Wrapping up quickly!

This weekend, I took a trip to Zihuatenejo, about four hours southeast of here, with a couple of friends I met through CCL. It was awesome to see the ocean, and I went parasailing, which was pretty adventurous of me. I also thought it was interesting to take in the more touristy culture of Mexico. The items in the markets seemed a lot different than what is sold in Morelian markets. Some of the things seemed to represent how Americans stereotypically represent Mexicans, and I could tell that they probably only sell these things to tourists. You’d probably never see a Mexican buy these items.

I did get plenty of sleep during the weekend, but I think I’m more beat than I thought. I took a huge nap after La Comida today, and I almost fell asleep for the night! That’s why this blog is rather late.

The students didn't do as well on the math exam as I had hoped. Quite a few failed or got lower passing grades. I think part of the challenge was that some students struggle with some basic math functions like multiplying and dividing. Therefore, even if they know the process for the harder problems that involve fractions, they mess up on the basic things. Miss Monica and I talked about this problem and plan on including some of the basic multiplication and division facts in the curriculum as a review to help the students. I also think some students were crunched for time. Some of them take a long time for math, and we were only able to give them 40 minutes on a math test with 35 problems. They haven't all learned how to pace themselves. Plus, it was apparent that some students simply hadn't studied what we reviewed, since some forgot how to do entire sections. Although I wish they would have done better, I at least learned some good lessons about how to prepare my future students for unit or bigger exams.

My time in Mexico and at Varmond is wrapping up soon. I’m in my second to last week! My main goals for the rest of my time at Varmond are to continue working on my rate of speech, keeping all students engaged and participating, and keeping the students active with additional activities when they finish early. I’m about a day or so behind in the curriculum, so I find myself wanting to talk quickly to cover things, but I still have to remind myself at times to slow down. I can usually tell when students are checked out and not participating; I just need to remember to continually keep an eye out for them, so that I’m continually re-engaging in some way. The students also continue to work at very diverse rates, so I need to continually have extra activities. The sudokus were popular, so I need to bring more of those to school, since they’re all gone now. I also need to better guage when to move on to the next content or let students keep working. I think part of this week for me is challenging just because I need to get back into a rhythm after exam week, and the students probably do, too.

Today was a little crazy, because we were coming off of a three day weekend, everyone wore normal clothes (green) for St. Patrick’s Day, and we had a huge scavenger hunt during everyone’s recess times. Students had to run around the school and match clues to teachers, coordinators, and staff. Students were coming to the door throughout the day in the middle of class to ask Miss Monica and me questions. It was fun, but it made for a crazier day. They also sold cucumbers, chips, and drinks at recess, and they turned the water in the water cooler green! Anyone who didn’t wear green to school was either pinched or painted green! All in all it was a fun day, but I am looking forward to a more normal week.

One cultural tid bit to close:
I’ve mentioned religion is a big part of the culture here before, but I’ve observed something else that is interesting. In many of the taxis and public buses, the drivers have rosaries hanging from the mirror, images of the Virgin Mary displayed, or huge stickers of Jesus on the backs of their seats, sometimes with a message. I think this is really interesting, because this would probably never be permitted in the U.S.