I was so excited to go to my lesson after school, because I knew it would be my last lesson with that family. Earlier in the day I had received an email from the lady in Madrid, accepting my offer to teach her - schedule, price and all! :) And so it was set - I would drop this family, and, in exchange, pick up one third grade boy from my school and a woman in Madrid. I would be teaching four hours extra per month, and making €100 more! :) Yay! Of course, my new schedule would be a little crazy:
Monday: 5-6 pm in La Garena
Tuesday: 5-6 pm in Torrejon then 8:30-10 pm in Madrid
Wednesday: 7:45 - 9:15 in Madrid
Thursday: 5-6 in Torrejon
It's only six hours of teaching, but the amount of commuting all of this would take is five hours in total! But don't get me wrong - I'm excited about it! I can read or blog to do homework on the train without problem. And I'd now be in Madrid two nights a week minimum... Which would mean it'd be economically intelligent for me to get an abono (unlimited transportation pass) again!
So of course tonight I get there, all excited about this, ready for the kids to be a handful as usual, and what happens? Marta greets me at the door with a big smile and tells me I look pretty. Every single other day I have been made to wait outside while she and her brother fight over who is going to open the door, meanwhile it's raining and I'm getting more and more drenched. And then when one of them wins, they shout, "¿¿QUIEN ES?? I respond with my name every time and every time the yell, "¿QUIEN?" Ugh!! So today, to have the girl immediately open the door for me, smiling up at me, and telling me - in English! -- that I was pretty today... Well it was utterly confusing.
I go up to her room and she sits down and says - again, in ENGLISH - "Hello, Chelsea. How are you today?"
O_o What?!?
She then got out her textbooks to start working on what her mom told her to work on (which has also never, ever happened before) and got to work right away, all the while talking to her pencil and eraser in English and doing the exercises perfectly. Then she ASKED if we could play. I told her after she wrote her numbers, and so she did. She got two wrong, and when I corrected her, instead of telling me I was stupid and she'd clearly written them correctly and then refusing to write anymore, she carefully looked at my correction and then tried again and got it right. O_o
And when we did start playing? She played in English!!? She told me to be her teddy bear's English teacher and I taught him numbers, which she overheard and started singing them along with me.
And when it was time for me to go to her brother's room, she politely said goodbye.
What. The. Eff?!
And Carlos was just as good! We went over is chapter in his textbook. We talked. We played football. Marta came in and ASKED if she could play with us. When I told her in five minutes, she smiled and said okay and went back to her room to work on her homework.
It was like they were Stepford Students. It was, in all honesty, borderline creepy!!
And so when it was time for me to say goodbye, I actually kinda felt a tiny bit sad I wouldn't be coming back. I had a brief moment of wondering if I shouldn't quit - if maybe I should just have five students and work with all of them? But alas I decided to stick to my plan. I'll give their parents my roomies' numbers and maybe they can continue with them. One day of angelic kids does not discount the other months of me dreading going there. They are really not as bad as I have made them out to be at times, but when I compare them to Nacho or to teaching an adult who is really motivated and excited... There's just no competition!
It all begins next Tuesday - one week after I first had the thought that maybe it would be possible to quit that job and get another one that would make me happier. And not only happier, but better off financially, too, as it turns out!
I am excited for my next, new adventure in teaching. :)
XOXO
No comments:
Post a Comment