach everyone of them at least once a week. What will I do exactly? I will try to keep one step ahead. Fortunately I enjoy working in these type of figure-it-out-as-you-go situations. My other favorite phrase is: Que sera sera (what will be, will be).

Today´s classes went reasonably well. I tought 12 and 16 year olds. The 12 year olds were much better than I had expected, attention and attitude wise. The 16 year olds are, well, 16 year olds. The class of 16 year olds refused to do what I had wanted to do, but instead they asked me lots of questions. They wanted to know what I thought about Bush, the war in Iraq. They told me that they thought americans were racist against immigrants, and that american teen-agers are lazy, selfish, and violent (Columbine). They also wanted to fix me up with their single English teacher. We´ll see how things go next week -- with the students, not the teacher.

After I went home and had lunch, I took the bus to Gringo Land (a part of Quito where we gringos hangout) all by myself! Tomorrow I take the bus to work all by myself. Guess I´m finally getting oriented.

Well, time to make my way back home.

cheers,
Stacey