Experiences

Wow! I am blown away by both the similarities and differences from education here in Spain compared to the United States. I am thoroughly impressed with the students' handwriting and level of English. They students' can write in both cursive and print and it is very legible. They receive three different languages here at school, English, Catalan, and Spanish. I am very impressed by their fluency in all three languages. The first thing I noticed when entering the classrooms was that they are very minimalistic. In the United States we decorate our classrooms from wall to wall, top to bottom, but here there are hardly any decorations in the classrooms. Just a few displays of student work and possibly a poster to aide in what they are learning about. I am loving it here so far! The staff has been so welcoming of us and super helpful for things both at school and outside of school.

Spain is such a wonderful place. Everywhere you turn you see something beautiful! The architecture and designs of the buildings are wonderful. I am so excited to explore this city more and more. Our accommodations are wonderful. We each have our own room and bathroom. We are very centrally located and able to venture out at night time to see many things Barcelona has to offer. It is amazing how you can almost always find someone who speaks English so that has been super helpful. The food can be interesting but so far we have been able to find food and restaurants we all enjoy. I'm so excited for the next few weeks!

Today is Friday and the first week at school has been completed. One word to describe my thoughts all week would be amazed. The school grounds are much like a small college. There are four different buildings in which classes are housed and you have to travel outside to go to the different buildings. The playground at the school is not a traditional playground like we have. They have futbol fields to play on, as well as, a few other outdoor areas that include activities such as tether ball and table tennis. Their lunch break is an hour and half. After the students eat lunch they play on the playground for the rest of break time. I am amazed by how well the students can speak Enlgish and how excited they are to learn and work hard. The students are very much responsible for their learning and the teachers set extremely high expectations for them. I have done an about me lesson in which I shared about my life and Kentucky through a presentation. I am very excited to begin teaching these 5th grade students and see what all they can do!

We spent our first weekend abroad in Nice, France. All week long we researched and discovered some wonderful places we would like to visit in the city. We arrived Saturday morning and it was pouring the rain. We were still hopeful and decided to continue on with all our plans. We first got food then just walked around a while in and out of different shops. Even in the rain, this city was beautiful. We took the tram to go visit St. Nicholas Russian Orthodox Cathedral. This was absolutely stunning. The architecture and designs both inside and outside of the building were breathtaking. After that we did some more exploring through the city. Just walking through the streets of the city was an amazing experience even in the rain. The way these building were desgined and colored were amazing. It seemed as if alot of the colors were yellow, which I loved as yellow is my favorite color. We visited a modern art museum later that evening. This was an interesting place. The artwork seemed to be very simplistic. The next day it was pouring the rain again, we went to a nice place to get breakfast and then started on exploring. We did a lot of walking around through shops again. We stopped at Massena Square which had an elegant sculpture of Fontaine du Soleil. Then we started our way to castle hill, this is where you can see the whole city of Nice, and finally it had stopped raining! We found an entrance but sadly it was closed, we assume from the rain. We met two people from Canada who are both studying in Europe, one is studying in Nice. She told us she knew another way so we went on with her. That entrance was also closed but we still got an amazing view and made new friends in the Canadians. We decided to all go get gelato with them which was a very nice time. After that we explored around until it was time to head back to the airport. Even though it was raining most of the time, we still made the best of it and it was overall a lovely weekend!

Week two is over! It has been a wonderful second week. I am still just amazed at both the similarities and differences between the school here and schools back home. One thing that we did this week that was really interesting was a learning walk. The focus for this learning walk was math. We spent 10 minutes in every math classroom, observing the different way math was taught. It was very interesting to gain ideas from different teachers and age groups. It was also interesting to see math taught in the same grade but by different teachers and how the teaching styles differ. I gained many ideas on this walk and discovered ways to make math student friendly that I can't wait to incorporate into my own classroom. This week I also taught an English lesson in which I taught the students comparative and superlative adjectives. I enjoyed this because in different parts of the lesson I let students create their own sentences using these types of adjectives. I loved walking around and seeing the different things they wrote about. On Friday in math, the students in 5th grade get to chose between three rooms to spend their time. One room is going over the material in Spanish to help them understand in their native language if they are really struggling, the second is to go over the material again but in English if they are in the middle, and the last group is an enrichment group where they work on math investigations. I love that the students get to decide what they need that day. The teachers may step in and guide them to the correct room if they think it is necessary. I got to lead the enrichment group which was super fun and interesting to see how wonderful their minds work and different ideas they came up with. My time here is going by so fast but I'm excited for the next week and a half!

