My Case For Student Teaching Abroad:

If you are an education student, you should student teach abroad, because:

Practicality:
---If you want an abroad experience, but don’t really want to be away from SNC or home for a whole semester, this is a wonderful way to do it for 9-10 weeks. Even if you miss people for this time, it’s definitely worth it.
---If you’re an ELL minor (which I’m not), you can have a whole placement in an English classroom full of ELL students. Even though it’s not my minor, I’ve gained lots of insight into how students learn English as a second language and what they struggle with the most.
---A placement in Mexico is a really practical way to complete your immersion experience for a Spanish teaching minor. Your language skills will definitely improve as you communicate with your host family and the teachers and staff at Varmond, and you’ll come back with a better accent.
---It’s not as expensive as you may think. If you live on SNC campus senior year, you can get reimbursed upon your return for housing for the time that you are abroad. What you spend on your homestay (room & board) abroad is about the same if not less than what you would need to live at SNC for that time. That means the extra cost is really just your plane tickets, any travel you want to do while abroad, and miscellaneous expenses. At least in Morelia, many of the cultural events and museums are completely free, so you don’t have to have a lot of money to have a really full and enriching experience here. In expenses above what I would have paid if I had just stayed at SNC, I paid about $1,200. Even if you need to take out a small loan to go, it’s entirely worth it.

Enriched learning:
---You learn so incredibly much about cultural customs, traditions, foods, and in my case, the language, which makes for a 24/7 learning experience. You may even develop some new tastes.
---In the school, you learn about the education system in a foreign country, which is very insightful and invaluable to bring back as a teacher in the U.S. You see teaching methods, styles, and a curriculum that are at least a bit different from what you’ve learned at SNC for 3 years and from what you’ll experience in your 2nd teaching placement. This opens the door for lots of learning that simply isn’t possible if you only teach in the States.
---Some people think it’s foolish to teach abroad if you plan to teach only in the States your whole life. I disagree with that. Seriously, if you are able to learn how to teach effectively in a foreign country with an educational system that is bound to be different than to what you’re accustomed WHILE adjusting to a new city/country, host family, climate, food, friends (and the process of trying to find some), limited resources (you can only bring so much with you, and it’s harder to find resources in a new and unfamiliar place), culture, language (in Mexico), and limited technology and contact with people back home (which is likely), you will come away with the ability to go anywhere and learn how to teach effectively there. In no other place will you again be teaching and adjusting to so many changes and new things all at one time! Those flexibility and open-minded teacher dispositions will be top notch by the time you leave!
---If you are truly open to the experience, you will become a better human being. You will learn how to live in solidarity with people from another country and culture, which will get you thinking outside of the American mindset. You will see the world through different eyes.
---You are guaranteed to feel what it’s like to be the minority due to your ethnicity, race, culture, and/or language. This has been a powerful experience for me and given me much more understanding and compassion for minorities in the U.S. I now know what it feels like to look different and stick out in a crowd, sound funny, and just not quite fit into the culture perfectly.
---By moving away from everything and everyone that is familiar for a while, you learn much more about yourself, and you learn how to be more independent.

Unless you have a family commitment or health problem that requires that you stay in the U.S. for student teaching, or unless you’ve already been abroad for a summer or semester and that was enough for you, I really can’t think of a good reason to not student teach abroad. Even though it’s scary at first, there are tons of unknowns, you’ll have to miss part of your senior year at SNC, and it might strain you a bit financially, it’s simply too rich of an experience to miss!

Tiempo para despedir…time to say goodbye

Wow, I can’t believe this is my last blogging day in Morelia, since I fly out Friday early in the morning. I’m really just about done here. Many have asked me if I want to stay or when I’m going to return. I would like to visit here again someday, but I truthfully can’t say if or when I will. I don’t know when I’d ever have another opportunity to come back! My host mom explained to me that to say you’ll never return makes it sound like you didn’t enjoy your time here. Maybe it’s just best to leave my response as, “¿Quién sabe?” (Who knows?) I think I have mixed feelings about going. There are a lot of people here I’m going to miss, and I like the greater emphasis on family and religion in the culture here. Morelia is a beautiful city, and I’ll miss living so close to all the cultural events and historical buildings. I’ll actually miss having chile on my food (coming from the girl who came here saying she didn’t like spicy foods), and I’ll surely miss the warm climate with gorgeous sunny days nearly all the time. However, despite all these people and things I will miss, I am really excited to see people back home again and catch up with them. I am also excited to start my second student teaching placement, so I can learn more things about teaching and have a new experience with a different teaching style, curriculum, grade, school, etc.

