Teaching Third Grade in Pereira, Colombia

On June 6, 2023June 24, 2023 By ambertravelingIn Uncategorized1 Comment

My one year teaching contract for third grade at a bilingual school in Pereira, Colombia, has come to a close.

What I love about my life here:

My inquisitive and creative students! I have 20 students – all Colombian – whose parents enrolled them in this bilingual school with native English speaking teachers so they can be fluent by the time they graduate. I teach reading, writing, science, math, and social studies in English. They have 3 to 5 classes with me per day, and the other classes such as PE, music, and art are taught in Spanish by Colombian teachers. We’ve done some amazing projects this year, such as designing your own dream home using area and perimeter — one girl put in a cinema and spa! Another project was drawing a map of a country or continent of their choice. One girl was so inspired, she took it home and created a detailed world map over the weekend. Other classes came to visit and my students presented their projects to them. In science, we recently planted seedlings, which are now starting to sprout. One girl brought a microscope to school, and it was so fun to see them finding tiny things to look at, like ants, leaves, dirt, and the water from the school. When my parents visited, we did a hybrid science and art class about endangered and extinct animals where students first studied and then created their own animals with clay – their projects were incredible! We read “Charlotte’s Web” and watched the live-action movie with popcorn and snacks.
My classroom is a creative place where students (and I!) feel at home, with daily songs and a classroom economy. In the morning, the student of the day, which rotates alphabetically, chooses two or three songs to sing from our class playlist. We have been learning a new song about once every two weeks – I print the lyrics with some blank spaces, and students listen to the song and try to fill in the blanks. Then I write out the lyrics on a poster. I chose the first 5 songs, including a few that I had written such as “I am Powerful” and “The 5 Senses Song” but now the students always choose the songs by vote. Students who try their best to sing the song move up the behavior chart, and when they move up 3 notches from “Ready to Learn” up to “Amazing,” they receive $1 Ms. Young Dollar. They can also receive dollars for taking beautiful notes during direct instruction time, or doing homework (which isn’t mandatory at this school), or cleaning up without being asked, or finishing challenging activities. I have $1’s, $5’s, $10’s, $20’s, $50’s, and $100 dollar bills. The students formed groups so they work together to save money. On Friday, our classroom store is open, and students can buy things like mochis (their favorite squishy little animal toys), fancy pens and pencils, cute erasers, and postcards from California. (All pictures are shared with permission from the school, the kids, and their parents.)

Colombia is so inexpensive! My 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom, 2 balcony apartment on the fifth floor is 1,400,000 pesos per month (about $315 USD). I can get all my groceries for $10 or $20 per week. I pay about $30/month for the school lunch, which is less than $2 per lunch. A taxi ride anywhere in the city never costs more than $5.
Fresh fruit – there are so many unique fruits here that I had never tried before. It was so fun (and inexpensive) to try all of them – a vegan’s paradise! Some of my new favorites are chontaduro, granadilla, and araza. Chontaduros are a starchy, potato-esque fruit which they cover with honey and lemon and you can buy on the street in a plastic cup with a toothpick for about 3000 pesos (less than a dollar.) Granadilla are yellow on the outside and you open them to be rewarded with tiny white and yellow sweet, soft seeds. Araza are tiny orange mangos which are even sweeter than the normal ones!
My ultimate frisbee team has been my rock this year, keeping me in shape, giving me a social outlet and an opportunity to be immersed in Spanish. We practice Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from 8 – 10pm, and sometimes on weekends. I’ve gone to 5 weekend tournaments with them in places like Manizales, Florida (not the state, a town in Colombia!), and Chinchina. The tournaments are so fun – often with camping, or everyone staying in a cheap hotel, with games all day Saturday Sunday and carpooling there and back. This team is quite competitive and they push me to run faster and improve as a player, and they have even trusted me to be one of the handlers – the position that has the control of the disk and throws downfield to cutters, or players who try to get open. In the tournaments I was both handling and cutting.

Dance classes at my gym, Danzika, is another warm community of Colombians who have welcomed me with open arms and fancy feet. It’s difficult to balance frisbee and danzika, since both hobbies require so much high impact on my knees and ankles!
I have made some Colombian friends who I spend time with on the weekend. We cook together, go to movies, and sometimes go hiking or travel to another nearby town. During the weekend I try my best not to speak any English since I spend so much time during the week speaking English to my students.
The weather is great – in the 70’s and 80’s all year round!

