Once Upon a Helicopter

Occasionally in my life as an educator, I have the opportunity to meet with parents. Some are supportive, some are worried, some are curious. This is not a new phenomenon in education, as research and actual academic positions have materialized at institutions of all levels, everyone asking the same question: how do we deal with parents?

There is a fine line

between hover and smother.

In high school, when you’re a minor, your parents legally and literally have control of your records. Thanks to FERPA (Family Education Rights & Privacy Act) – once students turn 18, their records are their own. Granted, some students fly the coop before 18, but in the eyes of the law, that’s the age of majority.

In college, you’ve supposedly crossed the threshold to adulthood. Not only because the law says so, but because you’re out of the nest (in most cases). Yet even in a student’s early 20′s, you can still find a parent waiting in the wings, not just to cheer them on, but to intervene.

I have always been extremely close to my parents. As an only child, I had all the glory and all the blame – “the dog did it” really doesn’t hold any salt. I made some mistakes, and some great strides, and there were my parents all along: coaching me, encouraging me, raising an eyebrow if I was being an idiot (you know that look). But I was brought up to be independent, and to solve my own problems. If a teacher gave me a bad grade, the question was – what could I, the student, do about it? I could gripe to my parents, and ask for advice, but would not have dreamed of getting them involved. Bear in mind, this is not one-sided. I knew it wasn’t their place to get involved, and THEY knew it wasn’t their place to get involved, as well.

In a recent issue of the Chronicle Review, Terry Castle quoted Craig Lambert’s piece in Harvard Alumni magazine entitled: “Nonstop: Today’s Superhero Undergraduates Do ’3000 Things at 150 Percent.’“

“Parental engagement even in the lives of college aged children has expanded in ways that would have seemed bizarre in the recent past. (Some colleges have actually created a “dean of parents” position – whether identified as such or not – to deal with them.) The “helicopter parents” who hover over nearly every choice or action of their offspring have given way to “snow plow parents” who determinedly clear a path for their child and shove aside any obstacle they perceive in the way.”

Castle focuses on understanding why her Stanford kids are talking or texting with their parents several times a day, and Lambert acknowledges we might have a much bigger problem on our hands.

For me, it comes down to five points:

• Trust – At some point, you have to trust your student to do the work. If they miss the deadline? Their fault.
• Dependence – It’s a beautiful thing when a parent can provide for a child, but don’t forget to bring some work ethic in on the silver platter. How else will they learn?
• Failure – Confucius is credited with the quote, “Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.” Learning from mistakes is a necessity, not a luxury.
• Embarrassment – There is something to be said about the elephant in the room.
• Expectations – No one is perfect. Collaboration is key in managing expectations. Parents often pay the bill, and students do the work. Shouldn’t they discuss meeting in the middle?

Imagine my surprise when a colleague shared the story of a study abroad student losing her luggage. I anticipated some small faux pas that was probably addressed in pre-departure orientation. What I didn’t expect to hear is when my colleague asked her to identify the contents of her bag, the student couldn’t do it: “I don’t know what’s in it, my mom packed it.”

Kids? Pack your own bags. Parents? Let them pack their own bags.

How to learn English

The small classroom was not built to contain thirty boisterous teenagers. I lose track of how many times I ask a question in English and they answer in their native language, Spanish. The inquisitive ones are constantly asking me to repeat things; the disinterested group is somewhere else entirely.

One day a student asks about my macbook – it’s the most interesting object in the room. We strike a deal: if they complete an assignment quietly, they can choose a song from my iTunes playlist. They put their heads down and work hard. Even the disinterested ones are tuned in, under the close watch of their classmates. In the last five minutes of class, we rock out to the Red Hot Chili Peppers… an assignment is born.

Over the next few weeks, pairs of students choose songs written in English. From Yellowcard to the Beatles to Taio Cruz, every Wednesday finds us filling the small room with ballads and jams.  The students bring the music to class, print the lyrics and create listening exercises based on the content. At Christmas I chose “Let it Snow” by Frank Sinatra – the blue-eyed crooner with excellent diction. “It doesn’t show signs of _____,” a lyric true in my native Northeastern US but not so in December in a tiny pueblo in southern Spain.

We found ourselves in conversations about colloquial words and leave the textbooks closed. Bon Jovi has me standing at the board with chalk dust covering my hands, explaining “wanna,” “gonna,” and “ain’t.” We get into discussions about curse words and plurals, slurs and slang.

They dance and sing and make up lyrics; recommend bands and write down songs. They look forward to class. They become more comfortable with each other. They learn English.

Music, film and television are an easy, albeit unfiltered, medium for learning a second language. It brightens a classroom, it encourages questions, it broadens vocabulary. Even if as a teacher, you don’t watch the Simpsons or listen to Michael Jackson – your students might, and they are offering you a great place to start.

–

How do you learn another language?

