Hasta luego...

I'm currently writing this final blog post on the train to Madrid. I have said my goodbyes to my students, the teachers, Maria Auxiliadora school, my host family, and Caceres. Talk about an emotional past two days!

Yesterday after school and my last tutoring session, I spent the entire evening walking around Caceres buying last minute things (gifts for teachers/students, my sister's graduation gift, thank you cards, and some more ingredients for the chocolate chip cookies that I made for today. I spent about 2 hours walking around trying to find everything. When I came home, I had exactly one hour before I had to be my cooperating teacher's house for dinner. So in that one hour, I had to bake enough cookies for the teachers and the students in my English immersion class, using a small conventional oven. Lola and Susana helped me. Susana cut up pieces of chocolate from the chocolate bars (it's ridiculously hard to find milk chocolate chips here), Lola started mixing ingredients together as I converted the recipe to the metric system and told her what to mix and how much. Then we would put about 6 cookies in the oven at a time. It took a lot of effort from everyone involved in that small kitchen, but we made about 50 cookies in under an hour, and they were some pretty good cookies if I do say so myself. 

Then at 9, Paige and I went over to my cooperating teacher's house where he and his girlfriend cooked dinner for us. We had salad, tortilla patata, fish, and some of the most delicious cheese I've ever eaten. Abraham entertained us a little on the guitar, I played a little piano, and we watched 'Friends' in Spanish. It was a wonderful last dinner in Spain! Paige and I got home around midnight, and I still had to pack. You could say I'm a little tired today. 

This morning, I woke up and got everything together - the presents, the cards, the candy, the chocolate chip cookies, and of course I had to make the Nutella/peanut butter dessert. 

Over the past 8 weeks, I've spent most of my time with a 3rd grade class and a 4th grade class. I said goodbye to the 4th graders right before break. We exchanged gifts, gave lots of hugs, and I'll admit there were a few tears. Okay, lots of tears. 

The 4th grade teacher and me on my last day

During break, I shared the desserts with the faculty and almost everyone asked for both of the recipes. Most of the teachers just asked me to send them the recipe when I had time, but one of the teachers wouldn't let me leave until I wrote the chocolate chip cookie recipe in his phone. 

I was with my 3rd grade class for the last hour of the day. This is the class that I've spent the most time with and so I knew we would have an emotional last class. At the end, the students came up to me one by one and gave me either a letter, a picture, and/or a gift of some sort. I told them about "the 3 H's" of ways that students say goodbye to teachers in the United States - hugs, handshakes, or high fives. After saying goodbye to each student, Abraham told them to give me "uno abrazo grande" and they all surrounded me in a circle, hugging me and each other until we nearly fell over. No hay palabras para eso momento de mi vida. I will never forget today.

Giving me their cards and "gifts" (This girl gave me something to give to every member of my family)

The best part of the whole day.

I taught one more English immersion class this afternoon from 4 to 6. During my last class, I brought chocolate chip cookies and popcorn. I told the students that they could bring a snack or drink if they wanted and I made sure that we would have a fun and happy last day. We made a poster where they wrote their favorite things about the English immersion class and then we spent the remainder of the class watching "Mr. Bean" and "AFV" and described what was happening in the videos in English. At the end, we gave a lot of hugs, took lots of pictures, and exchanged mailing addresses so we can keep in touch.

Enjoying their popcorn and cookies!

my 5th and 6th grade English class!

This girl wants to be an English teacher :)

You could say these last two days have been incredibly busy, a little stressful, and very emotional. Saying goodbye to Lola wasn't nearly as sad as it was two years ago. She told me she's not as sad since she knows she'll see me again in the near future because she knows about my future trip to Europe and my love for Spain and for traveling.  

This unique student teaching experience has not been what I expected it to be in the slightest; however, I'm glad for that. Because of this experience, I now have closer relationships with Spaniards, better Spanish-speaking skills, memories that I will never forget, and I know that my time at Maria Auxiliadora has changed the school, the teachers, and the students for the better, in some way or another. And that is why I love being a teacher. 