A few reasons of why I’m leaving:

Although I feel safe in my apartment and at school, which both have porteros, or security doormen, walking around the city of Pereira is something I wouldn’t do alone. From my apartment I walk to my gym by myself, which is in a big mall about a 8 minute walk away, but besides grocery shopping I don’t feel comfortable walking around alone. This fear of being in public is a new sensation for me, as I am a big solo-traveler and have traveled to many countries alone (Morocco, Vietnam, Spain, Italy, Austria, and Japan to name a few). Many say that in these incidents it’s important not to “dar papaya” or “don’t put yourself in a position where people can easily take advantage of you.”
Even though Pereira is a small city (population about 500,000) in the coffee-region of Colombia, with lots of natural beauty around, the city is full of smog and pollution. There are some infrastructure issues, very few parks in the city, and a volcano that’s erupting nearby disrupted the gas line to the city, blocking my hot water for a week! (I feel like not having hot water is really a first world problem, as the majority of my Colombian friends and coworkers don’t have hot water in their apartments!) Even though it’s been difficult, these experiences have shown me how privileged I am, how the amenities I expect aren’t necessities, and have taught me to be more resilient and resourceful.
I’m really homesick and miss my family, especially my nephews!

After school ends on June 14, I’ll spend a few weeks traveling in Colombia with my friend Shad, beginning with a 3 day trek that starts in the Cocora Valley. Then I’ll meet him again in Medellin. On July 5 I’ll fly to my hometown of Santa Barbara, California for a few months spending lots of time with my nephews, playing beach ultimate frisbee, and swimming in the ocean!! At the end of August I’ll go to Europe for 3 months. The first month will be hiking and climbing via ferratas with my dad in the Austrian and Swiss Alps and Italian dolomites. In October and November I’ll float like a feather, backpack around to new places and visit friends. I hope to visit my friend Jessica in the Canary Islands, and visit old friends (and my old frisbee team!) in Malaga in southern Spain, where I lived for 2 years teaching English in 2020. Hit me up if you want me to visit you in Europe, or if you want to travel together for a week or two in October or November!

Thanks for reading!

Teaching and travel podcast

On July 27, 2020 By ambertravelingIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

These days of online classes are blending into each other – I’m currently in a graduate school program through the University of California at Santa Barbara for becoming an elementary school teacher in California. All the classes are online through zoom. To escape my daily routine, I find that reliving my adventures helps me to travel through my memories. I was excited to participate in a podcast with my friend Rollie Peterkin, who I met in Tenerife, one of the Canary Islands in Spain.

I talk about volunteering on farms in New Zealand and Australia and teaching English in Japan and Spain. We go into the advantages of staying in youth hostels and what I learned while traveling alone. Click the link below to check out the podcast!

https://rolliepeterkin.com/amber-young-on-couchsurfing-hitchhiking-and-living-abroad/

Below you can see some photos from the hike on Tenerife that I did when I first met Rollie. I was visiting my friend Jessica, a fellow English teacher, who joined us for the hike. She still lives on the Canary Islands, and you can see her blog at www.jessicaluciano.blog. We took a bus on narrow, winding mountain roads to Benijo and walked on steep cliff-side trails to Faro de Anaga. We discovered crumbling abandoned buildings and wild goats along the way. Then we trekked up and over a mountain to a village called Chamorga where we just barely caught the last bus back!

My role at school: friend, teacher, or in-between?

On February 8, 2016December 22, 2021 By ambertravelingIn Asia, japan, teaching7 Comments

After lunch, I go to the staff room and see my fellow teachers peering out the window, chuckling as they watch students throw snowballs at each other. But I don’t want to stand there and watch the fun from afar.

So I slip into my rubber boots and enter the chaos. I make a snowball, and decide that the baseball captain is my first target. He looks shocked, but retaliates; luckily, I dodge it.

This is where the snowball fight occurred.

