Home Sweet Home at Altamira Elementary.

This morning I made my bi-weekly two hour visit to Altamira Elementary. I look forward to the Tuesday mornings I spend there, for a couple reasons that I would like to explain in this blog entry. 

Altamira is a pretty basic school. It's more or less the same as the other 3 primary schools I've been to in the sense that it is not really too big (1 class of each grade), it has more than one floor, it has a super small fenced in concrete play area with no trees, it's not too colorful...pretty much just an average Spanish public school. But besides its very different appearance compared to a Canadian elementary, Altamira has been by far my favorite school to be in. 

The staff room at Altamira is really tiny, just one small table that sits 6-8 people, and some shelves for teachers to keep their things in. They have a typical coffee vending machine that spits out horrible coffee, and a small microwave. The room speaks for the size of the faculty. I'm going to have to double check, but don't think the number of staff there is any higher than 15. Although there aren't many of them, the teachers at Altamira are amazing. Every recess they pile in around the table with their nasty coffee and have a great chat about any sort of thing that pops up. I especially like that Fernando, the principal, is present every day (or at least every second Tuesday when I'm there!) around the table. I also love that even though they don't all speak English, they always say "hello!" to me in such a happy voice as they walk in. 

One particular teacher I've loved working with is Clara. I'm with her in the grade 1 class for the first of my two hours there. In my opinion she is an excellent teacher, and someone I feel I can really learn from, since I can see myself actually using a similar teaching style. What is amazing about her teaching (besides the fact that these 6 year olds can produce more English than a large percentage of the Grade 12s) is that she speaks completely in English during the class, and they really understand her! On top of that, she's patient but not a push over, follows daily routines but is flexible too, and controls the class but isn't too strict or mean. She is 23 years old and is exactly the type of teacher that kids deserve to have (I'm not saying all elementary teachers are bad, she is just great!) The sad thing is that because of the messed up civil-servant system (so, so, so ridiculous) Clara won't even be teaching at Altamira next year, she'll be sent to some other school somewhere in Castilla y León province. Que pena...

Another thing I really love at least about the English section (bilingual program) at Altamira, is that they don't use English textbooks. I haven't blogged about this textbook phenomenon here in Spain yet, but to give an idea, kids, starting at the age of 6, usually have a text book for every class. They aren't like ours were (hardcover, low-quality pages) they are thin, colorful, beautiful books that parents have to pay for out of their own pocket. I could see this being a good investment, if the books were used properly, but they aren't. What ends up happening in most cases, is the book is used as the primary, and the only teaching resource. Teachers don't need to do any planning at all for their classes, because the included "teachers manual" tells them EXACTLY what to do for every since page/lesson/unit/minute of the class. Therefore, any person capable of reading and saying "open your book to page 54" could be a mediocre teacher over here. No education required. Pfffttt.. On top of that, the students themselves use them incorrectly, by doing ALL of the exercises in the eeny meenie spaces left that aren't actually meant for the answers, since the questions should be done on a piece of paper or in a notebook. The real problem is that these books are not cheap. They probably cost at least 30+ euros per class and students here take 10 classes per year. That's at least 300 euros gone virtually to waste. Therefore I completely support Altamira's no-book opinion because it forces teachers to work together within their departments, to plan their lessons, and to actually consider the students level/knowledge/understanding. 

The last thing I really love about Altamira, is that I can feel a strong sense of community there. I believe that it is the responsibility of the principal to incorporate that into to the minds of the staff and the students, and to make sure that everyone has the best possible experience at work/school. I think Fernando has done a great job of this, by being present in the classes and also in the staff room at break time. It makes a big difference to see him when I'm there. Also the fact that he is always interested in having a chat, finding out more about me and sharing things about Spain's culture and language with me has made a really good impression on me. 

Overall, I felt pretty sad that next Monday will be my last visit to Altamira. Luckily I've been invited on Friday to their school party day, where I've also been asked to be a judge in the pastry competition. Clearly they already know me too well. :) I'll be sure to take lots of pictures while I'm filling up on goodies!

This is the grade 1 class with me and Clara on the sides

This is the grade 3 class with their teacher Laura