Over the weekend we traveled to Milan, Italy. Italy truly lived up to all my expectations. It was just as beautiful as you see in pictures and movies. The only downfall was that it was really cold and I did not pack properly. First, we went to visit the Sforza Castle. As we were walking around, we couldn't stop thinking about what it would be like to live in such a place. It was wonderful. We then made a visit to the cathedral called the Duomo. It was breathtaking. We were able to go up to the rooftop and look around. It is so amazing to me all the detail that was put into the making of this cathedral. We ate some delicious pizza for lunch and then shopped around before our boat tour. We took a boat tour down a canal in the Navigli District. It was not what we expected but still a wonderful view. Then we got pasta for dinner...I must say, my Mimi's spaghetti tastes better than what I had at this restaurant. The next day was very rainy but we still made the most of it and ate wonderful food and a lot of yummy gelato!

It has been another amazing week. This week I was able to teach two lessons. Here at St. Paul's the have a value tree and go over a value each week. This month's value was trust and honesty. I was able to teach a lesson on this value in which I had the students talk through different scenarios of being honest. They also answered different questions about what having trust and honesty means to them. It was inspiring to hear some of their responses to these questions and scenarios. I was also able to lead a reading session in which we read James and the Giant Peach, answered questions, and participated in a little activity where they create a continuation of the chapters that we read. The students are also getting ready for their Christmas program so they were making christmas cards in art and learning a Christmas song in Catalan during music class. This was super exciting to see and hear even though I could not understand what they were singing. The students explained the song to me in English. I also got to tell them about what Christmas is like in Kentucky and for my family which was really enjoyable!

There are many different aspects of the Spanish culture that are different from the culture in America. The cultural aspect that has been the most hard to adjust to is the meal times. They eat all of their meals much later. Breakfast at school is served at 10:45, lunch is at 1:15, and dinner is typically eaten around 8 or 9. In Spain, it is not normal to tip. In America we would tip servers, taxi drivers, vallet workers, etc. but here you do not tip for anything. My bank account likes this aspect. Using Sunday as a rest day is huge part of the culture in Spain. Yes, in America some stores will be closed on Sunday, but here most of the stores are closed. Where Barcelona is a huge tourist city, some places are open but most are not. Where in America, a handshake, hug, or a simple hello is the proper greeting, in Spain it is a kiss. From meeting someone new to seeing an old friend, the greeting would be to kiss each cheek.

We had a three-day weekend so we decided to do all of the tourist things Barcelona has to offer! We started out our day on Friday with a stroll on Barceloneta beach. This was one of the most beautiful beaches I have ever seen. My favorite place to travel is anywhere that has a beach so this was super special for me. After that, we headed over to the gothic quarter, this is the oldest part of Barcelona. It was amazing to see all of the old architecture around this area. The Barcelona Cathedral is there which was beautiful to see. There was a Christmas market being held outside of the cathedral so it made me feel right at home. On Saturday, we went to Tibidabo. Tibidabo is an amusement park that is built in the mountains, around a cathedral. The views from here were breathtaking. We rode rides and ventured around there all day. Loads of fun! On Sunday, we started the day visiting Park Guell, a park designed by the famous Gaudi. The stones used to build this place were truly beautiful. Later on that evening, we went to visit the Sagrada Familia. This is a cathedral which was also designed by Gaudi. The detail used to build this cathedral was amazing. It was such a wonderful weekend exploring around the city we have lived in for a month! By far my favorite weekend.

Our last week is a short one as we head back to the states on Thursday. It has been a wonderful week! On Monday, I got to help decorate and set up for the Christmas program which was so much fun. We decorated the gym and listened to Christmas music. The next two days, I finished up my final observations and spent quality time with the kids. They threw us a farewell breakfast on Tuesday with teachers and other staff which was super sweet. I sure will miss it here! I am definitely missing home but this has been a wonderful experience. I am so thankful for this opportunity and so glad I was able to come on this journey!