Now that I’m in, there’s no going back. I lob snowballs at the giggling packs of girls and chase after the troublemakers. Even the shyest students who barely speak to me are creating attack formations. Before I know it, I’m laughing and running from students who are pelting snowballs at me.

So what is my role at this school? Am I a teacher, a friend, or somewhere in-between? While I aim to be respected, I don’t want to be an unapproachable authority. Sometimes I want to jump in the action and feel like I’m one of them. Ideally, students will be comfortable around me, even if they don’t like English.

When I first came to Japan, I met a Japanese teacher at the Fukui City Summer Camp who had been teaching for over 40 years and worked with more than 20 ALTs (Assistant Language Teacher). So I asked her a question I have repeated over and over, to any teacher willing to answer:

“What makes a great ALT?”

She said, “Great ALTs play with the students.”

What a simple answer! Yet so profound.

Later, at a JET conference I was told the secret to being a great ALT was to arrive more than 10 minutes early. I was not satisfied with this answer. To me, it showed that fitting into the culture is more important than any skills or creativity. I was annoyed because I don’t always equate myself with fitting in. I think of myself as free spirited and unique, and I hope to spread my unorthodox ideas to students and open their minds with my weirdness. Do any other teachers at my school have snowball fights, or dance the macerena in the hallways? Is it okay if I wear colorful mismatched socks?

Maybe I worry that I’m not being professional, but I have to remember that I’m a different breed of teacher: one closer to their age, and their mindset. Even though I’m 25, I pride myself in my immaturity. I want to be like a child, free of judgment and unafraid of what other people think of me.

But at the same time, I find myself wondering if it is professional to play catch in the classroom with an eraser. I did this with one boy from the baseball team who seems to hate English. At the time, I was happy that we were interacting, because he usually associates me solely with English and only scowls at me. After the fact, I couldn’t help but question myself. As a teacher, was I supposed to chastise him for throwing an eraser in class? Instead, I followed my gut and just started playing.

Even though I’m still not sure if my behavior is appropriate, I’m beginning to realize that my time outside of the classroom is where I can build my strongest relationships with students. So I’ve been going to after-school clubs and sports, joining PE classes, and wandering the halls during free time and after lunch.

A few months ago I was beginning to feel depressed at work. There was a big test coming up, so most teachers were too busy to acknowledge me. I had no classes scheduled for a few days, and I felt ignored and isolated. I would walk the halls between classes, trying to engage with students, but besides that I had nothing to do all day. I told my supervisor this, and he told me: ‘Don’t feel isolated! We like you. But we’re busy!’

Unfortunately this didn’t solve the problem. So I had to take action.

I needed to create something to look forward to, so I decided to ask the PE teacher if I could join his class. To my surprise, he checked the schedule and instantly aid yes! I often worry that I might inconvenience people, but the PE teacher welcomed me.

So I joined a kendo class later that day. I took off my shoes, and sat on the ground next to the students, and pretended to be able to understand what he was saying. He loaned me a bamboo sword. I floundered about, not sure what to do, but students rose to the challenge and stepped up to give me instructions in English. Suddenly, there was an instant role-reversal: they were the experts, and I was clueless. I hope that they felt empowered by teaching me.

Later, I joined a first-year PE class where students were doing gymnastics. The PE teacher seemed thrilled to learn the English word for ‘handstand’, and I was able to show off my cartwheeling skills. Most importantly, I had fun cheering and high-fiving students after they performed their acrobatics.

Whenever I join a sport, my aim is to boost student’s egos. So far I’ve tried basketball, volleyball, table tennis, track and field, soccer and badminton. Playing sports with them forces them to connect with me, even if they are the type who typically avoid eye contact in class.

At basketball practice, the captain took me aside and gave me some pointers on shooting technique. This student doesn’t particularly like English, but because I showed interest in his sport, he wanted to share his skills with me. I felt lucky that he gave me his unsolicited one-on-one attention!

I was worried that the track and field team would leave me in the dust, but I was happy to find that they were cheering me on. They even invited me to practice with them again.

So should I throw erasers in classrooms? Should I join the snowball fight? Should I showcase my weirdness? Until I hear someone tell me not to, I’m going to keep doing it. It makes my job more fun, and deepens my connections with my students. I’m here to be involved, so I might as well take action.