La Creativa.

          My all time favorite. I knew I was going to love “La Creativa” or otherwise known as The Cloud Forest School. This school is like no other. I have read all about it beforehand because I was going to do my research project on it but then decided on the theme of “Pura “Vida.” However the Cloud Forest School has amazing, luscious acres of diverse wildlife. The wildlife has all organic matter, all different types of plants and animals. The view from the school is incredible. The interesting part of the school is that most of the students have planted the diverse wildlife and things that we had seen. The students have been taught how to plant, and transfer each part of the plant. Every part of the school was bright and filled with colors. Unlike other schools La Creativa was filled with the work of all students, all their hands had touched and painted the rocks, the walls and the school rooms. The school has 6 different trails which the students hike daily and it’s not a big deal to allow the students to go hiking into the rainforest. The longest trail is 6 hours long and the students have actually completed that hike our guide has told us.

                Edwardo the biology man of the school is actually my host father! I had no idea that he worked at Creativa I thought he worked in construction. I watched him interact with all the students and everyone loved him. The guide told us that his class was the one that was always full and students beg to take his class. Edwardo is amazingly smart and has brought so much to the school. I mentioned earlier in one of my blogs that he and his wife cannot have children and I think working at the school and also hosting students is a great outlet for the family. I know both Edwardo and Mayela would be amazing parents if they had the opportunity.

                I found La creativa to be my all time favorite school. The director told us that anyone who wants to come to their school is able. Most all the schools are naïve, 90 perfect are from costa rica and the other 10 percent are foreign exchange. I think we should have so many more schools like this. Not only is the Cloud Forest School a great opportunity but it’s TRULY teaching our future generations about planting, harvesting how to conserve the environment. We are trying to teach our students here in America about trying to conserve the environment but yet we have millions of cars polluting the air each day, TV’s that stay on with no one watching them. We need to make our future generations awake and more aware. The Cloud Forest School is made up of half Tico and half naïve English teachers which provides the students with a fully bilingual education. One question I find myself asking so much, is why are other countries so aware of the need to speak other languages are in the United States we are not? Whenever I have traveled I have met amazing people who speak multiple languages (not just Spanish and English). I think especially in America we should make our children more aware of the need to know other languages. I know this has been an ongoing debate, why should we make our children learn another language since this is America? Well everyone in America is a melting pot and came from some kind of roots.

                As teachers we could learn amazing things just from the tour of this school. The children were brilliant at this school learning all about the environment, the world and how it applies to their life. They are growing their own crops, harvesting them and recycling every piece of material they have. Compost is something we do in our own back yard. Compost is something so simple that you could do at your school which is cheap and so good for the soil. There is so many ways you could teach children about the importance of the environment. The school runs on very little money and has so many resources. As Dr. Powell was telling us REACH out to alternative people, churches, and local places. People are willing to help if there is a need somewhere.

La Creativa.

          My all time favorite. I knew I was going to love “La Creativa” or otherwise known as The Cloud Forest School. This school is like no other. I have read all about it beforehand because I was going to do my research project on it but then decided on the theme of “Pura “Vida.” However the Cloud Forest School has amazing, luscious acres of diverse wildlife. The wildlife has all organic matter, all different types of plants and animals. The view from the school is incredible. The interesting part of the school is that most of the students have planted the diverse wildlife and things that we had seen. The students have been taught how to plant, and transfer each part of the plant. Every part of the school was bright and filled with colors. Unlike other schools La Creativa was filled with the work of all students, all their hands had touched and painted the rocks, the walls and the school rooms. The school has 6 different trails which the students hike daily and it’s not a big deal to allow the students to go hiking into the rainforest. The longest trail is 6 hours long and the students have actually completed that hike our guide has told us.

                Edwardo the biology man of the school is actually my host father! I had no idea that he worked at Creativa I thought he worked in construction. I watched him interact with all the students and everyone loved him. The guide told us that his class was the one that was always full and students beg to take his class. Edwardo is amazingly smart and has brought so much to the school. I mentioned earlier in one of my blogs that he and his wife cannot have children and I think working at the school and also hosting students is a great outlet for the family. I know both Edwardo and Mayela would be amazing parents if they had the opportunity.

