Pokito a poko entendiendo que no vale la pena andar por andar

This year will definitely be interesting. That I can say already. I am currently at work on my TWO hour lunch break. I feel a bit like I won the lottery with my situation, minus a few bureaucratic bumps in the road. I am slowly getting used to how things work, especially in regards to the school system here. Things are a lot less strict and there is an attitude of "let the kids be kids" which results in students running around the hallways, throwing mini cars down the stairs, and not listening to teachers when they are up front clapping, shouting, or doing whatever they can to get their attention.

So far my favorite student is a 6 year old named Kevin, complete with white tennis shoes, a denim jacket, and a sweet mullet. I will try to get a picture.

Social relations are also a bit different, as there are few immigrant students in the school, including Moroccans and South Americans. But so far the relations with the gitanos (the word for gypsies, and although the PC word is Roma, all the teachers refer to the kids as gitanos, therefore I will use that term). According to the teacher I work with, Ramón, education is not highly valued in the gypsy community, or at least not formal schooling. In order to motivate parents to send their kids to school, the government gives them a stipend. There is an attendance requirement, which isn't the full amount of school days, so often the kids are only there the exact amount of days required to receive money. Books are not provided by the school district for kids, and so many of the gitano kids don't have the workbooks and texts needed to do assignments, so while we are working on an activity, they just sit there and do nothing. By nothing I mean spinning around in their chairs, throwing stuff, talking, or mostly bothering everyone around them. This would never fly in the U.S. and is one thing that I am having a lot of trouble getting used to. When parents are brought in to discuss behavior issues, I am told that they are not super cooperative and basically tell the teachers that it is the instructor's problem, not theirs. While I know that discrimination of gitanos as well as immigrants is pretty rampant in this country, it also seems like a huge dilemma of, how do we teach these kids whose parents only send them here to get a stipend. They show up every so often, therefore they don't follow the lesson, are confused, and instead of trying, obviously, they act out. Interestingly enough, each kid who had major behavior issues I later found out was gitano.

Since the classes are a bit crazy I walk around and make the kids pay attention, by taking stuff from them, physically moving them, or staring at them until they listen. They probably think I am the strictest assistant they have ever had, but so far I think they like me. Every time I walk down the hall I hear "Hell-oooo Maya, hell-ooo". It is nice that here I can hug the students, or be affectionate without worrying about getting accused of something. I guess that is one aspect that is better...I will keep searching for more...

They still think I speak no Spanish even though they talk to me in Spanish, then I respond to them in English. Even the 3rd graders haven't picked up on that. One kid today asked me (in Spanish) "Can I go poop?" I stifled my smile and pointed to the toilet paper roll on the counter.

Now I am off to eat salad, fried fish, paella, spaghetti...all free...not too shabby.