Leaf-cutter ants

Here's a peek at leaf-cutter ants. Usually they carry (you guessed it) leaves that are 3-4 times their body size, but these ones are toting pink flowers. The video is actually from my friend Dana from our day-cation to Las Juntas. She could tell you lots more about these guys, since she spent two months volunteering in Monteverde telling tourists about interesting insects at the Butterfly Garden.



Perhaps the most incredible thing to notice is that these ants make a path, with their little ant legs, from so much walking back and forth.



Gorgeous.

Problem solving

I'm now a month into my second year at The Cloud Forest School, in my new role as the Colegio Academic Support Teacher, working with special ed and ESL students in 7th-11th grades. I've become super-slacker with regards to updating my blog, mostly because in the second semester, I accepted the position of Assistant Director of Academics, with a lot more responsibilities. I've since resigned from that role, wanting to focus more on supporting the progress of my students and growing as an educator without so many commitments. I also want to use this job, as well as friendships and the natural beauty of Monteverde as inspiration for more writing. Keeping this blog relatively up-to-date and picking up more on my writing are both personal goals I have for this year.

One thing I realized about myself last year is that I like identifying and solving problems. But also that I cannot solve all, or really any of them, alone. As trite as that sounds, it was a huge realization, and recognizing this and also the need to focus my energy on tackling one (maybe 3) problems at a time will allow me to be successful and happy.

This lesson, of relying on others to successfully face and meet challenges, was one that Becky and I presented to our 8th grade advisory a few weeks back at the start of the school year. We started with a team-building game where each person got a word on their back and had to find and link arms with the person who had a matching word (i.e. spoon & fork, rice & beans, shoes & socks) without talking. It's not possible to see the whole problem if half of the riddle is on your back, so this is successful when a third person comes and puts two partners together. When we talked about the activity, it was clear that some folks had "cheated" and either looked at their back or whispered to a friend what was on theirs. Diego claimed this was telepathy. Next, we did a trust walk with partners, and then "Magic Carpet", which involved 18 students standing on a VERY large beach towel that my mom left for me when she visited in February (although not super useful for real beach trips, which always involved backpacking and riding several hours in a public bus, this was ideal for team building purposes). They then had to flip it over without anyone getting off the carpet/ginourmous beach towel. This was finally successful only when a "lightning storm" gave 2 students superpowers and the ability to fly (and piggyback another 2 students), but pulling each other together into a tighter group and cooperating made the task easier. So, in our discussion at the end of advisory, we asked some questions about how they solved these problems that they were presented with and what they could take away and apply to other problems, expecting answers like teamwork, cooperation, communication, etc. But, my favorite responses were: telepathy and lightning.

Growing our library

As part of our planning for improving the English curriculum in the colegio, we are also looking at growing out the colegio English classroom library, which was largely built when the high school was still growing and classes were 4-5 students. Now classes are as large as 22. Currently, Tracy uses the available resources and runs her class as a series of reading groups. We would like to be able to read some texts as a full class, with the ability to have shared conversations. If you're able, please consider donating a book on our wish list online or giving requested titles that are collecting dust in your library to me when I return home for Christmas (in just one week!).

Why teach English?

As I'm wrapping up my first semester teaching at CEC, I am looking back at these past few months and forward into planning for next semester. Which has me revisiting the question “Why do we study English?” The first day of class, I asked every student to answer this question along with some others as part of setting goals. The seriousness of their responses was a bit surprising. Pamela, a 7th grader, wrote: “Quiero aprender inglés porque es muy importante para hoy en día. Si uno no sabe inglés, no es nadie.” Which translates: “I want to learn English because it is very important for today. If you do not know English, you are no one.”

Now I am working with our colegio English teacher Tracy to plan how to incorporate the ESL students into the colegio English classes, and also rethinking our goals, as teachers and as a school, for teaching English.

So, why DO we teach English at a school in the cloud forest of the Tiliran mountains of Costa Rica? It's clear that many students and their families choose CEC because of the opportunity to really learn English. With the year's tuition equal to a third of an average salary in the region, that choice is even more telling of the value which families place on this skill. I think it's clear that knowing English is a way of increasing job opportunities, especially in the Monteverde region where most jobs are found in tourism and biology research which require interacting with many English speakers. In fact, with the amount of English spoken in Monteverde, it can feel like a rural community in the U.S.

Beyond that, I think that knowing the English language gives students access to new ideas and perspectives, both through communication with other English speakers and through literature. The study of English expands students' world view and understanding of history and helps them to develop an appreciation for cultural differences.

Side note - the Costa Rican Ministry of Education requires that students take an English exam along with other subjects in order to graduate. This test is a 70-80 question multiple choice test with comprehension questions based on a series of short (less than 200 word) texts, such as an email to a tourist with recommendations for planning their trip to Costa Rica, or a description of an English class, or a conversation between a ticket agent and a customer buying a train ticket from NYC to DC. Although this test is not comprehensive, I think it shows a recognition of the importance of knowing a second language and a national attempt to prepare graduates to participate in a world that functions in languages other than Spanish (and often in English). I want us to go beyond the basics in what we're expecting of our students.

