Is this outerspace? (time without seasons)

“Now we’re in ‘winter’.” He mimed quotation marks with his fingers, knowing I wouldn’t believe him.  I was walking with my Colombian friend to the bus stop after work, talking about fall in New England.

“And what is this ‘winter’ you speak of?”  I said.

“It rains more.”

“That’s weather, not a season!”

 

 

In Bogotá, there are no seasons, as evidenced by two factors:

1) The temperature is the same every day. See monthly weather from weather.com : the daily high ranges from 63 – 74˚F, and I can assure you, this was the same story in August and September, and by all accounts, it will be true every month.  Sure, some days are sunnier and warmer than others, but the margin of variation is very small.

2) The sun rises and sets at the same time every day.  Technically, the day length does vary over the course of the year (we are slightly north of the equator)  — but only by 33 minutes over the whole year.  In Boston, the day length varies 7 hours, from June to December.

Bogotá, Colombia

• June 21, 2012: sunrise 5:47 AM, sunset 6:10 PM, day length 12h 23m 29s
• December 21, 2012: sunrise 5:49 AM, sunset 5:50 PM, day length 11h 51m 24s
• annual variation in day length: 33m 5s

Boston, Massachusetts

• June 21, 2012: sunrise 5:08 PM, sunset 8:25 PM, day length 15h 17m 5s
• December 21, 2012: sunrise 7:09 AM, sunset 4:14 PM; day length  9h 4m 33s
• annual variation in day length: 6 h 59 m 38s

In Chile, the seasons were the opposite, and that was strange enough: apples at Easter, snow on my birthday (June 11), the first summer-y days as I baked Christmas cookies.  But the only thing stranger than inverse seasons is no seasons at all.  It feels like time doesn’t pass.  I can wear the same clothes every day.  I know it’s Halloween because there are ghost decorations and children in costumes everywhere, but everything else is exactly the same as when I arrived on July 22.

Colombians often point out that here, summer is only a 2-hour drive away.  A few weeks away I went to Melgar, where it was hot enough to be sweating in shorts and a tank-top: but it got dark at 6 PM.  I was in the pool and couldn’t believe it wasn’t later.

Most Colombians I know do not know the order of the seasons.  In Spanish.  They might know that winter is cold and summer is hot, but spring and autumn?  No idea where they go.  This is even true of highly educated Colombian teachers at my school who’ve had years of contact with foreigners; only those that have lived abroad for years know the seasons.   This makes sense, but it is still astounding to me.  One Colombian friend who lived in Colorado said that her first year there, she would only eat dinner once it was dark outside — and found dinner getting later and later in June.

I was recently talking about this issue of seasons with some colleagues, and one Colombian said he had read the theory that countries with seasons tend to have cultures of savings, whereas in warm climates, there is no culture of saving because everything is available all year round (and at the same low price).  I’ve often heard the theory that colder climates tend to breed productivity, but I’ve never thought about this in terms of seasons.  While it’s true that these days in the US, you can buy pretty much anything at any time of year, the price goes up and quality goes down off-season (think about strawberries in January).  And our culture comes from before, not just now.  However, I remember most of my Chilean friends, even well-paid professionals, had almost no concept of saving, and Chile is a country with four distinct seasons.

Like most things here, I am reminding myself to be curious, rather than focus on whether  I “like” or “don’t like” not having season.  But I have to say, now that I’ve been abroad for two New England falls in a row… I can’t say how much I miss the leaves.  I don’t know where I’ll live in the future, but I sure know where will always feel like home.

Top 7 Misconceptions about Teaching & Learning

Manipulatives for unit on fractions.

For comparing fractions.

Or, a few of my pet peeves.

1. The more fun, the better.  People, this is not a popularity contest.  The objective is not “fun” ; it’s learning.  If we can do both, even better, but my criteria for each minute of my lesson plan is, “How will this help my students master the content that they will ultimately be evaluated on?” not, “Will they like this?”.   Yes, sometimes I’ll play hangman or speak in Spanish (they always beg for this) at the end of class for the purpose of fun — relationship-building — but my first priority is the learning target.  It’s a bit different in a private school like this one, given that the stakes aren’t that high: my students will go to college whether or not they pass my class, simply because their parents can pay for it.  However, I try to take my job just as seriously as I would if it my students were poor, both for my own development, and because, simply as human beings, my students deserve no less than I would give anyone else.