This was a fun last weekend in Morelia. On Friday night, I went to the VIP theater with a couple of friends. We saw “Slumdog Millionaire” for only what would be about $8, but our seats were huge, leather recliners with armrests. Waiters took our orders and brought food to our seats, which had adjustable trays attached to hold everything. When I ordered palomas (popcorn), it came with a cup of chile as a condiment! It was okay with chile, but I think I prefer my popcorn with just butter and salt. On Saturday, I went to my cooperating teacher’s birthday party, which was fun. We had en enormous brunch, and I could barely eat anything at La Comida. Saturday night, I was out and about with a couple of friends. We saw the Michoacan Orquestra play for a little while in front of the Cathedral, part of an international dance festival that was going on in another square in town, and the firework show shot off from the top of the Cathedral. On Sunday, I spent the day with my host family. After doing just about the last of my laundry by hand, my host mom told me that we were leaving. They didn’t tell me where we were going or how long we’d be gone, and I decided to just go with the flow and not ask. Well, we went on a little day trip to Quiroga, a city near Patzcuaro, to do some shopping in the little shops there. It was a great chance to find some gifts to bring back. Before we got there, we stopped at a little restaurant that was kind of in the middle of nowhere. I had some amazing quesadillas and flan there. After church on Sunday night, I had a little bit of the pozole my family bought in Quiroga. It was really good with radish, chile, onion, and lettuce stirred into it. I kept adding more and more chile to it until it was a little spicy. I’ve definitely gained new taste buds in Mexico!! I now enjoy that feeling of my tongue, throat, and even stomach burning for a few minutes after eating some spicy chile. My host family finds my change in tastes so funny…they keep telling me I’m Mexican now! ☺

This week, I'm still in my normal teaching routine. I feel pretty comfortable with my time management ability, and I think I'm able to keep everything moving along at a fairly comfortable pace so students are always working but not too rushed. The good news also is that I'm not behind much in the book now, so I won't be leaving Ms. Monica with extra content to fit in. One new thing I'm trying a little it correcting students when they use incorrect grammar in their speech. I explain what they said that was wrong, have them repeat it correctly, and thank them for participating to let them know that it's fine to mistakes, but they need to learn from them. I've found that when people correct my Spanish, it's helped me a lot, so I'm integrating that a little bit now in my teaching, too.

I’ll close here. I hope you’ve enjoyed the blog. It’s definitely helped me process my experiences by journaling about them. I’ll leave just one more blog on my “Case for Student Teaching Abroad” before I head out. When I get back, I hope to figure out how to transfer my pictures using the memory card. If I can do that, I’ll probably put up one or two more blogs with videos and photos to catch you up on things I haven’t been able to share. Take care, and I’ll see you all relatively soon! ☺

Substitute for a Day....Un día bien pesado

Today was really crazy to say the least. ¨Bien pesado¨ (really tiring or literally ¨good (meaning very) weighted¨ is how I described it in Spanish. The first hour and 10 minutes were wonderful. I was teaching in my 6th grade, and I had thought of some cool activities to include in history to make it a bit more interesting. I had the students draw a map to show where Germany and Russia were moving their armies at the start of WWI. I then had them briefly act out ¨war fever.¨ The boys had to goose-step down the aisle of the classroom as ¨soldiers,¨ and the girls had to run up to them and act swooned over. It was a fun and very short activity to help them remember the concept of ¨war fever.¨ We also had an awesome Hawaiian themed birthday party with tons of food and an enormous pop-up card I made and had all of my 55 students sign planned for my cooperating teacher, whose birthday is tomorrow. The party was going to be in the first recess.

