La Escuela

 

The school in my town, CEBGLB (Central educativa basica general Loma Bonita. . .or something along those lines), is actually more or less two schools.  The Primaria (pre kinder through 6^th grade) and the Telebasica (7^th-9^th grade).  The school day starts at 7:50, primaria goes until about 1:30/2, Telebasica until 2:30. 

The Primaria is multigrado.  This means that there is more than one grade per teacher.  In some schools this can mean one teacher teaches 1^st through 6^th grade.  In my school, it is one teacher per two grades.  1^st grade and 4^th grade are in the same classroom with the same teacher, 2^nd and 5^th are together and 3^rd and 6^thare together, the 3^rd and 6^th grade teacher is also the Director of the school.  As you can imagine, this is not an easy way to teach, and often leaves one grade sitting doing nothing while the teacher is working with the other grade. 

The Telebasica, is basically our version of middle school.  The telebasica in my town is made up of children from three neighboring towns as well as my town.  Now, not all middle schools in Panama are considered Telebasica’s.  The idea of a Telebasica is that there is one teacher per grade.  The teachers have a DVD that the students watch, and complete activities in a workbook that correlates with the DVD.  It is meant for schools that do not have enough students to warrant teachers for each subject.  In theory, it is a reasonable idea, in practice, especially in my school, it is not so great.  We do not have electricity, there are small solar panels on our school but I do not think they have enough power, ESPECIALLY during the rainy season, to run 3 TV’s at once all day.  Also, the TV’s the school has apparently don’t work either.  This leaves the teachers with the responsibility of teaching 13 different subjects including chemistry, physics, religion, art, phys ed, Spanish, history, geography, technology (which since we don’t have electricity and in turn no computers, involves the students working in the garden and on the school grounds), math, agriculture, natural science and English. . .I think those are all of them lol).  An overwhelming repertoire to say the least.  This, is why, I have found myself teaching English.  I really like the Telebasica teachers, and they are exceptionally underprepared to teach English, not knowing English themselves, and the students once done 9^th grade, will travel to either Cope (the nearest pueblo) or some go to the cities, where they are all way behind in English before they even start.  Plus, the Telebasica teachers actually sit in on all the classes that I teach and take notes, and sometimes I work with them after school on their English as well, so it was hard to say no. 

With that being said, once I agreed to do Telebasica English I couldn’t not do Primaria English, especially since all of the past volunteers have taught English in the schools.  In the beginning, I HATED it, however, it is growing on me.  I LOVE 3^rd and 6^th grade.  We did body parts and I taught them the hokey pokey. . .EVERY SINGLE DAY since then, they go “hokey pokey? Hokey pokey?” it is hilarious.  Plus they are always excited and energetic.  1^st and 4^th is ok, 1^st is hard because many of the students still can barely write Spanish, lot alone learn a new language.  4^th grade there are only 5 students haha, but I like them.  2^nd and 5^th is my biggest challenge, the 5^th graders think they are too cool for school (similar to that age in the US) and although they always act excited when I come to teach, they often refuse to write the vocab, or draw pictures etc.  The second graders are adorable, but the combo of 2^nd and 5^th is difficult.  Telebasica English is also growing on me, however, I suck at English. . .it is WIDELY known that I cannot spell.  Plus, I have NO IDEA what the students have learned in the past, and some of the students are way more advanced than others, probably depending on the Primaria they came from. 

So yea, Tuesday’s I teach Primaria English and Thursday’s Telebasica English.  Then on Wednesday’s, I do what I am really supposed to do in the school, and that is teach environmental classes.  At this moment I really only do envl classes with 1^st and 4^th grade, that is the only teacher really interested, but hopefully, slowly but surely I will also work with the other primaria classes. . .

Just like most schools in the US have a PTA (parent teacher association) or some form of parent group, here in Panama they have a Padres de Familia.  Unlike in the states though, every parent MUST be in the pardres de familia if they have a child in the school.  Our Padres de Familia is, well, intense.  A lot of drama occurred last year in the school, splitting the padres de familia down the middle, and it is quite evident during the meetings.  I kid you not the meetings have lasted for over 4 hours.  There was once a 30 minute debate about beds for the Telebasica teachers.  The telebasica teachers live at the school (in Panama teachers are assigned schools, they could be sent anywhere, it doesn’t matter where they live), and there were not enough beds at our school for the teachers, apparently teachers are expected to bring their own beds.  Now, each of them has to take at LEAST two modes of transportation to get here, including the cars to my site which are pickup trucks with benches in the back, I have NO idea how they would feasibly bring their own beds.  Well, anyway, someone in town made them beds, charged them the bare minimum, the directive (president/vp (actually there is no vp right now. . .another 4 hour meeting worth of drama)/secretary, treasurer etc) agreed that the Padres de Familia would pay for the beds.  Apparently, they didn’t consult the entirety  of the Padres de Familia prior to this agreement, in turn their where some very upset parents.  When the teachers (who were present during this debacle) said they would pay for their own beds, the parents said no, that was not necessary, they were just upset they weren’t consulted first.  It was around this time, that the mom sitting next to me said “Vamos Yei.” Which means “let’s go Yei.” At least I wasn’t the only finding the meeting ABSURD.  All in all though, it is nice that the parents play an active role in the school.  Each day mom’s cook crema (kind of like a nutrient fortified cream of wheat) for the children in the morning and lunch for them.  Every Thursday father’s come and work on the school grounds. 

 

And that is a brief summary of the school and what I do there.