                I found La creativa to be my all time favorite school. The director told us that anyone who wants to come to their school is able. Most all the schools are naïve, 90 perfect are from costa rica and the other 10 percent are foreign exchange. I think we should have so many more schools like this. Not only is the Cloud Forest School a great opportunity but it’s TRULY teaching our future generations about planting, harvesting how to conserve the environment. We are trying to teach our students here in America about trying to conserve the environment but yet we have millions of cars polluting the air each day, TV’s that stay on with no one watching them. We need to make our future generations awake and more aware. The Cloud Forest School is made up of half Tico and half naïve English teachers which provides the students with a fully bilingual education. One question I find myself asking so much, is why are other countries so aware of the need to speak other languages are in the United States we are not? Whenever I have traveled I have met amazing people who speak multiple languages (not just Spanish and English). I think especially in America we should make our children more aware of the need to know other languages. I know this has been an ongoing debate, why should we make our children learn another language since this is America? Well everyone in America is a melting pot and came from some kind of roots.

                As teachers we could learn amazing things just from the tour of this school. The children were brilliant at this school learning all about the environment, the world and how it applies to their life. They are growing their own crops, harvesting them and recycling every piece of material they have. Compost is something we do in our own back yard. Compost is something so simple that you could do at your school which is cheap and so good for the soil. There is so many ways you could teach children about the importance of the environment. The school runs on very little money and has so many resources. As Dr. Powell was telling us REACH out to alternative people, churches, and local places. People are willing to help if there is a need somewhere.

How am I going to affect my students?

Going to CPI has been a wonderful experience here. I have really enjoyed the type of learning that they provide for the students and not only that but also the amazing teachers that they have. Our first week in Herdia we had a teacher named Henry. I have spoken about Henry before but his nonstop comedy and also his style of teaching was amazing. Although I’m aware every teacher is not going to be a comedian keeping the mood lighter I think is better. The first two hours of class was somewhat serious and we took care of things like book work, but then the last two hours of class we did games like Jenga and word play. These games were always related back to our Spanish. The teacher we have in Monteverde also has the same teaching technique and we play the Spanish version of memory or other things the last two hours of class.

I really think this is so important to integrate fun activities into our lessons even though I do not believe the entire lesson should be about how “fun” we can make our lessons. As teachers we are not there to be friends with our students, however; if we can connect with them in a special way through humor and games I believe it makes them much more motivated to learn on a regular basis. Students are in class for up to six hours daily and then come home to be drilled by more homework, which is also increasing each year. For me I want to make my class a place where my students can come and feel as comfortable as possible. I have very at home at CPI and never degraded when I did not pronounce something correctly. This is important because having ELL students the frustration levels are going to rise even higher than with regular students. As Dr. Powell has states, new standards are being put out for North Carolina schools, so as teachers this raises the standards; we have more to teach our ELL students. Coming into a new country is already a culture shock, facing a new territory and now ELL students have to learn a whole new language. This trip has been such an eye opener for me and realizing how students may feel trying to listen to a lesson in English. After listening to my teacher speak in Spanish for about an hour I get extremely tired. The teachers are extremely good about having everyone participate and also using hand gestures. Hand gestures are an excellent way to explain a theme or a meaning when a student looks confused. I feel like I have learned a lot more Spanish just being around my family every night, just because I am forced to understand the conversation. I have really enjoyed staying with my family in Monteverde. My dad speaks differently than my mom and sometimes it’s a little harder to understand. He speaks very quickly and sometimes I look to my mom to get her to translate. My mother speaks very slowly and also uses a lot of imagery to compare and explain thing to me. She loves to explain Spanish terms to me and in exchange I normally tell her the English meaning for things which she also enjoys. So how do I feel like I’m going to affect my student? I feel like imagery, context clues, speaking slowly all have to do with making sure my students are on task and engaged in the lesson.