Well, I found out at 8:30 that I needed to substitute in 4th grade for the rest of the day starting at 9:10a.m., and I didn't have a free hour other than recess times!! I ended up going to the b-day party for my teacher for 10 minutes, and the rest of my day was consumed with 4th grade. It was an incredible learning experience but so, so hard. Two girls told me their books were at home, but when the coordinator came in and asked them, they both had their books in their backpacks. One student discovered spelling words written in pen on a table that one girl used to cheat on her spelling test, so I had to check her book against the table and report her! Aside from that the students were generally rambunctious. I at least made sure to ask names at the start, and I quickly learned the napes of those who misbehave more frequently. I found myself raising my voice a bit louder than I normally do, so my throat is rather sore now. I also went into Spanish completely, since I wasn't sure how well they'd understand my English, and I wanted my instructions to be completely clear. I realized that I can't function without knowing the procedures, rules, and consequences of a classroom! I felt completely ineffective! I learned that I never ever want to be a substitute on a long term basis, and I think that I'll leave a friendly little manual in my own classroom some day for my substitutes so that they can know all the basic expectations, procedures, rules, and consequences for my classes. With only a rough lesson planner as a guide, it's still nearly impossible to substitute effectively.

I feel much, much more effective in my 6th grade classes where I know the procedures, I have rapport with the students, I know all the names, and I always have back up plans of things to do next or fillers.

This weekend, I'm going to go to a movie with some friends tonight and then I'll go to a birthday party for my cooperating teacher tomorrow morning.

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.

Exams Over...Phew!

Well…exam week is over. Exams went fairly well from what is already graded. Only a couple students failed in each subject. I have all the test administering procedures down pat now…clearing tables (desks) except for a pencil and eraser, being quiet during an exam, raising hands for questions, reading through instructions with students at the start, and announcing how much time has passed/how much time they have left. The exams made for a lot of grading this week! Miss Monica and I split the grading work. She told me that if I’d grade the compositions (all 55 of them, and all at least one page long), she’d do the others (since they’re mostly multiple choice, fill in the blank, etc.) The compositions took so much time to grade, and I still have some to finish this weekend. I’m trying to leave helpful comments for the students so that they can learn from their mistakes, and that’s taking a little longer to do. Next week, the students will be correcting their exams as homework. This is part of Miss Monica’s routine, since she said the students will not check the mistakes they made otherwise. This is probably true for many of them, so I think this is a good idea.

The reviews I did for the exams went well. I didn’t have a chance to include many of the games or fun ideas I had other than the grammar matching at the start of the week, but I at least tried to make the review guides interactive. For math, we went through the whole review guide as a class. I asked students to explain how to do problems and provide answers as we went along. I tried to keep an eye out for students that had dazed looks or were tuning out, so that I could draw them back into the class. Sometimes I called on them to ask them to help out on a problem or make sure to check for their understanding. This seemed to help. I also left plenty of time for questions and was really happy when students asked for more explanations. Near the end, I had students write problems on the board, and then the rest of the class raised their hand afterward if they agreed or disagreed with the answer. When they disagreed, I had them come up to change it. Throughout the review, I tried to acknowledge all of the answers and consider them even if they were wrong. Usually, if a student was wrong, I asked them to think again and correct their answer. This seemed to lead to better student understanding. I also tried to make sure everyone was participating by asking for new volunteers and having them work out a problem and raise their hand when they had an answer. I guess I’ll see if this review paid off when the grades are all calculated on Tuesday!

Overall in my student teaching experience here, I’ve found that I really do love teaching. I love those light bulb moments when something clicks for a student and times when the students are really excited to participate and all have their hands raised. I’m also finding ways to have fun and not take my teaching too seriously. For instance, when I make little mistakes in front of the students, I try to make light of it. I’ve also found ways to act just a little bit goofy in front of the students (like saying the spelling word “groan” as if I’m groaning…they always laugh when I do that). Sometimes, some of the students look at me funny to try to get me to laugh while I’m giving spelling words, so I just make goofy faces back at them. These little things make class just a bit more fun I think. I think the students know that I can handle a joke…because on Thursday, I had the first trick played on me!!! A student pulled out a pen and asked me to write my full name for her. Well, it was one of those clicky pens that shocks your hand when you try to click it before writing…haha. After trying it twice, I just looked at the student and shook my head with a smile. She got me. I went right back to teaching, and I think only a few students that had plotted the trick noticed what happened.