Now I'm going to respond to some of the most frequent questions that I've been asked over the past 8 weeks about my experience here. 

Which student teaching experience did you like more? Iowa or Spain? I didn't like one experience more than the other. They were both so very different so it's hard to choose one. My experience in Iowa was definitely more time-consuming. I was constantly planning lessons, writing on chart paper, grading papers, writing reflections, and getting no sleep. In Spain, it has been far less time-consuming; however, it has been more challenging due to the language barrier. There were times when I was really frustrated with how much Spanish I didn't know, and teaching in Spanish at first was very challenging because I didn't know all of the vocabulary and I didn't want to teach by reading from a paper. However, one thing that I've noticed throughout my field experiences, practicums, and both student teaching placements, is that kids are kids. Kids are so great no matter what grade they are in or what country they live in. They love you as long as you love them. 

What has been the most surprising part about this experience? I think the most surprising part goes back to my very first day, walking into the classroom,  and having somewhat of a culture shock. All of the classrooms are so bare compared to the U.S., the students sit in rows, they have workbooks for every subject, and in general, there is not much classroom management. I had never seen anything like it since I started studying Elementary Education 4 years ago. 

Has this experience helped you decide what you want to do in the future? This experience hasn't helped me decide what I specifically want to do; instead, it's helped me realize that I could be happy doing many things. When I had my first practicum experience in Kindergarten, I thought for sure that I wanted to be a Kindergarten teacher. Then I had my second practicum in 4th grade, and I wanted to teach 4th grade in future. Then after teaching grades 3, 4, 5, and 6 throughout this entire semester, I've come to realize that I think I would be happy teaching at any grade level. No matter where I teach or what grade, I know that I will be a good teacher and that's what's more important. However, I do feel more comfortable with my Spanish, especially classroom vocabulary due to this experience, so I might be leaning more towards teaching Spanish vs ESL. 

What has been your favorite part about this experience? I really really enjoyed my English immersion class because I was able to make it my own. I used numerous ESL ideas from my classes at ISU that the students had never experienced before. Speaking of trying new things, another favorite part was trying some classroom management strategies in the classrooms. For example, using wait time instead of yelling at the students to get their attention, doing experiments and projects instead of using workbooks, etc. Giving the students new learning experiences was probably the best part. 

Do you plan on returning to Caceres? I have a trip planned to Europe this summer/fall with my best friend and our last stop is Madrid. I can't see myself not visiting Caceres. I really do hope to come back for at least a day or two. Not only to see Lola and my host family, but now I have to return to see my students :)

PS - I'm posting this blog from 33,000 feet in the air en route to Iowa! See all of you fellow Iowans soon!

PPS - Thanks to anyone and everyone for taking the time to read this blog over the past two months! Maybe there will be more blogs in the near future... :)

Shea

Bittersweet

I can't believe how quickly these past 8 weeks have gone. I'll catch you all up on what's been happening this past week, then I plan on writing one more blog post on my 4 hour trip to the airport Tuesday night! A lot of you have asked many questions throughout the past 8 weeks about my experience here and I plan on answering them all in my last blog post. So if you want to know anything else about my experience here, ask away!

As for this past week, it's been very bittersweet. The students know that my time at the school is quickly coming to an end and some of their recent comments, notes, pictures, and hugs have brought tears to my eyes. For example, at my English Immersion class on Thursday, a 6th grader waited around for me after class as I cleaned up. She gave me a hug and told me that she wants to be an English teacher just like me someday. As a teacher, I have experienced several touching moments like this and these moments are little reminders of why I love teaching.

