My first two weeks at CVIS

I've been at CVIS for 2 weeks already. The time is just flying by! I spend my time with the 5th and 6th graders under the guidance of Jen, the English teacher, and Joel, the Spanish teacher.

In both classrooms students sit on balls instead of

chairs. I find myself using them whenever I can!

Jen is originally from Canada but has been teaching in Mexico for two years. This is her first year at CVIS. She teaches the 5^th and 6^th graders math, science, language arts and English as a Second Language. I am in her classroom all day Mondays and Tuesdays, and Friday mornings. I love being in her classroom because she uses a lot of project-based learning. For instance, right no^th graders are publishing their own poetry books in Language Arts, and last bimester they surveyed students in the school while studying mean, median, mode and range. I am really interested in using projects as a form of assessment in my own teaching because I think it provides students with context and goals, which enhances the learning process tremendously.

Joel is from Mexico. He teaches anything related to social studies and Spanish. This includes geography, history, civics and ethics, Spanish, and Spanish as a Second Language. He has been working at CVIS for a few years, but this is his first year working with 5^th and 6^th graders. Last year he worked with 3^rd and 4^th graders but was bumped up this year. I find the assignment of teachers to grade levels really interesting at CVIS. Because it is such a small school, there is only one English-speaking and one Spanish-speaking teacher per two grade levels. The teachers get moved between grades from year to year for a variety of reasons. I am slowly finding that most of the teachers here have moved around since they began. Joel, for example, was bumped up to the 5^th and 6^th grade because America, the old preschool teacher, wanted to teach older students. She would have taught 5^th and 6^th grade, but couldn’t because her son is a 6^th grader.

Jen and Joel are really great at providing me with opportunities to teach. They are both very open to trying new things in the classroom, which allows me to try out my ideas and grow as a teacher. This week Jen put me in charge of this bimester’s 6^th grade science unit. The unit focuses on what animals need to survive and how they interact with one another and their environment. The final assessment for the unit will be a research project about these themes by looking at a specific biome. It is so exciting for me because it gives me a defined role in the classroom. One of my students actually called me “Ms. Gabriela—the science girl” today as we transitioned into science. It is also great to be able to teach a unit all the way through and be responsible for tracking student progress and learning. This is my first time really getting to do this fully because in my schedule was much more scattered in my practicum experiences. Overall, Jen is really great at scaffolding. She is slowly giving me more responsibility within the classroom. For next week she asked me to choose another subject to teach, this time to the 5^th graders. By the end of time at CVIS I will be lead teaching the entire day. Even though it’s kind of scary, I’m really excited. Planning and teaching all day is what I will be doing full-time next year. So now is the time for me to practice and hone my skill.

It took me longer to jump into teaching in Joel’s classroom. Part of it is because he teaches entirely in Spanish, so I have been adjusting to that. The other part is because his teaching style and training is very different from mine. However, now that I’ve been in his classroom for two weeks I feel like we both understand each other and see that we can learn a lot from one another.

This week I started teaching in Joel’s classroom, but it was more spontaneous than I am used to. I usually plan out lessons days in advance, which is great to do if you have the luxury. But, I am learning that spontaneous teaching and learning can be just as meaningful and educational as lessons that are planned in advance. For instance, this week students were beginning to read the poem “La Higuera” (The Fig Tree) in Spanish class. They were reading and re-reading it, but I could tell they weren’t understanding it. Since poetry is so beautiful and almost musical, I thought about soundscapes from my methods class on integrating music into the curriculum. Joel encouraged me to try it with the class and the students loved it. The soundscapes not only energized them through movement, it also enhanced their comprehension of the poem by giving them a clear purpose while reading. They were motivated to understand the poem so they could add the proper emotion, volume, and movements when they present their soundscapes to the rest of class next week. I cannot wait to see how it all turns out! After this experience Joel and I spoke more about activities we can do with the poem. For next week, we are planning a short field trip to a fig tree. We’re still toying around with ideas but I think we are going to hold a Socratic seminar about the poem, and then have students write their own poems.

Students were responsible for decorating

the walls. This was painted by one of the

6th grade students!

CVIS is such an amazing school. I am constantly learning from the teachers, students, parents, and staff members. Because CVIS is a progressive school there is now “boxed” curriculum. The teachers have standards they are required to teach to, but they have a lot of freedom when it comes to lesson planning. What makes teaching especially interesting at CVIS is that teachers have to teach to both the Mexican Standards, “SEP,” and the Common Core standards from the U.S.

One thing that really surprised me at first was seeing twins in the same class. Because there is only one class per grade, twins cannot be separated. In the United States I have always seen twins in separate classes for school. I feel like in the U.S. there is an assumption that twins should be separated because they will learn better apart and will develop a sense of independence. So initially, when I saw the sets of twins in both my 5^th and 6^th grade classes I was unsure about how I felt. However, now I’m rethinking my views. It’s true that twins end up spending almost all of their time together, but I do not think it hinders their learning at all. In fact, they seem more comfortable because they understand one another and can help each other with school work in class and at home. Joel also pointed out the benefits it brings for everyone involved (teachers, parents, and the students)—such as enhanced communication and stronger teacher-student/teacher-parent relationships. 

Community involvement is also really strong at CVIS—which is very refreshing and inspiring. There are so many interesting people at the school at all hours of the day. Many students’ parents work at the school as administrators, teachers, and staff members. A lot of parents also volunteer in classrooms, just pop in for lunch, or come to cheer their children on during soccer. There are also a lot of volunteers from the community. For example, an man named Jeffrey volunteers to teach 5^th and 6^th grade math every Tuesday and Friday. He is a retired teacher who moved down here years ago, but continues to teach in his spare time. Having such strong connections with parents and the community is very refreshing. With all of the safety concerns in the U.S., in large part due to the school shootings that are becoming frighteningly common, the relaxed “come and go as you please” approach is not something I am used to seeing in schools. But I am glad to see it happening here!

Lice is a huge concern at CVIS. Every week all students are checked inspected for lice. Some of my students even got notifications that they had lice last week! Joel told me that most of the students that get lice are the international students because they are not used to cleaning their hair in this climate. Whenever my students are called out for lice inspection, I get phantom scratches all over my head. I actually thought I had lice this afternoon, but it just ended up being a guava seed that somehow ended up on the top of my head. My heart actually stopped!

I am absolutely amazed at the resourcefulness of the teachers. CVIS is an ecological school. A lot of the parents get upset when their children come home with lots of papers, and supplies are not as available here as they are in the States. For both of these reasons teachers get really creative in the classroom. One of my favorite things I’ve seen are homemade folders from used cereal boxes. Not only are they cute, they are eco-friendly. Students are also very resourceful. They use up their entire notebooks before getting a new one, and usually fill out the entire front and back of a piece of paper. The school really practices the phrase “reduce, reuse, recycle!”

Folders made from recycled cereal boxes.

Cute and functional!