A blog dedicated to the wonderful people on our trip

We have two guides here while we stay in Costa Rica. Meggie is our school guide and is with while we attend school and local events during the week. Meggie is an amazing young woman from Chicago if I remember correctly. She came here one summer for an internship and fell in love with Costa Rica and now has built a family with CPI and works here translating all day long. Word around the street is two years ago when Meggie came here she could not even pronounce the common saying “Pura Vida.” Pura Vida is the way of life in Costa Rica and necessary to be able to say while living here. Now, Meggie is not only fluent in Spanish, but I could not tell which her first language was when I met her. She now even has Spanish dreams; this is how proficiently her language is progressing. She is always smiling and deals with situations extremely well. Meggie is an excellent guide and a joy to be around.

Javier is the other guide that travels with us. Javier is one of the smartest people I have met in quite some time. He is considered our nature guide. He knows every plant, seed, leave, animal that passes us. And what’s so impressive is that he knows all the Spanish and English names for everything. Javier is so much fun to be around, always joking around and also sets good boundaries for our group. He’s been an amazing guide for us and has taken us all around San Jose, and also Monteverde. We have hiked five trails with him and I’ve seen more wildlife with Javier in three weeks than I have my entire life. My brain contains so much new knowledge! Thank you Javier!

How can we forget Roy. Roy is our dedicated and talented bus driver. Roy has had our life’s in his hands almost every day of this trip, winding around the mountains of La Paz and then continuing to Monteverde. Roy has traveled with our group to each site and then patiently waited for us to finish our daily activates.  Everyone has gotten to know Roy a lot better and also really enjoyed his company on our 3-4 hour bus rides to our activities. Our slogan some of the students have come up with is that “We trust in Roy.” Thank you Roy for your dedicated service!

To the staff of CPI: Students, who are wishing to join this trip, please do! CPI is a wonderful, friendly, warm place to come study. The teachers offer nothing but support and help for you while you attend your classes. There are times when you are going to feel frustrated at your Spanish skills; however the teachers at CPI offer humor to lighten the mood and also great teaching skills. In Herdia we had a teacher named Henry, who I really enjoyed. Henry had a game planned for us each day we were with him. One of the games we played was Jenga, the game had Spanish phrases written on the blocks and once you pulled one out you must answer the question. The classes are creative and go at a great pace that pushes you, yet also does not make you shut down. I would definitely love to see more emersion schools like CPI closer to home. Again as I said earlier in my blog, Meggie our guide learned Spanish fluently in two years. This language building is due to emersion and solely emersion.  

Topic: Spanish Class Frustration and Alligator extrusion

                 I have found that I am much closer with my second host family than the first. I feel so much safer walking around in Monteverde. The entire atmosphere is so different. People say hello to you as you pass by, it is a very small town and the community stays very close. Also a huge difference is that there are no bars outside houses, which means less crime. My host mother is extremely caring and goes out of her way daily to make sure I am comfortable. I found out that she and her husband are unable to have children physically, so I think having students is a great outlet for them to care for people. Both parents stand over me nightly and help me with my homework. They would make excellent parents. My mother, Mayela is a stay at home mother and has never traveled anywhere besides Monteverde; she also tells me that she is very jealous of my world experiences. Edwardo my father told me that he has been on an airplane once but he did not enjoy it and also he would not do it again. They really have no reason to travel beyond Monteverde, everything they need is there in the town. I asked Edwardo whether he preferred San Jose, which is much more urban or Moteverde which is very rural. Edwardo told me he preferred Monteverde because there are no autobuses, less people and it is more tranquil. Not only has my host mom her bought me a beautiful necklace, but also handmade me a bracelet with my name sewn into it. My mom and dad both greet me like family and I feel extremely comfortable here.

