"Teacher, it's your happy birthday"

This week at school was a bit of a rough week. The students were being very difficult and acting like they were still on winter break even though break ended 2 weeks ago. I think that the most difficult part is that discipline here is very different than classroom discipline in the US. I have a hard time watching the teachers discipline students because they scream in the students faces. Or they have the students stand up in the middle of the classroom. This is just so different from how I plan on disciplining in my classroom that I get very uncomfortable when I have to watch it.

All of my classes were difficult this week, but I think that the class that was most difficult was the 1st grade kids who I teach bilingual science to. The main reason they were difficult is that their teacher was not around this week because she was sick. So, they had substitutes every day and by Thursday, the activities she had planned ran out. So, I had to come up with some quick plans on my feet. I decided to play a flashcard game where the first team to say what was on the flashcard got a point. It was going really well minus two children. One who decided it would be a good idea to hide from me underneath his desk (not the best hiding spot seeing as all of the sides are open) and another who just kept shouting out the answers even though he was warned multiple times not to shout. It was very frustrating to work with them because I am not supposed to speak in Spanish. They don't understand a lot of disciplining in English because they just don't have the vocabulary yet. I ended up having to use Spanish for the first time because I just got so overwhelmed by them. Once I said something in Spanish, they were quiet and respectful (for the most part).

The best part of the week was on Thursday. I took cookies to school with me to share them with the professors for my birthday (took them in Thursday because I don't work Friday and my birthday was Saturday). On your birthday in Spain, you bring the cake and share it with everybody, nobody brings a cake to you. So, I took in the cookies and in every class that day, my students sang me "Happy Birthday" in English and in Spanish. I even had one student sing it to me in German, which was pretty cool. As I walked through the hallways, everybody was stopping me to say "Teacher, it's your happy birthday." I didn't have the heart to tell them that we just say "happy birthday" or "it's your birthday" because it was too cute that they were trying so hard in English.

On Friday, I celebrated my birthday with all of my friends in Spain. We went to Samuri for lunch which is a sushi restaurant and it was delicious! Then, Friday night we had a party in our apartment which was a blast. Everyone that I know in Sevilla made an effort to at least stop by. I even got some interesting gifts. Thanks to Joanna for the knives- we have no working knives in our kitchen, so I jokingly said she should get me some for my birthday. Also thanks to Samantha and Clarissa for the birthday cake, it was delicious! And thank you to Kathleen and Jackie for the gifts as well. On my actual birthday, the two soccer team in Sevilla, Sevilla and Betis, played each other. This game is a huge deal in Sevilla, almost everybody goes to a bar to watch it and people get very excited. They all wear shirts and scarves from whatever team they like best. We went to a bar down the street to watch the game. The bar was absolutely packed, which made it fun. The game ended in a tie, which was probably a good thing because I've head fights break out sometimes during this game. All in all, the week was a pretty good one, I just hope this week is a little easier at school.