I think I have found a good balance between a little bit of goofiness and being authoritative. The students know that I can laugh, but I won’t let them get away with things. I can walk closer to them or stare them down with my stern teacher look for a few seconds, and when they notice me, they usually snap right back to work. They know that when I mean business, I mean business. I’ve already removed things from students when they’re coloring in class instead of reading along or paying attention, and I think they realize that I’m generally pretty fair. I think they respect me overall, which I’m really happy about.

I’ll close for now with some fun cultural bits:
---St. Patrick’s Day is not celebrated in Mexico (probably because there’s so few Irish people). We celebrate it at Varmond, because the principal is part Irish. (My coop. teacher thought it was so interesting when I told her about some of the ways it’s celebrated in the States…with the green river in Chicago, green drinks, and Shamrock Shakes at McDonald’s.)
---Flour tortillas are kind of rare here (even though that’s basically the only kind we have in the U.S.) Corn tortillas is the norm here (rare in the U.S.)
---The chocolate used in sweets (donuts, muffins, etc.) here is a lot less sweet than what we use in the U.S.

Exam Week...on the other side this time

Hello, all.  This is trimester exam week for the students at Varmond.  It's so interesting to be on the other end of giving big, important exams that are a big percent of the students grades!  I'm mostly doing review guides and administering exams.  So far, so good!  Overall, the students are doing decently.  To avoid situations in which the students could cheat, Miss Monica divide the class of 27 or 28 in half and put them in two different rooms with each of us watching a room full.  This allows them to all have their own table to work at.  The students are responding well and respecting my authority when I tell them that they need to be completely silent during exams unless they raise their hand and I come to talk with them.  So far, we haven't caught anyone cheating (and cheating has been an issue in 6th grade in a number of circumstances) on the exams, so I'm happy about that.  The reviews seem to be going fairly well, too.  I went through half of the math review guide that I wrote with each class.  I made sure to leave time for students to ask questions, and I was happy when I could tell a few of them were remembering things or relearning how to do them.  I learned that it was helpful to ask students how they solve the problems, since one student shared a method that they've used in Spanish before.  I encouraged them all to use it, since I figured it would be the most familiar method for them.  In grammar, I had time to fit in one fun matching game with subjects and verbs to compliment the review guide.  I'm hoping that helps them remember how to make subject-verb agreements.  I guess I'll find out tomorrow after the grammar exam!

In other exciting school news, my coop. teacher and I are helping to plan the Kermesse for St. Patrick's Day, which will be complete with a scavenger hunt.  Students will need to look for teachers that match obscure clues (e.g. I am the teacher who still has a baby tooth that never fell out!)  We have to come in green on Tuesday, and fortunately, I packed ONE green shirt for Mexico!

I'll close for now with some fun and random cultural things I learned:

• If you show up too early to a place (especially in the morning), they ask you, "¿Te caíste de tu cama?"  This means, "Did you fall out of your bed?"  Jaja (haha in Spanish)
• If you show up too late?...."¿Te pegaron tus sabanas?"  This means, "Did your bed sheets hit you?" as in did they cover you up and prevent you from getting out of bed?
• Here, and afilar (a sharpener) goes around the streets to go to people's homes and sharpen their knives!!  He plays a flute sound to let you know he's in your street, but superstition has it here that when you hear the flute sound, it's bad luck for your money.  Why?  I haven't a clue...but that's what my host fam. told me.

I hope the randomness of all that entertained you!  

Full Time Teaching :)

This is a fountain at the end of La Calle de Romance.  When I saw it from a distance, my first thought was that it was covered in snow!  Silly Caitlin, there's no snow in Mexico!!  When I got up close, I learned that it was all bubbles....how fun!  You can pick up some of them and play with them.  I saw one girl throw some at her boyfriend...haha.

This is La Calle de Romance, a little walk where couples can go.  It's too narrow for cars, so it's just for walking.

