The teachers and students are striking every other week currently, on Thursdays, because the region of Madrid is talking of cutting a few thousand teaching jobs. This would mean that current teachers would have to work more hours, bringing them up from the current 20ish hours they work each week. One of the teachers I work with, who has worked in the US and been exposed to our education system, doesn't strike because he can't understand why the teachers would be upset by this. From his point of view Spanish teachers already have it so good: They don't have to come into work until they teach and they can leave whenever they don't have classes. The don't follow the 7-3ish schedule that teachers in the US have and can't understand that US teachers even have to stay at the school later than that some days. The hours would be raised at least 5 hours per week, something teachers are unhappy about. I am under the impression that students are upset because they will have bigger classes, but this is not confirmed yet.
I had another conversation with an English teacher this week about why Spanish students struggle so much with language and don't focus in the classroom. I teach the auto mechanics class with this teacher once a week, so we have the "mature" students between 18 and 30 years of age, and feel lucky to have a class like this. They want to learn and they see the purpose of it. I wondered if it could have to do with classes not being split by ability, and she said that it could be, but that Spanish language classes (like literature) and math classes here are split based on kids that have disabilities and kids that do not. I don't think that is enough of a split, considering my background with honors, college preparatory, and skills level classes at Greely, but she said that even with this split there are kids left behind because the disabilities range from physical to dyslexia. English classes are not split by ability, but she didn't think this caused the lack of focus. According to her the problem is that Spanish students are raised to believe that they don't have to learn another language because Spanish is so dominating. Keep in mind that this is coming from an Argentine here, someone who has probably more of an eye for the imperialism of the Spaniards, but I agreed with her based on my experience in the US. We think we rule the world and that we have no reason to learn another language. Interesting observation, and something that certainly doesn't have an answer, but I will continue to investigate.
Finally I met a woman who teaches Spanish at a community college in Southern California who got me talking about level of English here. My students in their final two years of pre-university education, called bachillerato, have taken English for more than 10 years, but they can't speak it! There isn't an emphasis on speaking, pronunciation, or whatever it takes to be truly awesome at a language. And isn't the purpose of language to speak it? I mean, I love reading, don't get me wrong, I'm the biggest reading nerd around, but it's to speak it. They are ahead of the game because they are exposed to the language at a young, malleable age, but they aren't pushed away from the general copying, grammar, and memorizing and towards speaking. It makes me really feel like I can make a difference in my private lessons now, and I hope that I will...
On another note, I am legally allowed to stay in Spain until September 20, 2012 now!! The picture is blurry for a reason, don't want no one stealing this ginger's identity!
And my roommate went to London last weekend and brought us Christmasy treats! Obviously I already downed mine...
1 comment:
Will have to get this one to GPeg soon, I'll let you know the feedback.
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