2. Manipulatives are the answer.  Math manipulatives can be very useful — cubes, pattern blocks, and so on.  Recently I’ve been handed an incredible quantity of materials for our unit on fractions (mostly involving pizza — see photos).  However, manipulatives are only as useful as we make them.  How much they help children learn depends so dearly on how we teach students how to use them: giving the directions, monitoring their use, and drawing conclusions at the end.  One of my favorite things this week has been carefully designing activities with these beautiful manipulatives that engage all my students and actually help them to understand equivalent fractions — rather than invite them to toss around the pepperoni pieces.

3. Kids have short attention spans.  One of the cornerstones of Montessori philosophy (as I learned from reading Dr. Montessori’s work and volunteering and visiting Montessori schools in Massachusetts — nada que ver with my current job) is that children are naturally curious, and therefore, pursue a problem as long as it engages them.  In my classroom, it is often at least as hard to get kids to stop working as to get their attention at the beginning.  Often just as a concept is beginning to make sense, we have to move on in order to finish the class on time.  I teach primarily in 70-minute blocks, while most of preschool — 3rd grade is scheduled on 35-minute periods, which seems to me just enough time to get started and then interrupt the crucial process of learning.

4. Rules are mean.  Rules are caring.  Good rules say, “You are important, what we are doing here is important, and I am taking care of you.”  I run a tight ship, but I also think, a caring ship.  I have explicitly stated the justification for every rule in my classroom — — from assigned seats to limited bathroom permission, eyes on the speaker to everything off your desk.  One of my pet peeves in my school in Chile, as well as my current job, is the attitude that “Rules are the rules because I said so,” rather than, “Rules are there to help you.”  If I can’t justify how a rule promotes student learning, it is out.

5. Teaching easy content is easy.  Have you every tried explaining zero?  What do you do when a student counts on his fingers inaccurately?  How do you show how you can add 20+30 = 50 like 2+3=5?  I have to say, I am currently enjoying teaching relatively challenging content (like comparing fractions by finding a common denominator), but I remember my vivid engagement last spring in Boston with the first grade, especially the challenge of teaching simple math.  In some ways, the more obvious the content is to an adult, the more difficult it is to break down to a child.

6. Children are engaged by hooplah.  Sure, it is easy to get children’s attention with songs and dance; but I’m starting to believe that children are at least as engaged by meaningful challenge as by hooplah.  When I first taught equivalent fractions, I had some of my most “disruptive” students spellbound: partly my own enthusiasm is engaging, and partly, it is interesting to see something new and challenging.  I think we sell children short by assuming that we need balls and whistles to get their attention: well-presented real content can be incredibly engaging.

7. Teachers are saints.  This attitude is one of my all-time pet peeves.  If a man is a good doctor or lawyer, we tend to think, “Wow, he is so smart.  He must have worked really hard to earn that.”  Sure, if he works with under-served populations, we give that a moral value, but we still are struck primarily by his intelligence.   What about a teacher?  “Aw, what a saint.  I could never be that patient.”  Traditionally the domain of women, elementary education in particular is often seen as glorified babysitting.  Elementary teachers may be considered patient, sweet “saints”, but rarely as intellectuals, as data-driven scientists, or as remarkably multi-talented and multi-tasking practitioners.  Small children may be cute, but managing a large group of them is a job few envy, let alone seek out.  It is an insult to attribute the hard work of professionals to the coincidence of their inherent personality traits.  Please don’t call me a saint.  Call me smart.

My LTR with Spanish

Weekend trip to Villa de Leyva, Boyacá province.

Waterfall hike!

One of the biggest reasons I’m living in Colombia is Spanish.  At this point, it’s way beyond something I “like” or think is “interesting”: it’s an LTR (long-term relationship).  I’ve come to (almost) accept that I’ll never be perfect, but I’ve also realized that somehow, the pursuit of ever-more perfect Spanish is essential to my well-being and happiness.