My first week of full time teaching went pretty well for the most part.  Since I write lesson plans to turn into the coordinator over a week before I actually teach them, I've found that I need to plan everything again to adjust to where we actually are in the curriculum.  Everything changes for my actual plan, and I've found it helpful to plan throughout the week before each day.  We always seem to be a bit behind, which seems to be common for the teachers at Varmond due to the constant volume of content to cover.  I finished up the main content from the February book and fit in time for some review this week, but we've yet to start the March book.  This is in part because this was a short week.  Varmond is hosting a huge fútbol (soccer) tournament this weekend (Thurs. afternoon through Sunday), so we had an early release on Thursday and no classes Friday.  Due to the short week, I was squeezing everything in as quickly as possible.  My cooperating teacher had a history review guide that the students needed to copy from the chalkboard (42 questions).  We did this over the course of three days, but it took a lot of time.  My cooperating teacher told me at the start of the week that we could do the same with my math review guide.  When I realized that there was no way the students would have time to copy my guide, I typed it up and had copies made to hand out.  I decided to look up some internet resources (websites with math games) to add to the guide as optional extra practice.  This was kind of fun to look up, and it's a way I can integrate technology a little bit more.  Technology is very, very minimal in the primary curriculum.  The students have a computer class, but the other classrooms are not equipped with any computers, overheads, etc.  They only have CD players to play the disks provided by AMCO.  The secondary students are required to all have laptops at school to use, but before 7th grade, the technological integration is minimal.

On Thursday of this week, I encountered a challenging classroom situation.  I found out that the Spanish teacher needed to be in a meeting during his class time.  My cooperating teacher asked me to go to their room and teach them in English, so we could use it as time to catch up on our Feb. book.  Well, the students were really confused to see me in their Spanish room, they all wanted to know where the Spanish teacher was, and they did not want to work from their English books during what should have been Spanish for them.  Nevertheless, they at least all sat down and took out their English books.  However, at least half the class was chatting with their neighbors and not paying much attention.  Despite my switching into Spanish to give directions and explain what was going on and telling them that I needed them to be quieter, they continued goofing around.  I think part of it was due to the unexpected situation and part due to the fact that we were working in Language Arts, a content section that is full of really hard workbook pages with unfamiliar words, difficult puzzles, and obscure references to American culture.  Sometimes I can't even figure out the answers to the questions in Language Arts.  Moreover, the students know they don't receive a grade in this content; they just have to fill out the pages in class when we go over them and sometimes as homework.  Few students understand the questions, so they aren't very fun activities.  This means there's really no intrinsic or extrinsic motivation for students to do these pages.  All in all, this made for a pretty crazy classroom.  I started removing 5 minutes of recess for students who were not paying attention, but this didn't help significantly.  They were just completely unmotivated, and I didn't know how to make these pages more interesting.  Looking back, I probably could have tried having time for team work or turned them into some kind of competition.  However, given no time to prepare to teach this extra class, I was just glad to get through it.  It was a good lesson for me, and hopefully the students will take me more seriously now, regardless of whether I'm teaching in the English classroom or another classroom.

Tomorrow I'm heading to Varmond to be a "Staff" person for the soccer tournament.  I think this will mainly consist of telling people where the bathrooms, food, fields, etc. are.   I hope I can also catch some of the games.  From what I've seen at recess, the students are quite skilled in soccer here!!  The rest of the weekend, I hope to see more places in Morelia.  There's some more sections of the Historic Central colony I want to check out.  Also, I borrowed the movie "P.D. Te Amo" (P.S. I love you) from my cooperating teacher, and Sonia and I plan to watch that at some point.  I haven't seen it in English, so I hope I can follow it all in Spanish.

I'll close with some more cultural tid bits:  

• A typical thing said at the end of a visit in the evening or before one goes to bed:  "Que descanses" ("That you rest")
• Calling (on the phone) during the main meal time, La Comida, is considered relatively acceptable (as opposed to our American culture in which it's rude to call during dinner). Since people know they can find someone at home during La Comida, they'll call then.  However, my family hasn't received many calls during our meal tim
• About 70% of Mexicans are diabetic...!!!  (I heard a Doctor give a presentation on diabetes tonight...more on that on Tuesday.)
• A lot of stored a more old fashioned (not sure if I've mentioned this before or not.)  Many smaller shops still have all the supplies in back.  You go to the counter and ask if they have something; if they do, they go look for it and find it for you.  Then they give you a receipt for the things you want to buy.  You take the slip to the cashier to pay for your purchase, get a stamp that says "PAGADO," and return this slip to the other clerk in order to pick up your purchase.  This can at times make for a longer shopping trip, especially if the clerk takes a while to find the item you want.