Working from my ideas and conversations with others, I have created an outline with ideas for developing the colegio English curriculum around 5 different themes, one for each grade: identity, voices, culture, justice and the environment. And I have ideas for titles to consider with each of the themes. I've heard folks say that anyone can teach English, especially ESL abroad, so long as they know how to speak the language. While I disagree, I do think that I can create a much stronger curriculum using contributions from others. And I think that everyone has useful ideas about interesting books and movies. I'd love to have your input. You can email me suggestions for titles or ask to look at the Google doc.

Pretzels and photos

I made pretzels with my 7^th grade ESL students the other day. Since they had never heard of them before, it was completely fine that we didn't have pretzel salt and the oven and yeast weren't really working. They had a lot of fun covering their hands with flour and twisting the dough into shape, and so long as the final result was warm fresh-baked goodness, I think everyone would have been happy.

A volunteer who is making a video about our school was one of several folks to walk in the kitchen as we were pretzeling, and she asked to take some footage, which was definitely a lot of fun. I also had my camera and had taken a few shots of dough and smiles.

Then I thought about pictures. That decision that, yes, this moment is worth capturing and sharing with others. I remembered a conversation I overheard between a student inviting a volunteer to climb a strangler fig a short walk from school, and she replied, no, I don't have my camera. Like it wasn't worth the trip if you couldn't document the experience. Which is clearly silly.

I think of all of the moments that are just as—and often more—important than students posing with pretzel dough. Like Beatriz's look of concentration as she described the super strong wind with her growing English skills, retelling how she saw a bird thrown against the 'Perro Negro' hill coming from school. And her smile when she was through and could see that I understood her meaning. Or Luis and Freddy wrestling each other to the ground to reenact a bear catching a fish in a story we read. Or Anna standing on a chair and singing 'All I Want for Christmas is You' into her hairbrush to cheer up a friend. Or one of many stray dogs that came into the bar/lounge Moon Shiva and fell asleep on Bethany's lap. Those moments I wouldn´t want to interrupt by taking out my camera or happen when I´m not carrying it, but I often wish I could blink my eyes and have them work like the shutter of a camera so that I could share the things I see with others.

¨Change you can believe in¨

At midnight left la Colina Lodge where were watching the election returns and then McCain´s and Obama´s speeches. And it was one of the few cloudness nights we´ve had here in Monteverde. Gorgeous. Had a feeling of openness, new possibility, positivity. Can´t write more than that now because time for classes.

Halloween

This year Halloween involved costumes, sharing Reese's and spider rings sent by my mom, reading “The Tell-Tale Heart” with my ESL students, dancing with Chancos del Monte (rock band that includes the school's board president), an international teachers' party with 'bloody' toilet paper streamers, and pumpkin cookies that Anna and I made with super cute Martha Stewart cookie cutters that Jenn brought back from the States.


Good times. But one of the most interesting things was the reaction the Halloween celebrations got from many Ticos and questions it raised for me about the origins of the holiday and why we celebrate the way we do. I was repeatedly told that it was a Satanic holiday. One person said she really wanted to go to see the band at Bar Amigos, but would not because advertised as a Halloween party, and did not want people to think that she worships Satan or had anything to do with Halloween. I explained my vague understanding of the word “Halloween” originating from “All Hallow's Eve” or “All Saint's Day”, a Catholic celebration and that the holiday also takes some traditions from pagan (Druid?) harvest festival (celebrating lots of food...eating candy). I realized that I'm really not sure myself what we're celebrating or why. Interesting side note, the Spanish translation is “Día de las Brujas” or “Witches' Day”, which may partially shape (and/or reflect) how the holiday and it's celebrations are perceived by Spanish speakers.

Which is not as interesting as the staff meeting on Wednesday, when Anna asked whether students should be allowed to wear costumes to school, and led to a debate that ended with the decision not to celebrate the holiday in school. Tico teachers said don't celebrate because not part of Costa Rican culture. But students know that it exists, because of television and tourists/expats (bars advertise costume parties for us gringos). The only reason folks would want to wear costumes is to show off how much money they have. Or (for high school girls), to show off their bodies. And school has a policy against junk food. And that many parents see holiday as a Satanic celebration and would misinterpret our allowing students to wear costumes, so would need to explain why celebrating, but that would be difficult to communicate beforehand, and better to not recognize Halloween, but possibly have a costume day at some other time during the year since dressing up can be fun.

I wonder why we don't use this as an opportunity to teach about U.S. culture, offer a different view of U.S. culture than Disney channel, have U.S. students share experiences, learn a bit of history, consider religious influences on holiday, talk about what is scary, why people like being scared, why people like disguises, and so on. In my ESL class, I asked students to interview a U.S. student or teacher about how they celebrated Halloween in the past and plans for celebrating in Monteverde. I shared my favorite candy (Reese's sent by my mom), and we read a scary story or read about “ghost hunting”. And I know that could create more interesting Halloween-themed lessons with more thought and planning. I think it is a shame to ignore an opportunity for cultural exchange like this, and want to think about how we could celebrate as a school next year (starting the conversation earlier than 2 days before).