It takes effort to pursue my Spanish here, because so unlike my year in Palena, I work with other gringos, and most of my Colombian friends speak good English.  The advantage of this situation, especially at the level I’m at, is the opportunity to constantly think and talk with like-minded people about translation, about the subtle difference between the two languages, about connotation and denotation, and so on.  I was recently with two friends, one gringo with little Spanish, one Colombian with very good English, and we each tried saying the same sentence in English and Spanish.  We agreed that each person sounded older and more mature in his or her native language, even though we could express ourselves very well in the other language.

I am here both to deepen and widen my Spanish: deepen in the sense of just get better (more vocabulary, better grammar), and widen in the sense of adding Colombian Spanish to my repertoire.  In the beginning, I very consciously down-played my Chilean accent and tried not to say Chilean words; two months in, I am beginning to grow a certain affection for Colombian slang, and it is creeping into my speech, both consciously and unconsciously.

Widening: Here are some of the Colombian-specific words/phrases I’ve learned.

1. vaina — used in a casual, but not offensive, way to say “thing”, a bit the way “cuestión” is used in Chile.  “Qué es esta vaina? (What is this thing?)”
2. pico — means “peck”, like kisses on the cheek, and also “something”, as in, “Ella tiene veinte y pico” (She’s twenty-something).”  The first time I heard this I was scandalized, as “pico” in Chile is slang for penis.
3. banano — banana, plátano — plantain.  In Chile banana is plátano, and I never came across the plantains.  Avocado is also aguacate here, like in Mexico, not like palta in Chile.
4. Diminutive “ico” (as well as more standard Spanish “ito“).  Common uses: “Tenemos cinco minuticos” (from minutos, minutes), “Vamos a dar una vueltica” (from vuelta, like walk around the block), “chiquitica” (from chica, small).
5. chino — literally, Chinese, used to refer to children in Bogotá.  I really want to know more about this.
6. miércoles — literally, Wednesday, used instead of saying “mierda” (shit), sort of like “dang it!” or “fudge!” in English.   For example, “Qué es esta miércoles? (What is this **?)”  I’m not sure if this is only in Colombian, but I’ve never heard it before.
7. Uy juemadre!  Juepucha!   Mild, family-friendly exclamations of surprise/astonishment, either positive or negative.
8. Juicioso — literally, “judicious”, this word is used all the time to describe good behavior, especially of children.  “Este niño es muy juicioso, siempre hace su tarea. (This student is very juicioso, he always does his homework).
9. Divino — literally, “divine”, this is used all the time for something pretty/sweet/kind.  “Me hiciste galletas, que divino! (You made me cookies, how divine!)”
10. Tenaz — literally, “tenacious”, but used commonly as an exclamation, like, “Oo, that’s rough.”

Deepening: Here are the last 10 words I’ve written down on my new vocabulary list:

1. titiritar — chatter.  I learned this word when, on the last afternoon of our three days of “professional development” at school, it started to pour during a competitive slip n’ slide/ relay activity.  Though I was chattering, I continued to cheer on my upper-elementary team.
2. guachafita — noise, messing around, nonsense.
3. tuto — from “asusto“, scared, but as if a child is saying it.  In Chile, “tuto” means sleep.
4. brújula — compass.  I learned this from playing with a Colombian friend’s compass iPhone app.
5. cuchilla de afeitar — razor.   I’m surprised I didn’t know this word.
6. rueda de Chicago — ferris wheel, literally, “Chicago wheel” in Spanish.  I wonder how that happened.
7. esquimal — Eskimo.  The Colombian friend I was with asked what the word was in English, and he pronounced it “Skimo”, careful not to make the common Spanish-speaker’s mistake of putting an “e” before English words that start with an “s”, like “e-stop”, “e-stairs”.
8. garrapata — tick.
9. calambre — muscle cramp, such as when running.
10. alfileres — pins for sewing.

I am also, embarrassingly, working on mastering the verb gustar (to like) once and for all.  The problem is that for an English speaker, gustar is congugated “backwards”.  As I was taught in my first Spanish class, you say “A mi me gusta la manzana”, or “A mi me gustan las manzanas”, so the object you like is actually the subject of the verb.  Where this gets really tricky, and I was never formally taught, is liking between people:

• I like you: Me gustas tu.
• You like me: Yo te gusto.
• She likes me: Yo le gusto a ella.
• You like her: (A tí) Te gusta ella.
• She likes you: Tu le gustas a ella.

