Saturday, April 26, 2008

Casa Abierta....AAAAH!!

Well- it's been a while since I've updated.. but they say pictures are worth a thousand words, so I've added all my new pictures on links on the right. SO, here's the story of the Open House that we just had. Thankfully, this story has a happy ending, but I was really not sure that was going to happen at first.

Well, about two weeks ago my boss told me that I had to do an Open House, so I was like "fine." And she asked me what I wanted to do and I explained, well, my fifth graders are writing personal narratives, so I can have those typed up and put up on the wall, and my older kids were making posters, so we could get that going... and I trailed off as she was looking at me like I was out of my mind. "No Margaret. You can not do that. You can have different stands for each of your grades where the kids can explain something. Your kids could dress up like animals and you could turn the room into a zoo!" This time I looked at her like She was crazy. "Or," she continued, "They could dress up like different world cultures. Alexandra Chuva is doing a Casa de Terror- how do you say in English?" I said: "Haunted House. Um, Adriana, I have no idea what this is. We don't do this in the states." She was surprised. "You don't have Open House in the United States?" and I said "Yeah- but it's more for the parents to come in, see some of the kids work and talk to the teacher-- there's no presentation really." And she said "Oh- okay, then just work with the 5th graders. You could have them dress up like animals and turn the room into a zoo!!" (Again). Also, she said that I would have to work with all the kids who weren't signed up to be in an open house yet for English. Realize, I only work with half of the fifth graders (there are 30 students, I have 14 in my class).

So, the next week she asks me "Margaret, what happened with the Open House?" (Everything she asks me begins with "What happened with..." it always freaks me out.) I told her I didn't know. She asked if I had an idea yet, and I told her I was thinking about doing play set in a restaurant and the kids could bring in food. "No." she told me. "What happened with the zoo? You could have the kids dress up like animals and be a zoo." I told her I still wasn't feeling that idea. So she said "Okay. You will have them explain Indigenous Cultures of Ecuador. They will dress up in Indigenous disguises (she meant costumes)" and she gave me a stack of information (in Spanish) about Indigenous cultures.

Then, the Monday before Open House I still didn't know which kids I was supposed to work with, so I sent representatives to some teachers and they gave me a list of kids I was obligated to work with. The other teachers had chosen 4 or 6 of the best students in the grade, so the 18 that were left over were obligated to be in my class. 13 of these 10-year-olds, by the way, were kids I'd never met before, and were the biggest trouble makers in the class. So I gave them some things to memorize about Indigenous cultures, and my boss came in. "Margaret, what happened with the parents?" "I don't know Adriana, what happened?" "Margaret, you need to ask them to help you. They will help you very much. I remember last year when these kids were with Patty Leon and they all dressed up like zoo animals and made a zoo." Although that was funny, my kids were LITERALLY kicking desks across the room for fun, and I freaked out. I told her "Adriana- I don't know what to do! I don't know what to ask, I don't know what to have them do, I don't even know these kids! I NEED HELP!" and she said "Margaret, don't get upset. I have things to do right now." and left. At that point, I turned around and saw one 10 year old flipping off another one. Then the bell rang, I took the kid to the principal, went back to my room, and I cried cried cried. The problem is that I knew there was this big presentational expectation, and I had no idea how to do it. I felt horrible.

Luckily, the next day (4 school days to Open House) two teachers pulled me into my bosses room and figured out everything I needed to ask the parents to bring. They ranged from construction paper to "Ask Jorge's parents to build two big palm trees out of wood," and then came to my class and assigned the kids what they had to bring... so then once that was done I was okay. It was Friday and all was right with the world.

Monday came and my boss asks me "Margaret, what happened with the Open House" and I told her "I've gotten it all under control.... for now" and things went according to schedule. I started to decorate my room. I put blue celophane over my windows to make the ocean and started to get my stuff together. On Tuesday I took all sorts of foam that the kids had brought and spent all afternoon and night cutting out foam letters to put up on the wall the next day, and when Wednesday came (the day before Open House) I got the ocean put together. One girl made a sun and clouds, so we put those up. Then I cut construction paper mountains to make the Andes and tried to make the mountains. I had the kids put up foam letters of all their indigenous tribes and tried to get the room organized. One girl brought in a garbage bag of aromatic plants and branches that I had no idea what to do with, I moved some desks out of the room and put more against the edges of the room and felt pretty good. Each kid had their space, the room was decorated... it wasn't great, but it was pretty cute.