[ infographic from Kaplan International: http://kaplaninternational.com/blog/how-to-learn-english/]

Infographic: How to learn Englishvia Kaplan Blog

[guest blog] From North to South

This guest blog is brought to you by Natalie of crumbcastle. We met via CouchSurfing in 2010 and became fast friends over food, art and language. As the old ladies of the auxiliares hoard (then 27), we spent a lot of time in observation of our compatriots and our adopted country. Natalie’s first assignment was in Northern Spain: Vigo, Galicia. Her second assignment led her to my own backyard: Andalucía (Aracena, Huelva). Below she shares her thoughts, and original artwork.

Yes, last year was a bit of a disaster. I wouldn’t trade it out for the world, but … it was A BIT of a disaster.

My first year abroad as an auxiliar de conversación had high hopes I would be living in a corner of Spain unknown to most travelers, a place with a rich culinary tradition; I would be learning Spanish, exchanging cultures, gaining a new skill set as an English teacher; I could buy manchego and chorizo in an old supermarket.

cheese with your English?

Galicia did live up to most of these things, but two factors effected them tremendously.

1: my job. Crippling disorganization, miscommunication ran rampant; I anticipated cultural exchange, they preferred to keep things strictly British.

I was once told to talk about Pancake Day… “What is that?”
I asked to show the kids Schoolhouse Rock. “What is that??” (request denied).

Of a staff of about 10, I still think some of them had no idea that my home was an ocean and a continent away. When a girl moves abroad for the first time, a surrogate sense of family really does wonders for her transition. Bless ‘em, I was the first auxiliar they’d ever had; I couldn’t be mad at them, but I could be bummed.

2: the weather. Sorry. I’m a sundress and sandals girl. Winter is “sweater weather”; rain coats, fashionably ironic; sunglasses, a mandatory part of my waitress uniform. I had never gone weeks or months without seeing a bright blue sky and Galicia soon taught me just how much that sky can effect my countenance. I was pretty grey and bleak until the sun finally came out .. two weeks before I left.

If rose-colored glasses make people think everything around them is fabulous, my pair of steely blue ones – no matter how I tried to tear them off – were casting serious shadows over my idea of cultural exchange in Spain.

not so rose-colored glasses

Luckily, in an attempt to turn grey-blue into rose-violet, I enrolled in a Spanish class at the Official Language School in Vigo. These schools are throughout Spain for inspired adults to learn a language.

We were inspired; our teacher, an inspiration. She vetoed the usual plague of flash cards and drills. Instead, she carefully directed what felt like a hilarious, addictive forum for us foreigners to go stumble around Spanish. Somewhere amid the laughter and after-school beers, I learned Spanish and found Spain.

caña? so que es?

… All well and good until the grim morning reminder of my day job. The reason I was in Spain. To renew my job for a second year would mean subjecting myself to another year of students who had no desire to learn any English beyond “toilet please.”

Yes, the possibility was powerful repulsive. At least it was only a POSSIBILITY – I could technically get placed anywhere…

Out of pure, morbid curiosity, I reapplied.

—

You know how sometimes your brain files a memory of a conversation under “Kind of Interesting, Soon to Forget” only later to realize it should have been filed under “Totally Creepy and Foreboding”?

One regular escape from Vigo, I happened to be on the same bus to Porto as my Spanish teacher; we got to talking about my “future plans.” This particular topic has the curious effect of turning my brain into a buoyant cloud, no matter how much I’m sure I could use the advice.

A month later, I had in my hands a teaching placement in an official language school in Andalucía. My teacher’s brief, freakishly relevant advice came crashing back: If you get placed in a language school, don’t even hesitate, just go.

The thing is, it’s really hard to ignore advice once it takes on that creepy forebodingness.

I finished off the year, spent the summer in California .. in search of a job .. in denial .. The hideous .. heart. beat.

By September, the morbid curiosity and creepy foreboding had me boarding a plane back to the scene of the crime.

—

It’s now April. I feel very confident I have stumbled upon a new scientific proof: If plain old curiosity kills, then morbid curiosity must create a nullifying double jeopardy where everyone walks away intact – life, cat and all.

curiosidad del gato

Truth be told, I blame it all on that most Spanish of mystery spirits: duende. I wouldn’t have been lured back at all if I hadn’t caught a glimpse in Galicia of the duende that attracted me to Spain in the first place. That spry little gnome-spirit led me on her chorizo-laden trail, then slacked off .. just so slightly out of reach …

But it’s not every day a duende clues you in like that – Who would I be to give up looking after only eight measly months? I wouldn’t be Uncle Jesse, that’s who.

Turns out I just had to look to the South to find mine – to Andalucía. To Aracena.

Here, I work with people who invite my weird California slang and pumpkin pie recipes. My students, too, are just as eager to learn and share, and I’m fortunate to call them my friends. Best of all, I get to pass on the wisdom of my Spanish teacher: it’s now my turn to lead the random forum of language-learners, to show the fun in speaking and stumbling around English together.

Call me drunk on ham and Andalu hospitality, but I actually love my job.

