Chris reports in on his day. It included one classic rude comment from a kid about Pobre Ana. If that wasn’t enough, he found out from a student something that the high school expects in the way of articulation. In my opinion, there is nothing quite as crappy as a middle school CI teacher having to send kids to traditional high school teachers. It’s just setting a match to dry wood. Bad. Sometimes I don’t know how we even do our jobs. I completely empathize with Chris on this whole deal, so read this one with sympathy and empathy and any calming words you might be inclined to offer our young colleague in NE Ohio:
Ben,
At the end of Spanish I today I was telling them that we’ll be starting Pobre Ana sometime soon. I also mentioned how we’ll probably end up reading quite a few books this year. A girl asked if Pobre Ana is the book that all the kids “hated” last year. I told her that it is, but we’ll be reading it differently this year and that they will learn A LOT from it. I also mentioned that last year we were reading it in my Spanish 1 class while at the HS they were reading it in Spanish 2. She then told me that one of her friends who is in Spanish 2 said that one of the teachers up at the HS said that I’m not supposed to do that. By “that” she means have the level 1 kids reading Pobre Ana. Now, I don’t really care what they say at the HS. I’m going to do what I want to and I’m going to give my students the best education that I can. I’m not going to jip them out of anything just because some other teachers that want to keep things easy for themselves want to.
Really pisses me off. I’ve also been told to not teach past tense in level 1. What’s up with that?