To be continued!

How Colombian Children Draw Stick Figures

This week, I introduced my students to fractions.  For one part of a particularly challenging worksheet, I showed an example on the board, and told everyone the pictures didn’t have to be beautiful, I just had to be able to understand what they represented.  Let me show you what they handed in.

Here, an overachieving (Colombian) girl draws meticulous figures:

 

The neat, precise stick figures of my Korean student:

Now, notice the way three Colombian boys drew stick figures of boys:

 

 

 

 

They gel the hair on their stick figures!

 

On “Gringa”

“Funny that you related the incident about the word gringa. I was wondering yesterday to ask you about it sometime. I’ve thought it to have something of a pejorative connotation, but you seem to use it more neutrally. Tell me more!”

-Email from my dad

Let me explain why I love the word “gringo” (and the feminine version, “gringa“).  First of all, at least in Colombia, gringo is useful because it is specific (in Chile, “gringo” could mean any white foreigner).  Here, if you say you are “americano“, most Colombians find that offensive, given that all of North and South Americans are “americanos“.  A more polite term is “norteamericano“, but that is also problematic, because North America incluedes Canada and Mexico.  In Spanish, there is an adjective for “from the United States”, “estadounidense“, but it is incredibly cumbersome to say, and hardly ever used except to fill out paperwork.

The origin of the word “gringo” is contested.  In Mexico, Chile and here in Colombia, people often cite its origin in the Mexican-American war, from Mexicans saying “green, go!” to American soldiers in green troops.  I’ve also heard a similar explanation, but from the Vietnam war.  Wikipedia classifies both of these versions as “folk etymologies”, and points out that “gringo” was first documented in a dictionary in Spain in 1786, as “foreigners who have a certain type of accent that prevents them from speaking Castilian easily and naturally; and in Madrid they give the same name, in particular, to the Irish.”  Many etymologies believe “gringo” comes from the word “griego“, meaning Greek, as in, “that’s Greek to me.”

Whatever its origin(s), what is clear to me is the effect of calling myself a “gringa“.  I use it all the time as a self-depricating joke; for example, “Uh, gringos are the worst, all they care about is profit!”  In addition to avoiding the ignorance of calling myself “americana” , calling myself a “gringa” lightens the mood and builds trust.  Referring to myself as “gringa” is the most efficient and effective way to convey that I don’t think I’m better than anyone — and it is also guaranteed to get a laugh.  I am poking fun at myself and my culture, “admitting” all the weird gringo things I do (like taking off my shoes in a house, drinking water with meals, making to-do lists).  As much as I speak Spanish and care very much about Colombian culture, I don’t pretend to be “just like everyone else”.

When I studied abroad in Mexico, there was a Wellesley student who would always say, “I’m not a gringa,” which was her way of saying, “I speak excellent Spanish, I’m not uptight, I know how to dance.”  To me, that is like saying, “I’m color blind”, rather then owning, “Yup, I’m a white, upper-middle class US American, and that’s a big part of who I am, regardless of how I speak Spanish or dance.”  I think it is fair to say that I’m less gringa here — in Latin America, I am more spontaneous, more relaxed, more about “the good life” — but I’m still deeply rooted in my own culture, and I always will be.

I was talking to a friend recently about how putting a positive spin on “gringa” is a bit like the reclaiming of words like dyke, queer, n*, etc.  The difference is that all those words refer to subordinate, oppressed groups, whereas “gringa” is for a dominant group.  No, it’s not okay to stereotype US Americans as if we were one homogenous group, but ultimately, our citizenship grants us enormous benefits and status in the world, and for us to ignore that power would be the greatest privilege of all.  Using “gringa” shows some humility, as well as a sense of humor, in the face of massive inequality, which is often more aparent to Colombians than the gringos.

So here you go: In a moment that would never happen in Gringolandia (being asked to pose in a supermarket after accepting rum and agua ardiente samples), see if you can identify the gringa in this picture:

Answer key: left, my Domincan-American friend & colleague Gina (though a US citizen, not a gringa); center, lady who poured us free shots; right, me, the gringa.