Then one kid poked his head in my door and said "Oh. Well, that's okay teacher, it's your first open house." I felt like I'd been punched in the stomach. Immediately afterwards another teacher (the same one who told me the other morning when I greeted him "Good Morning Milton" he said "You're getting fat. You should eat less and excercise more.") came in and said- "Here, let me help you. You need to separate these stations with hanging curtains. You need to have the kids bring in plants and decorations from the rainforest and then..." The tears welled up in my eyes as I realized that my room was a disappointment and a failure, and I didn't have enough time or resources to fix it. He came in and tried to help, but instead of actually helping, he just told me everything that was wrong with what I'd done. I asked him to leave and locked the door and cried. Then my boss came in and said "Margaret, what happened with the room?" I explained to her that I was doing my best, but I wasn't sure what else to do, and she said "What happened with your friend the Tennis teacher?" I said "I don't know! What happened?" and she said "Why don't you ask him to help you?"

So I found Esteban (my friend from school.. he's amazing) and he comes in and says: "Okay Margo, we want this place to look like a forest. What's this?" and he grabbed the bag of plants "Excellent! He said, and he grabbed plants and started to tape them to the walls. He pulled leaves off and put them on the ground to make a boundary for the kids to stand behind. He gave me instructions for the rest of the plants and left. Then he said "I'll be back" and he came back with our friend Luis, the Ping Pong teacher (really. that's his job.) and left Luis to help me. As my students were wandering by they came in to help, cutting out flowers and organizing things. One boy told me that he had a number of indigenous things in his house if I wanted him to loan them to me. The others offered to help me decorate the hallway outside my room. At the end of the day, I felt really good about everything.

The next day the boy showed up with two 4 1/2 foot tall palm trees made out of wood and another boy showed up with a jungle cat skin, a throwing spear, weapons and a turtle shell to loan me. I got everything ready. An hour went by. Then another one. At that point things were starting to get going for the Casa Abierta, and I started to look for my kids. They needed to get in their costumes and get ready. So, since I'm working with 5th graders, I went to their teacher's room to look for her. This woman has never been particularly friendly or helpful, but whatever. So I go find her room and knock on her door..... and there are all my kids-- in her Open House. So I ask her when they'll be ready for mine (realize, Open House goes from 9 to 2) and she goes "I don't know... MAYBE 1:30?" "One thirty?" I asked her? "Maybe" she said-- and my Spanish got stuck in my head as I tried to figure out how to tell her "Well, that would have been nice to know before." I STORMED back to my room and threw a temper tantrum. I tried to call my mom but my phone wouldn't work, so I went to my friend Ana's class. There were only 2 or 3 kids in there and they were busy playing chess. (It's the latest fad for all the 13th graders-- they're learning in a class or something.) So I Start telling Ana what happened.. how they forced me to do an open house, how they assigned me these students even though I didn't even know them from Adam, how they criticized my room and made me worry for two weeks about it, and now this teacher wasn't going to let me have my kids until it was almost over.. after all that. She advised me to talk to someone, so I found the director of the primary school and told her.. and she freaked out. She looked me in the face and said "Margaret, you know what happened? That teacher was supposed to make a list and a schedule a WEEK ago so that this wouldn't happen, but she didn't do it, so now she's trying to blame you for the conflict. Don't worry. What time do you want your kids?" So, I told her 12:30- so that the kids could do their open house with her, eat, and then come to mine for an hour or so.

That wound up being great because I got to go to all the other Open Houses-- TWO of which included mini tequila shots for everone 18 and over. Which I thought was funny. Here's the thing- after all this expectation and all my being told that, essentially, my room needed to resemble a Hollywood movie set, most of the other open houses had kids in some sort of costume, and a poster behind them. No one else had anything as elaborate even as mine. Except the English Teacher with the haunted house. That was amazing. They had sound and light effects, costumes, a black maze, and not one word of English in the entire thing. It was crazy! So all in all, I felt pretty good about mine.

When the time came, my students came in disguise. One mother brought chocolates with "Thanks for come to Open House 2008" attached to give away as goody prizes, and another mother brought scalloped potatoes to hand out. One mother brought brown face paint and "authenticated" two of my boys who had dressed to represent the AfroEcuadorian population (although I had SPECIFICALLY prohibited blackface) and then the kids went around and recited their information. It was a blast. They looked great, they knew their stuff, it was a success! Everyone kept complimenting me and congratulating me, but I wanted to tell them: I didn't do anything. They're the ones who made the costumes and the palm trees.

So all in all, it was a terrifying and overwhelming experience with expectations that I met, if only barely, but then turned out to not be actual expectations-- I'm still not sure on that part. I recommend looking through the pictures. It's a blast. I took pictures of all the open houses I went to, but at the very least, check out the ones of my room and my kids.

Thank God it's almost over, but in the meantime, it is a lot a lot of learning and a little bit of fun and, when I'm lucky and I have help, a success.