We traveled to a lake today to visit our cute friends, the alligator. We viewed them from afar on the bridge. Everyone thought that was our surprise of the day, but to our surprise it was not. We got back on the bus with our amazing bus driver Roy and drove further where we kept seeing signs for an alligator excursion. As we arrived at this small dock everyone loaded into boat where we made our way into the lake seeing beautiful wildlife of every kind. Every child has his or her breaking point and I think the point of this was to in some ways reach our breaking point, not as people but as students. As ELL students or even everyday students we try and learn as much as we can, however; some students may have more motivation than others. We have a common goal as teachers it’s to help our students achieve academic performance. However how this is handled makes a huge difference. Thursday in Spanish class we started learning about a new topic and it was quite difficult for everyone in our group to understand and comprehend. As we learned in class maybe the reason for a child putting their head down is not because they are tired but because they do not comprehend the material. I remember in math class my senior year I went through “learned helplessness” which is where you think you cannot learn a subject and convince yourself you are not able to learn it. I convinced myself I was no longer able to learn math due to my previous test grades and classes and no teacher told me otherwise. As teachers one of the biggest things we need to understand is when a student has hit that point of where they have not only given up but also when it becomes learned helplessness. This is important because we have to work extra hard to strive and help the child learn and understand the material. As the teacher you have to work from the bottom up, from the very first concept. Becoming a teacher is a dream for me, but also I would never want a child to feel like I felt in my math class, so close to tears trying to comprehend the material so desperately but yet it wasn’t working. We want children to strive to learn but yet as Dr. Powell had said also it takes work, endurance, and maybe late nights up studying. Intelligence does not come naturally for most people and even most people who are naturally intelligent struggle in other areas. We want our future generations of children to want to learn and strive to know more.

Santa Elena

8 days left

Our trip is going by incredibly fast and we all have had incredible experiences learning not only academically but street smarts and things we did not know about ourselves. Monteverde although a very safe town you still need to keep your wits about you and stay smart about where you are walking. We went to Santa Elena School Friday and I noticed several things about not only the teaching style but the kids in general. We saw a video of a third grade teacher in Dr. Durrington’s class about managing classrooms and defining chaos. The classroom we saw a video of was considered “organized chaos.” The children were loud and clearly communicating, but also on task and knew the exact assignment they were to be doing. Again this was considered organized chaos; children were on task, but yet loud. In Santa Elena I found that it was unorganized and the children knew what to do, however I observed kids in the back of the classroom way off task (poking each other, menacing with their backpack). The closer it came to be break time the louder the children got. Also even when the teacher was teaching the lesson most children was not engaged and not listening. This is the case in most classrooms I have seen where it’s a large class and the teacher loses the children’s attention. The second thing I observed was the assignment the children were learning was being taught wrong. The teacher was teaching about the family tree and she started with the mom and the dad in one class and then in the older grades she began with the grandmother and the grandfather. The lesson was inconsistent.

Also the classroom had 40 minutes to learn this lesson about their family tree. 40 minutes was not nearly enough time for the students to learn. The family tree lesson included the teacher drawing extensive details of the family (mother, father, uncle, aunt…) and then having the students repeat the names. Then after this the students themselves had to draw and write each family member in their notebooks. I found that three of the students right in my area were getting extremely frustrated trying to just draw the actual tree and had not even started their lesson. I found a lot of things that the teacher could have done differently and also I as a teacher could improve on and in 40 minutes how it’s so important to have your lessons planned out ahead of time. There are many things I observed from Santa Elena when we visited but these were the main points that I pulled out.

1rst day a la escula

Today was our first day at the Spanish schools and at first when we drove on the bus there I was thinking "how in the world are we going to teach a lesson in spanish by ourselves" Teaching the first lesson was so much fun, but also I think everyone was a little nervous. As each lesson went along everyone got less and less nervous and more and more confident. The students at the school were so sweet and also warm. They were extremley quick to take to us and LOVED taking photos with us. They were so sweet and I think everyone really enjoyed getting to know them. As I was there and reflected upon the lesson I thought about myself in the future and also where I want to be down the road. I think I could really see myself teaching in a school like this. I am thinking about possibly switching my major to spanish major. Maybe the fact that I'm having trouble getting into Watson is a sign that I need to switch my major and also my huge pasion is in spanish as well. We will see where the lord leads me in the near future. But I think it was a great decison to take this trip and also Meggy has said great things about Monteverde because it's a completley different atmosphere. Viernes we are going to go dancing with Amber and her mama Tika! It's only 3 america dollars. Should be interesting and quite fun! Anyways all for now. Will def write when I am in monteverde