Day of the Child

Today was the Day of the Child here in Costa Rica.  This meant that there were no classes and all of the classes had little parties.  I spent the day helping out with one of the 1st grade classes, which was fun if a little hectic.  I blame the candy, ice cream, and cake all before 10 in the morning.

Next week, September 15th, is Independence Day in Costa Rica, which means Costa Rican flags and various other decorations in red, white and blue all over the place. I'll be assisting the parades next week, which should be interesting.  The only annoyance has been the drum band practicing every morning this week and last while I try to teach, but they do sound better so that's something at least.

This week and next week there are assemblies every morning about various nationalistic themes, yesterday was songs and today was the various flags Costa Rica has had.  Apparently, the reason the Costa Rican flag is red white and blue is in imitation of the French Flag, in admiration of France.  Then again, the combination of Spanish and the poor loud speakers make my understanding of the assemblies iffy at times, so take that with a grain of salt.

One more week of classes, then I'm off to the beach for a week of classes to get a Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) course. I'll do the second half of the course at the end of October, rather than miss two weeks straight of classes.

Came and went

A week goes by really quickly when my family is here.  Other times it feels like time is crawling but not when I'm showing people around and trying to figure out how to get from here to there and back.  I've changed the picture at the top of the blog to one of Monteverde, because while I live in Fortuna, I love Monteverde.

As I said in my previous post, my parents and sister arrived last Thursday.  The next day they visited one of my third grade classes.  This was pretty hilarious as the students tried out their English on my parents and sister.  It worked out overall though, as my family got to experience over 20 third graders yelling in random English, which was pretty funny.

We went to lunch at this restaurant right near my house.  The restaurant was really good and I'm glad I tried it, since I've been tempted this entire year but did not want to spend the money to go by myself.  Some of the entrées came with side dishes which in Spanish is guarnición.  The confusing part was that the English translation was garrison. I was not prepared to eat two forts.

I then badly misjudged how difficult of a walk it was to the waterfall.  Sorry, Mom.  But still, the waterfall was pretty and we took a cab down from the waterfall to meet my host family.  My host family was very nice and we had some good coffee and tortillas.  The 2 year old was adorable and did not resemble the earthquake which he can be sometimes.

Saturday was taken up with me showing my parents where I use the internet and then a tour of the national park next to the volcano and hot springs.  Eco Termales hot springs is the best in my opinion.  I have not done Tabocón yet, but Eco Termales was not that expensive and the food was good and the springs were pretty and relaxing.

Sunday was a lazy day, sitting in the hotel and swimming in the hotel pools.  Monday and Tuesday were very busy. We took the jeep-boat-jeep to Monteverde from Arenal. After checking into our really nice cabin, we went on a fascinating insect/ butterfly tour.  Then we did a night hike in the cloud rain forest where we saw coatimundi, a large rodent type animal which I forget the name of, Mexican hairy porcupines and lots of spiders.

Tuesday we went on a coffee/ sugar plantation tour.  All very interesting with delicious candy and good coffee during the tour.   Then it was time to say good bye which came too soon, but it was great to be able to show them around and do new things with my family.  8 months is a long time to have been gone, at least for me.

Family in Fortuna

My mother, father, and sister all made it safely and without too much hassle to La Fortuna last night.  Interbus got them from Alajuela to La Fortuna without too much trouble.  I was a little concerned given the driving habits of some Interbus drivers, but they had no complaints and thought the driver was perfectly fine.

I have one more class to teach today and my family is showing up towards the end of the class. I can afford to take 10 minutes out of the 80 minute class to introduce some of my students to my parents.  I'm not sure I should be so amused by the thought of 30 9 year olds jabbering in Spanish and small amounts of English at my family, but I am.

Then this afternoon I will give them a tour of the community I live in and they will meet my host family.  That will be a test of my translating abilities.  I am much better at either speaking only in Spanish or only in English. Having to switch between the two of them confuses me no end.  I will have to watch myself and not start speaking Spanish to my parents and English to my host family, as I have done in the past.

Not much else going on here.  Tests are next week which will be interesting.  I will be madly grading at the end of next week, but I should be able to finish everything.

Twenty-Somethings

Update:  For a similar take on what I talk about here, read Derek Thompson at the Atlantic.  I particularly enjoyed when he mentioned how it's not our generation that wrecked the economy, we're just the ones who are paying for it.  And I say that fully aware that in terms of socioeconomic class I am incredibly lucky (as I type on my netbook from Costa Rica)


There was an interesting article in the NYT Magazine about twenty-somethings and whether or not they are in a previously unrecognized stage of development.  The article is good and I'm definitely following some of the paths outlined in the story.  If I had not been accepted to WorldTeach, my next option would have been City Year, an organization mentioned in the article.  This one is also less depressing than some of the others I've read such as the Atlantic's or this one in the WSJ.


