día de unidad nacional (lunes, 6 septiembre)

Today when I got to school I was informed that I wouldn´t be teaching any of my classes until I met with the regional coordinators and my host teacher, Lilia, who I´d been having problems with. The first part of the day I spent in the library. When Mariangeli and Paulina arrived, we met in Lilia´s classroom to discuss the situation and sort out what was going to happen. The meeting started off badly. Lilia had printed out a list of all the things I did wrong and all of the reasons I was a bad volunteer. Among these reasons were that my hair was short and ´unfeminine,´that my pants weren´t hemmed correctly, that I had a few piercings, and that I was short so the kids felt like they didn´t have to listen to me. And the other reasons were downright lies. She said I don´t ever show up to English department meetings, that I am late to class, that I blow off class, and that I have no control of my class (which I do...and I have no idea how she can say that, as she´s never been in my class while I´m teaching). She told Mariangeli and Paulina that I´m not capable of teaching Medio (high school) students, and every time I tried to talk, she cut me off and kept interrupting me. I got very frustrated because I wasn´t even given a chance to explain my opinions or perspectives, or even defend myself.

Fortunately, Mariangeli sympathized with my whole situation, and agreed to have me work with different host teachers. She said it wasn´t worth it arguing with Lilia because Lilia was being stubborn and inflexible anyway. At one point they asked if I wanted to change schools. A huge part of me did (I liked the idea of going to a school where I could wear jeans everyday and not have to take out my piercings or have people judge me based on my appearance), but in the end I decided to stay here because I really liked working with the choir and jazz band, and I felt I´d miss it too much if I left. It´s funny how the choir and jazz band are the only things I really like about my school. I really liked my high school seniors, but I hated working with Lilia. I´m not too sure how I feel about teaching fifth and sixth grade. I´ve never really liked little kids, and sometimes my seventh graders drove me nuts. I hope that once I work with a different teacher, things will get better, and I´m hoping that I´ll like my new students and that they´ll behave.

School got out early today because it´s National Unity Day, the start of Fiestas Patrias. By the time I got home, I had time to go on a short run and take a hurried shower before taking a colectivo to Eduardo Llanos (a public school in Iquique) for our monthly English teachers´meeting. While there I realized that I wish I´d been placed in a public school instead of a subconvencionado (semi-private) school. The meeting was pretty interesting, and I met some other English teachers from the area.

After that I saw Inception (here it´s called Origen) in English with Spanish subtitles. It was really good, and made me think a lot about dreams, reality, and so forth. I hardly ever watch movies, but this one was good, and it was a nice change of pace. However, it really made me miss the times Kyle and I would go to the movies at the theater in Davenport.

written by

Sara Florecita on September 6, 2010 from Iquique, Chile

from the travel blog: año de dos inviernos (Chile 2010)

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