Back a few months ago when I arrived I had to go to the Consejería de Educación ("branch" of the government that controls public education in Spain) to get help obtaining my NIE (foreign residence card that makes me LEGAL). One of the people that helped me asked me how things were going at my school and asked for a copy of my schedule. I gave her a copy that she photocopied and as she was looking it over she made some comment referring to the fact that I was working with the 7th-12th graders more or less equally and how I SHOULD only be working with the "pequeños"-the youngest grade. I was confused because in my contract it says nothing about me ONLY working with the 1st level of Secondary Education (7th grade) at my Institute. Anyways I came back to school the following week and shared my concern with the fellow auxiliar about how I wondered if our schedules would change or if our coordinator would get in trouble for our schedules not being what the Consejería wanted. Weeks passed and then months and nothing happened so I figured that it had ended up not being that big of a deal and they had dropped it.
Fast forward to two and a half weeks ago, my school gets a little visit from the Comunidad de Madrid- what they call the Consejería de Educación specifically in Madrid. Now let's remember that the Spanish government funds my program: Auxiliares de Conversación. They gave me the scholarship that employs me at a bilingual institute as a native English speaker to help students improve their English. They arrive and tell our coordinator,who is in charge of me and the other auxiliar, that our schedules need to change and that we can ONLY work with the 1st level (7th graders). So that week, my schedule is completely changed, all my classes with the 8-12th graders are dropped and are replaced with only 1st level classes. I am told that my "new" schedule will start the following week. So now I am thinking in my head, not only will I be working with the 7th graders every day, all day but only that I will only be working with three professors compared to six in my old schedule.
Right away the teachers whose classes I have now been cut from were upset. They weren´t upset at me of course but upset with the Comunidad de Madrid for suddenly changing my schedule 4 months into me teaching at this school. Why now? If it was such a big problem than why didn´t they address it immediately when they found out that me and the other auxiliar weren´t only working with the 7th graders????
Not only this but why am I to ONLY work with the 7th graders? This whole secondary/high school is bilingual and don´t I benefit all the students equally? If anything I benefit the higher levels more since the class sizes are not only smaller but their level of English is higher. I am actually able to have conversations with the older students whereas the 7th graders hardly understand me. In addition, isn´t the whole point of me being here to benefit a whole school....not just one grade level??
So two weeks into my new schedule and I am feeling frustrated. I liked before being able to work with a variety of students who all had various levels of comprehension of the English language. I liked teaching the younger kids but I liked working with the older kids on their pronunciation and their conversation. I liked being able to talk about culture and current events in English with my high school classes. Now I am stuck every day with the same three groups of students. Each class is roughly 25-27 students of misbehaved children who are essentially out of control. I will teach the same thing over again in two different classes in the same day because I am working with different groups of the same grade level. I am bored with this and not only that but I feel like I am having a lesser impact on these children and this school.
The teachers from the English department drafted a letter to the Comunidad de Madrid complaining about the schedule change. They all signed it and sent it along with my contract showing that no where in there did it say I was to ONLY work with the 1st level of secondary education. However, assuming they will address this issue as slowly as they did with simply changing my schedule in the first place, I HIGHLY doubt I will go back to the old schedule. It really is quite a shame to come to a school and start off working with every grade level only to be cut from all but three classes of the same level.
My only hope is that the only level I work with now really DOES benefit from me and that I either become more patient to the craziness that are 12-yr-old Spanish children or they begin to calm down in class since I am now with them every day. I guess we will see....at least I can be thankful that for half the time I was here I got to work with such a variety of ages and levels of comprehension- at least I can be grateful for the opportunity that I did have.
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