While the article is good, I do agree with both Matthew Ylgesias's criticism and Jamelle Bouie's criticism . They both point out how the article focuses on people in their 20s with college degrees.  The majority of people in their 20s have not finished college;  More focus on them would have fleshed out the article.  The one anecdote is good, but not much else is made of it beyond that. 


As a somewhat aimless 23 year old, the part that bugged me was the lack of attention on the recession. This is what I found annoying, "Parents are helping pay bills they never counted on paying, and social institutions are missing out on young people contributing to productivity and growth."  As my parents can attest to, I did not do the most intelligent nor comprehensive job search before deciding to do WorldTeach. However, when unemployment for college graduates was over 7 percent, even my friends who knew exactly what they wanted had trouble finding jobs, never mind jobs which allowed them to move out and pay the bills.     


Add to this the sharp drop in employment in manufacturing and construction, two job sectors which traditionally employed 20-something year olds without college degrees, and its no wonder we're not moving out as fast as some say we should.

Two interesting bits

Today, I want to point out two interesting pieces on education policy at opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of age.  I tend to read less about pre-K education policy and university policy. They are just less focused on.  It is more common to see a LA times story about the effectiveness of elementary schools or an article in the Boston Globe comparing MCAS scores across middle and high schools.  The importance and relative effectiveness of pre-K and universities seems to be less focused on. (I hate to use the word seem, but of course I have not been regularly reading any US papers for the past 8 months so for all I know the Globe has run a hard hitting series on dropout rates at local colleges.)

The first is an interview  with Sara Mead, a pre-K policy expert, by Dylan Matthews who is filling in for Ezra Klein on Klein's blog at the Washington Post.  The part that interested me the most was when Sara Mead points out, "It's actually possible with universal pre-K in Oklahoma to improve learning for everyone while also moving to close the achievement gap."   I guess it should be obvious, but this to me argues for universal pre-K education, not solely focusing on the most disadvantaged groups, since they will benefit the most anyways. 


The second is an excellent article in the Washington Monthly by Ben Miller and Phuong Ly.  This part might be controversial, but I think important, 

"But we won’t make real headway on the college graduation problem until two even more fundamental steps are taken. The first is acknowledging that colleges share responsibility for graduation with their students. Without that, governors, mayors, accreditors, and secretaries of education won’t be willing to expend scarce political capital on behalf of students like Nestor. The second is a willingness to broach a heretofore-forbidden topic in higher education: shutting the worst institutions down."

The article points to universities which deal with the same types of students and graduate students at double and sometimes triple the graduation rates.  If a college or university is truly this terrible, the money and effort it will take to turn it into a functioning university seems to be not worth it.  This is especially true for schools in areas such as NY, where efforts could be made to increase enrollment at universities which actually serve their students.

Pictionary

Yesterday I probably played a total of an hour and 15 minutes between my two classes playing Pictionary.  What a great way to prepare for the exam and so easy for me. Both 2nd and 3rd grade loved it.

I could make teams without having to have the students actually move their desks.  Simply divide the class in 2 with one half and the other half.  I had barely any complaining about who the kids had to team up with.

Thankfully simple machines and machines in general are quite drawable and thus work well for pictionary.  Levers, wedges, and wheels all can be drawn even by me.  Phones and refrigerators are not prove too difficult.  Bicycles and hammers are trickier, not to mention drawing an airplane and not a shark, but overall I've managed to get them to recognize my drawings.  Then when the students draw, its even better (both in terms of them learning and the fact that a bunch of them draw better than me.

Overall a very successful Friday.  I even managed to involve a student who was sent to the principal's at the beginning of class, which I have really struggled with.  Once I lose him he's usually lost for good.  Now if only all my subjects were so easily drawn, but drawing a liver, gallbladder, stomach, and kidney just does not work as well.

Teacher! Teacher!

I'm probably jinxing myself by writing this post, but I do feel that the last couple of weeks have been better teaching-wise.  I have to give tests to 2nd and 3rd grade in two weeks and I feel way more confident about it than I have at any point so far.  I'm unsure if this is warranted, but its a nice change from the last minute scrambling to figure out how to test my students and general stress.

My lesson planning is also coming somewhat easier.  I now need to focus on making my students speak in English and forcing them to use their English.  Now that I have the presentation part down, I need to ensure that my students don't spend the entire time passively listening to me ramble on in English.  I need to figure out ways to gauge how much they understand. This is harder in science in English than in English, but certainly not impossible.

I'm almost two-thirds of the way through the school year here.  To think that I'm that far along is surreal.  At times it feels I've been here forever, but at other times it seems I was in orientation just last month.