I am about to pay my electricity bill

It is $2.98.

Take that, Americans.

I gave my first lesson on the water cycle to a 6th grade class yesterday. As background...I had only given classes in training before, except for one day when I babysat 4th grade while their teacher went into labor. But my last training lesson went so well that my program director called me a natural teacher. I began to dream of getting a teaching certificate when I come back to the States, if the journalism industry is still crumbling, which seems...likely.

So I went into this lesson confident yet well prepared, thinking I had two hours at most. After all, the science period on the schedule said 3:55 to 6 pm. And I knew school ended at an arbitrary hour that is generally earlier than 6, but I figured I would only need an hour.

The first thing I asked the kids to do was write down what they knew about the water cycle and I would call on a couple of them to read their answers. Of course, no one volunteered, but I expected that. I had already made it clear that I would be choosing at random if that happened.

So I did. But every kid I asked to read just stared at me as if I were speaking another language. And I know for a fact that I was speaking correct Spanish. So I did what everyone says to do: was patient and persistent, because if I gave in, the kids would think they could just refuse to do what I say every time.

But whole minutes passed where I kept asking the same kids to read what they had written. And they just stared. And then I began to get pissed off. I know they are capable of reading what they wrote, and I saw them all completing the assignment. And I'm the teacher, and I'm asking them to do it. So why were they staring at me with those irritating looks of dumb surprise?

Okay, okay, Salvadoran kids are just shy, I told myself, and moved on to the lecture and then the activity. I had posted seven stations around the room, each of them a different place in the water cycle: cloud, ocean, plant, stream, etc. Each station was an envelope with little sheets of paper inside that held different directions, and the kids were supposed to be water molecules following the directions. For example, the cloud could say, You fall as rain into the ocean, or You become fog and land as a droplet on a plant...whatever. It was meant to show the complexity of the water cycle.

The kids went to their stations, as I told them, and then they started ripping my drawings and envelopes off the walls (why would they think they were supposed to do that??) Instead of putting the little pieces of paper back in the envelopes like I told them to, they were running around with fistfuls of them from all different places. And a crowd of kids holding the pieces of paper quickly formed around me wondering what to do. And this is a class that actually can read.

In the middle of this chaos, the bell rang, half an hour into class. I tried to finish up the activity real quick, but they all grabbed brooms and started sweeping the classroom. I didn't even get any help from the teacher in quieting them down so I could speak a few words of closure. THANKS FOR YOUR ATTENTION, I screamed somewhat sarcastically over the din, and fled.

I repeat this activity this afternoon with the other 6th grade class. I will definitely have to change it around a little, and hope it turns out better.

So much for my teaching certificate.

Paz y amor.