Hey y'all! It's Kelly Anne from AppleSlices. I'm so excited to be guest blogging at ATUE today! I am currently living and teaching in Spain. It has been quite an adventure and I have learned so much about myself, as well as the Spanish culture. Overall, kids are kids and school is school- but there are some very noticeable differences between teaching in the US of A and teaching in Spain! Here are the top ten things I have noticed that surprise me about teaching in Spain! Which ones surprise you the most?
#9: The time schedule is very different. In Spain, most schools make time for a siesta! They have school from around 9 am to noon. At noon, students go home for lunch and a siesta. At 3:00 pm they come back to school and continue until 5:00. This is much different than the schools in the States, which tend to go from 8ish to 3ish.
#8: A "snack" in Spain tends to be a baguette, usually with ham and cheese. Though sometimes they add tomato, or sometimes it's just ham, or just cheese, or the {not particularly} dreaded...just baguette. And no, PB&Js are not a thing here.
#8b: When they do use sliced bread, it tends to be 3 slices not 2. If you ask why, they simply ask why not? To which I have no answer.
#8c: Now I'm hungry and trying to decided between a baguette and a three-bread-slice PB&J.
#7b: If for some reason a student does have a pencil, it won’t be your tried-and-true, yellow, Ticonderoga #2. Nope. It will be a blue pencil that does not have an eraser on the end forcing you to pull out your separate rubber {aka eraser} which will, without fail, be seen being thrown across the classroom at some point during the week.
#6: Spain isn't nearly as dependent on technology as we are in the States. Most classrooms still have their green chalkboards, the lucky ones have SmartBoards, and I have yet to see or hear about any whiteboards. Teaching here, I've realized that I'm a technology dependent teacher. Along with not loving the feeling chalk leaves on my hands after using it, some of the chalkboards are so old that they have become smooth so you can only write on the edges. If you write in the middle, you have to crush the chalk onto the board to get the faintest bit of writing.
#5:The classrooms here are bare. Like, zip, nada, nothin'. I'm used to anchor charts, art projects, and decorations galore. Let's just say that my classroom kind of stands out.
#4: Students stay in one room and teachers move around, even in high school. This probably explains some of #5- teachers don't have their own "space" to get comfortable! It also occasionally leads to a situation where one teacher is late, causing another to be late, and so on, and so on, and 15 minutes later you are still in your classroom waiting for the other teacher so that you can go to your next class!
#3: All teachers go by their first name. No Mrs. or Senorita. If it's not their first name, it's "Teacher".
#1: Touching kids is okay in Spain. You can slap, pull, grab... whatever is necessary. I'm still shocked when I see a teacher tap a kid in the face {no matter how much they did or did not deserve it}. On the other hand, the students touching the teachers is also the norm here. My Spanish kiddos are very kind and affectionate and I receive multiple hugs {and kisses!} from my niños every day!
To celebrate these differences, I've compiled a week's worth of morning work that teaches about other cultures, just for you. You can pick it up for Free <<here>>!
P.P.S..... If you're interested in teaching abroad, check out this blog post for more information!
<<TpT Store>>
<<Facebook >>
0 comments:
Post a Comment