Middle Ground

(A handful of 3rd graders and Diana Maria, the assistant to their class.)

I've lost that pleasant blogging rhythm I had the last month of winter term. My apologies.

Here's where we are: solidly into the third of the school year's four parcials; this one ends as Spring Break commences, on March 26th. By quirks of scheduling we will be able to cram much more undiluted teaching into this parcial. The last one was sort of ridiculous in that exams for the first parcial didn't conclude till the first week of November. That left, what? About 5 weeks before we ended up leaving the country ...and the 2 weeks Christmas were a crock anyway. I stopped doing new material in English Zone because about 10 kids were absent every class for Christmas show practice.

Parcial 3, by contrast, has 8 full teaching weeks before we even begin reviewing. And not a day off for months. MONTHS. I guess this is to combat the vacation day-filled first parcial, the absurdly short second parcial, and the end-of-year upheaval that will make up the fourth parcial.

On a non-administrative note, our outlooks dip and soar here in Casa Gringa, as we've dubbed our three-bedroom house in Barrio San Miguel. Probably our most constant battle is that of staying present with our school duties. All three of us are looking forward to spending time with family over Spring Break, so obviously that is a draw on our thoughts (I am flying to the States for my best friend's wedding, Bruin's family is flying into Honduras, and Bowen remains undecided, perhaps joining me in flying to the mother country for a week). However, vacation excitement aside, I am enjoying the mess out of my classes right now. To balance the names I write on the board for bad behavior, I have of late begun displaying the names each day of students who use excellent examples of English. 2nd grade in particular has taken this development in stride; students come up to me every day now sporting such colorful gems as: "My pencil broke." "The uniform is green, blue, and white." and "I would like a carrot and two oranges." 3rd grade's most notable phrase is: "Can I sharpen my pencil?"

Lamentably, I discovered in tutoring today that one of my 3rd graders (who lives with Americans!) can't distinguish the 5 short vowel sounds to save his life. Sigh. Spelling is a rather bloody subject for him.

Encouragingly, I've had a breakthrough about spelling in general. Whilst home over break I consulted with one of my teachers-in-the-wings and she wondered aloud why spelling was weighted so heavily (33%) in my grade configurations and reminded me (not being a teacher by education, I need lots of reminding) that spelling is but a bridge to reading. On that note, I began consciously including including independent English reading into the school week. I'm not sure how much they're comprehending on average, but they love it. They love paging through all the donated books and making lists of words they know. Many more will be gained from context. (Thanks for the tip. You know who you are.) 

Enough for now. My American swain is bidding me draw near on Skype.

Pressing On

Well, we're washed of exam week. I had precisely 1 of 54 students fail, and she improved her main exam grade well enough during recuperation that she didn't fail for the parcial (or "quarter"). It will be nice to have a parcial not bisected by Christmas holidays this time. Exam week ends neatly as Spring Break commences, so maybe I'll do my grading on the plane back to the States.

Anyway. Something curious happened this week: the majority of both classes outright failed the weekly spelling test. This has never happened. At present I'm going to chalk it up to a swirl of mostly new blends - ch, th, sh, and wh - and the fact that we don't have the new phonics books put together yet. No cross-subject reinforcement, alas.

And funny in its absurdity: the English director for the school (my most immediate boss) was supposed to be on hiatus from September through early November. Strangely, for circumstances beyond everyone's control, she is still in the United States. The latest prediction is that she'll return in late February.

I need to sleep. Now.

Exam Week

Sorry so silent. A lot of re-adjusting to do, but overall I'm in good spirits of late. 

We are in exam week, which is fairly enjoyable, but the thought of the pending number crunching and recording and commentary-writing (tedious in Spanish) makes me very anxious, so pray for quiet in my head. I can do it if I just sit down and get it done, but I am not the best steward of time, as regards work projects.

Let It...Begin. Again.

Roomies mine and I flew back Saturday, meeting in Atlanta, where it was hovering right around 30 degrees Fahrenheit. My teeth clattered wildly together as I shivered in cold and shock, even in my three layers and a scarf. It was hard to come back. It is always hard for me to slip with aeronautic ease in 3 hours from one of the richest countries to one of the poorest. Where people wear their wounds oftener on the outside. The blanket of comparative Central American warmth enveloped me as I left the airport, and I felt no comfort.

I'm writing because I'm a writer, and it calms me.

We were briefed today on Missions Day, which is supposed to be bigger than Christmas, than any other day at this school. There will be no normal classes that day (the first Monday in February); instead, each group of students will pass from classroom to classroom, learning about the persecuted Christians (specifically, children) in countries like Pakistan and Burma. They will identify the flag, sample a native dish (Elsy and I are cooking up some Pakistani taffy for the 4th grade room), hear some cultural and historical facts rattled off, and drink in some real stories. I'm translating two into Spanish: a girl who was imprisoned briefly by her employer for wanting to go to church on the Sabbath and a young man who took Bible studies by secret correspondence and later joined a terrorist camp. I forget what happened then. Must have decided mass-murder planning was on the creepy side and there was something to the Jesus stuff.

Can I tell this earnestly? Do I believe it?

I really hate living here sometimes. It's hard. It's uncomfortable. Teaching freaks me out. People get in my way and break my heart and scare me. 

But I get eyeball-to-eyeball to God here, or as close as I can get. Away from my safe hometown where nobody will tell anybody else they need anything. I cry a lot here, because I miss the people I love. But I don't miss the noise, the chaos, the clamor. When I'm there I miss the quiet here.

I think I long for a place that doesn't exist 'round these earthly parts.

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PS: Immediately after completing this entry in a thoroughly glum mood, I picked up C. S. Lewis' The Screwtape Letters, which I have been meandering through for about a week, and read this, which made me laugh, as I had just been ranting on noise: "Music and silence--how I detest them both! How thankful we should be that ever since Our Father entered Hell--though longer ago than humans, reckoning in light years, could express--no square inch of infernal space and no moment of infernal time has been surrendered to either of those abominable forces, but all has been occupied by Noise--Noise, the grand dynamism, the audible expression of all that is exultant, ruthless, and virile--Noise which alone defends us from silly qualms, despairing scruples, and impossible desires. We will make the whole universe a Noise in the end. We have already made great strides in this direction as regards the Earth. The melodies and silences of Heaven will be shouted down in the end. But I admit we are not yet loud enough, or anything like it."

So dear readers, until we meet again, prize good music, gentle silence, and a regular good belly laugh, and think about hitting up a 3rd world country, for it might be very good for your soul. -Z