150....

150. That's the number of kids I see in a day.

I realized I hadn't told you about my school experience!! Here goes...

I have six classes of 25 students. Four of them are 6y.o. and two are 4y.o.

My day goes like this.... Leave the apartment about 7:20... Get on the bus, and arrive near school bout 8. Walk the two blocks and sit by the river next to school until 8:30 when I go inside to greet the incoming students. Laura and I take turns greeting. Then we have morning exercises... I am going to try to get a video of this one of these days. It's quite a specatacle. There are shakers and pom poms involved. Yes, you read right. PomPoms.

The teaching starts at 9:05... I have two half hour sessions and then two twenty minute sessions with a five minutes break between each. Finishing at 11. That's my morning. Then for our lunch break Laura and I have been going to Jason's apartment. He's usually teaching but its alot closer than going back to our apartment. (and he lives on the 2nd floor opposed to the 6th). It takes about 45 minutes to get there with two busses and walking 10 minutes. So we chill from about noon till 1:20ish. Then its back walking and two busses to school. We have to be back at 2:30 and we usually are close. Then more chill at school until 2:55 where I finish my day with two more half hour sessions.

So in a nut shell, school is greet, exercise, 6's, 6's, 4's, 4's, lunch break, 6's, 6's. Oh, and then the school likes us to stay until 4:30 to plan.... Laura and I live together and plan kinda all the time. So we just sit and play on our iPods until we go home.

The school I teach at is a bilingual kindergarten. But my half hour classes are really the only english they get from what I understand... besides some songs that play to wake them up from their nap. And I think the teachers teach them the alphabet. The main problem I am having is that there is no way to discipline because they don't understand english. I want you to imagine talking to dog... no, talking to a fish. This is what it's like. They wiggle and make noise but don't understand you and basically ignore you. I know what you're thinking, "The teachers help right?" Not so much. My classes have a variety of discipline techniques employed, and some of the teachers disappear/ignore the kids when I walk in. So, clapping had become my attention getter... the current stats show a 62.3% success rate with 72% of the kids in 59% of my classes. (Note the sarcasm...)

Now, don't take the impression that school is awful. Because it is only partly bad. Some of my kids are rather inclined toward English. And there are quite a few that are cute. My four year olds are great because they don't really have to learn so I feel less pressure. My sixes are little terrors sometimes, but I have at least 3 in each class that participate and make the lessons move along. Oh! Story time: The other day I was waiting inside the door for my first class.  The kids were drinking their cups of water and getting their faces washed from exercise. One boy came up to me and this is how our interaction went.....
Boy: Hello
Me: Hello
Boy: What's your name?
Me: My name is Meghan.
Boy: Meggie... (thats how they pronouce it sometimes)
Me: What's your name?
Boy: My name is Tony.
Me: Hello Tony, how are you?
Tony: (long pause with a mildly perplexing look) I am well, thank you.

It basically made my day and renewed my hope in the terrors called children.

Until next time.