Speaking of my English class, it has been one of my favorite things about this experience. I've definitely learned more about ESL by teaching this class. I've probably tried about 20 different activities with them; some of which I've made up on my own, some of which have completely failed, and some of which were very successful. Thursday was a fun class. For the "Icebreaker", I brought a roll of toilet paper and told the students to take as much as they wanted from the roll. For every sheet of toilet paper they took, they had to say a sentence in English (but they didn't know this part of the game before they took the toilet paper). It was funny because the sweet girls in my class took anywhere from 2-6 pieces from the roll, but the crazy boys took close to 20-25, and I knew they would happen (because they're boys and they like to funny) so when they found out what they had to do with the toilet paper, they regretted taking that much. :-) During last ten minutes of every class, we listen to a song. I decided to teach them the "Cha Cha Slide" in both classes and this was such a good idea. There are so many commands in the song such as "slide to the left", "reverse", "hop 5 times", etc. They loved it!

Last week in Math (with 3rd graders), I taught about "Volume". This was a fun lesson for the kids, but there's a little bit of a funny story that goes along with it. To introduce the lesson, I was going to have a student come to the front of the room and fill a cup with rocks so that the cup was "completely full". Then I would ask the class if it was full. Next, I was going to add some dirt/sand to the cup to fill in some more spaces and ask the class again if the cup was full. I was hoping that this time they would say no, and my plan was to ask what we could add to the cup so that it would be completely full (water). Well, that morning on the way to school, I was going to pick up some rocks and dirt/sand. I found some rocks and sand next to my apartment that I thought would work perfectly. I put the rocks in a bag and I scooped up some of the sand in my hands and added it to the bag. As I was doing this, some woman started yelling down from her window. The only thing I understood was, "What are you doing?!" And since I didn't feel like having a conversation with the woman (who seemed a little upset), I decided to quickly walk away and go to school. On my walk to school, I noticed that something smelled funny. Then it hit me. I smelled my hands and realized that it was not sand that I scooped up with my hands; it was cat litter. And the woman who was yelling at me from her window was probably "the crazy cat lady" that lives next door and feeds all of the homeless cats every day. Whoops.

This past Wednesday, we didn't have school because it was "Labor Day" here in Spain. So everything was closed and we spent the day outside in the beautiful weather and then Susana, Lola, Maria, and I had "craft time". The day before, we went to the store to buy canvases and paint. I found out that Lola is actually a pretty good artist!

Hard at work

The final product!

On Thursday night, my director here, who is also the director of the Study Abroad program (so I knew her two years ago), invited me to the goodbye dinner for the study abroad group. We actually went to the same place that my group went to for our goodbye dinner, so it was a little weird being there again, in the exact same spot, eating the exact same food, but with different people. The professors were also invited to the dinner and there were two professors there that I had two years ago! I went over to talk to one professor and I asked if he remembered me. He said he thought I looked familiar but couldn't remember my name or which class I was in. I told a couple stories about some things that happened during his class (one of them being the time when there was a bat in our class) and then he remembered me! So of course, I had to get a picture with him.

At dinner with the ISU study abroad group

My former professor, Enrique!

On Friday, I went to my first movie in Spain, "La Gran Boda" ("The Big Wedding"). The movie itself was horrible, but it a fun experience going to the movie theater here and watching a movie in Spanish!

Friday night, Elizabeth came to visit. Elizabeth lived here when Claire and I lived here two years ago. She is currently teaching English in Cordoba, Spain, and she came to visit for the weekend. It was fun seeing her again! Last night, Lola, Susana, Elizabeth, and I went out to eat for my "goodbye dinner" and the food was incredible. Wine, cheese spreads, bacalao (cod) with eggs, and croquetas. Then we ended the dinner with the most expensive dessert on the menu. After dinner, the four of us went to 4-5 other bars and danced the whole night. It was the best way to spend my last Saturday night in Caceres!

Elizabeth and me at dinner

The four of us at the San Jorge church in Caceres

Today, I'm going to try to make enough chocolate chip cookies for the teachers at school and the students in my English Immersion class using a small, conventional oven. I have a feeling it's going to take FOREVER. Then I plan on spending the rest of my day packing since I won't have any time to pack tomorrow or Tuesday. I'm teaching my last class until 6pm on Tuesday and then my train leaves for Madrid at 7pm! I can't wait to see you all in just a few days!

Hasta pronto!

Shea