As for the rain? Well, I can count on two hands the number of days it’s rained in Aracena. This unusual dry spell is the talk of the pueblo. I would celebrate my great weather karma, except that this rural agriculture community I adore needs the rain for ham .. business.

Today, it finally came. I’m looking out onto a grey, dank sky, remembering my time in rainy Vigo – how different it was, how different I am. I put on the boots I bought there last year and head out, glad – READY – for the splash underfoot. Bring on the rain, Spain! This year, I came armed with wool socks. And I learned where my duende lives.

On leaving Spain

a belated farewell from 1 June

I’m sitting in the Sevilla airport all alone. It’s 7:40 in the morning, and possibly my favorite time to fly. Watching planes take off the runway from wide windows, it is peaceful and quiet. Although I woke up in my apartment this morning, I will fall asleep in Prague, Czech Republic. This is the beginning of a 2 week trip in Eastern Europe that I have been planning for months. Fifteen days from now I’ll be back in the United States having breakfast with my dad, reading with my mom, playing with my friend’s new babies and eating as much American food as I can handle.

Monday was my last day at school and it was a good one. I stopped by to see my 1ESO students and they were beside themselves. What do you do when 32 eleven year olds chant your name like a soccer cheer and bang on their desks with their little palms? Me – I laugh. I have enjoyed that class so much this year, and laughing is what we do best. Several days ago they locked me out of the classroom so they could set up a surprise inside. Every student had made a letter or painted one on a shirt and they lined up to spell out: “Kelly We Will Never Forget You <3 !!” How awesome is that?

I had my last official class with 2ESO and when I came down the hall one of my students was loitering outside the door. I’m thinking no way did he get kicked out already when he sees me and bolts back inside, slamming the door behind him. Suspicious! Sure enough when I open the door the room is dark – until someone turns on the lights and my students leap out from under their desks yelling “SURPRISE!” A Sponge Bob piñata hangs from the ceiling and the board is covered with “no te vaya” and “We <3 Kelly.” They are beside themselves about the surprise and the enormous basket of candy they have to give me – the ultimate gift from 12 year olds!

In most of my goodbyes I’ve said “see you soon” – which will be true if I come to Madrid in the fall. So no tears and no sadness, just a sense of .. I’ll be back in a little while. The same goes for friends here from the US – some of us are taking the same end of term trip and will cross paths in foreign cities. Some of us will meet up in the States over the summer, and a few more will reunite in Spain in the coming year.

Walking through the city last night on my way home from the final Final despedida, I take a look around and realize that I love Sevilla. The orange trees and the cobblestones, the Cathedral and my barrio. This comes as no surprise given my long term love affair with Spain and particularly, the South (ya sabes, soy del sur). They have finally opened the garden in Puerta de Jerez and I wonder what it will look like when everything is in bloom. Is that when you know you are truly part of a place – when you consider its future?

It doesn’t feel like goodbye when I shut my apartment door and haul my belongings out into the elevator. It still doesn’t feel like goodbye when my friend drops me off at the airport. Here in the waiting area I’m more concerned with the cute guy a few rows away than I am with the fact that my year in Spain has come to an end. For this reason I am certain that it is “see you soon” and not “goodbye forever.” Spain could not get rid of me if it tried.

Un beso desde Sevilla International,
Kelly

las despedidas

despedida = farewell / goodbye

Our teachers planned a surprise farewell party for Jaime and I this past Wednesday, our last official day teaching together at school. The first clue was a wrapped package from a bakery in the car I rode to school in. I didn’t think anything of it at first because we’re always having cakes and treats in our teacher’s lounge. We picked up the last teacher and she turned around to see the cake in my coworker’s lap. With eyebrows raised she asked, “what’s happening today?” indicating the package. My coworker said, “nothing is happening to me today” and the driver added “me either.” The teacher in question gasped and said, “Oh I forgot! How was everyone’s day?” Suspicious!

When I dropped off some food in the refrigerator, the teacher’s lounge was set up with tablecloths and napkins – pretty festive for the average Wednesday. I spotted a note on the whiteboard that said, “Reminding you all about recess tomorrow!” in my coordinator’s handwriting. Laughing to myself I enjoyed the covert activities going on in the copy room while I myself was trying to make copies for my afternoon classes. I gave Jaime a heads up just before recess, and sure enough our coordinator came to get us to invite us to a coffee upstairs.

A table full of breakfast food and surrounded by our teachers waited for us. We received a most wonderful gift from our students – scrapbooks full of letters and photos. From our teachers we received a Paulo Coehlo book and many kind wishes in our scrapbooks. I was informed that two of my classes did not include letters in the scrapbook because they are planning something else – and knowing them, it is going to be outrageous.

On the social side of things, we are having dinners and lunches and today a city-wide scavenger hunt is planned. Not to mention the end of the world is nigh, so we are making the most of it. I mean, why else would someone jump in the Guadalqivir river??

Check out some of the student notes!

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