adjustments, adjustments...

Oh dear lord.

Two major things that have come up this week that I will have to get used to (again - as in differently from the way I adjusted to these things my first time here):
1) Men hitting on me (what??)
2) The Spanish education system (which sucks bollullos - that's a nod to Ms. Bethany, my own personal Edina Monsoon)

The bit about guys hitting on me is a slight exaggeration. But seriously, it does happen more often here that someone you barely know, who happens to be male, shows more interest in you than any nearly perfect stranger would if he weren't trying to get something out of it. No one's grabbed my ass. But I have experienced a spike in the number of men offering to accompany while I walk somewhere (once this oldish guy who literally backtracked to start a conversation with me - that was just weird. Obviously I politely declined, explaining how my ::ahem:: non-existent friend was expectng me.)

The Spanish education system, however, is no joke. It's poorly organized, entirely lacking in methodology and logic - and they have no problem with berating the children all day long. Once again, I exaggerate. SLIGHTLY.

In my past 3 days of work, I have worked mostly with the 6 and 7 year olds (1st grade equivalent). They're still just out of preschool more or less, and they aren't used to the rules of a schoolday: they just want to play! And instead of this being understood and dealt with in the classroom with understanding, the children are ordered to sit still without talking for most of the day, though of course, THEY CAN'T - they get up, talk to each other, shift around - -and in response, their teacher yell tell them they are ill-behaved, that they will not be doing the fun activities planned for them NO they will sit still and uiet for 5 minutes without moving. They are monsters, they are horrors. They are stupid.

It isn't like this every moment of every day, but the frequency of this kind of interaction in the classroom, and the general way that the teachers speak of their students as being incorrigable and willfully disobedient, deserving of punishment, is just... disheartening.

It's my pesky liberal, alternative pedagogy education that makes this so hard. The teachers here seem to think about this situation: "no hay mas remedio," or, there's just no other way to make it work. I know that this isnt true. But what do I say? Yes there is, it's jsut a simple matter of rehauling your entire educational idealogy? Good fucking luck.

And then there's the kids. The littler ones I work with (5 and 4 years old) don't understand a single word of English. "hello", maybe, but even that's a stretch. I actually cried in front of them last week, because I was given a group of 10 or so to handle on my own, and I couldn't get them to even understand "Sit down", "be quiet", let's play a GAME." They don't know SIT or GAME. And yet the entire class is supposed to be taught by speaking to them ONLY IN ENGLISH. WHAT???!!! it amkes no sense. And the teachers are entirely unprepared to deal with the challenge as well. The program is a total farce - my one day of orientation was basically just a meeting where a bunch of diplomatic representatives were like "Have a good time!" and then we signed some paperwork for our residency permits and were allowed to leave.

It's all ridiculous. And I just sort of have to deal with it. But I'm trying to do it in my own way, although I'm still figuring out what that means. Certainly it means not being one of the teachers that yells and cajoles. I stay out of that. A stern look and a pointed finger is the worst they've gotten from me.

So the last week or so has been a lot of coping. It's not all horrible - I like my kids that i'm working with and I do have hope that they will make progress. Sorry for a lot of update packed into one entry, guys, but there's been so much going on in my head that its taken me this long to get it out - and it just keeps building up.

Anyway, I'll save some of the other details of life in Spain for another entry. So stay tuned!
BESOSSSSSSS