Se Habla Espanol?

ummmm...yeah...that pretty much sums up my day.

End of blog.

haha just kidding! We all know I would not be able to stop talking that soon!

Well, here's the annoying part of my day: I got called at 8:30 this morning to go to a "pre-primary" class at a school in Keizer. By this time in the morning it usually takes around 30 minutes to get to Keizer from my house...and this job had already started! So I was kinda ticked. One, because it seems that I've been getting a lot of late calls lately, and two, because not only was this late, but with the exception of about 2 or 3 schools, this one is about as far from my house as any in the district! Oh, and just before I hung up the phone the person on the other end said, "oh, and it might be bilingual". So I was like, "oooookay?" And she said she wanted to make sure I was okay with that but that she didn't have any more bilingual subs. I told her that I'm not bilingual but I've subbing in bilingual before so I didn't care.

Well...she was right - it was bilingual, well, actually I would just call it all Spanish. In fact, it was the migrant education program. Took me a while to figure out where I was supposed to sign in...I wasn't on the main school's sub sheet, I had to sign in at the migrant program...and their sign in sheet was different, so I'm going to have check my October paycheck closely to make sure it gets on there.

I felt kinda bad for the lady I met when I came into their office. Right away she asked me if I spoke Spanish! "Uhh...no." Look of "oh drat" on her face. She took me to the room, introduced me to one of the assistants and showed me the lesson plans (in Spanish by the way). And I just stood there thinking...well, this is going to be interesting!

The day's schedule was actually similar to Head Start and Even Start in ways. Both of which I'd done before, so that was a little plus in my favor. The other plus for me (which the aides learned throughout the day) was that I did understand most of the Spanish they were speaking even though I couldn't respond with anything coherent.

Little sideline: Head Start is a program in place in many of the Salem-Keizer schools that offers half-day preschool to children of low-income families. During the Head-Start program students receive 2 meals at school, dental and health screenings, and a "head start" on academic subjects. Students learn letters, numbers, shapes, colors and generally how to interact with their peers and adults in a school setting. Even Start is a program that consists of a pre-school for children aged 6 months through 4 years as well as classes for their parents. The child program is similar to Head Start although geared toward younger ages (many children who "graduate" from Even Start move on to Head Start for a year or 2 before Kindergarten). While the kids are in their school the parents have classes in the building to work on English, GED programs, and various other things they want to work on.

The Migrant program was for children at the age of 4 or 5 and was structured pretty much identically to Head Start. But this program also offered parent classes and work time similar to what the Even Start program did.

So while I maybe wan't that useful today, I did learn some stuff!

There were 2 half-day classes that we had today. Both had 11 students present. The kids were really cute and sweet. I did a lot of pointing and miming to communicate with them, but they were troupers and didn't seem too flustered by having me there. The aide did all of the teaching since it needed to be in Spanish, so I became the aide. I helped kids do projects and I sat with them while they were eating and such.

The break between classes was busy as well. I had to call payroll and then the sub coordinator to get a mistake on my paycheck sorted out. Then I had lunch, and then I had to fill in the lesson plan for tomorrow (not sure why they wanted me to do this - they planned it all, but wanted me to write it in...maybe they weren't comfortable with their English writing skills??), and then I laminated some folders and some other random stuff that I can't remember. At the end of the day they had me filing papers, and cleaning up the little house, and folding paper and on and on and on until it was time to leave. And I didn't really mind doing it, but I was sure tired when the day was over! As of now I'm not going back tomorrow, but I suppose they could call me again. While it's not my favorite thing to feel kinda useless, it wasn't difficult, so I wouldn't be upset to go back.

Oh! And during the day I keep seeing mirrors everywhere I turned. So I decided to count them at the end of the day...and there were 35 mirrors in the room! 35!! It was a big room (actually 2 rooms with the divider pulled open) but still - that's a lot of mirrors! Makes you really conscious of what you're wearing. My pants were too long and my shoes too short.