This morning I swept the bathroom (again). With white ceramic tile floors throughout the house, they floors tend to show absolutely everything that is on them (dirt, grass, bugs, hair, etc) very easily. When I had lived in Mexico, it was the same. Most Mexicans would sweep multiple times during the day and mop daily. Many of us in the United States are not used to this kind of "culture", so we either live in filth (yuck) or we find "work-arounds". My work-around that I used in Mexico and also continued to use ever since coming here in 2008 was to put a towel at each entrance. When we entered, we would immediately take off our shoes and put them on the towel so as not to track mud/dirt/grass throughout the house. If food spilled on the floor, it was picked up immediately and wiped down with a damp cloth so as not to attract bugs. As the girls brushed their hair, they were supposed to collect it in their brush/comb and empty it directly into the garbage. All of these little things added up to not having to mop on the daily. When we were in the hotel, because it was such a small space, I still pretty much swept daily, but we could mop just about weekly. Because I am not living with my kids this summer, I have to be a little more flexible with a little more grace to those that are not used to this kind of culture/environment. It's okay. They leave the house each morning at 5am because of their house responsibilities. I am mostly in the house that early in the morning due to prepping for the math classes, and I do need breaks from time to time, to process what I have just planned, and what still needs to be planned. So sweeping is a nice break.
The 10th grade math class began at 7am this morning. We did review of trigonometry today, reviewing SOH CAH TOA (which I had taught them back in April and they have been using), the other 3 trigonometric functions (cosecant, secant, cotangent), angles in the cartesian plane as well as their reference angles, and converting angles to radians and vice versa. Profe Jorge told me that their exam will be Friday and today was the last day of math until Friday. Before leaving the 10th grade classroom, I left all of my notes from Monday and today with Profe Jorge, since a part of the overall course grade is their note-taking in class.
After the 10th grade math class, I had a little bit of a break, so I headed back to the house, debating whether to tackle upcoming lessons or translate a note from Josecito that he had given me on Monday. I believe he wrote it for a person who is on the team, so it would need to be translated fairly soon, before that person heads back to the United States. I settled on translating the note. What I didn't realize (because I hadn't read it back when he gave it to me) was that it was a song. And since I am not a musician, this was going to be difficult for me. The song was very beautifully written in Spanish. Unfortunately, without the gift of being a true musician or poet...it didn't sound nearly as well translated through me to English. When I walked back to the school and found Josecito, I gave him both his version and the translation and told him...never again would I translate a song or any poetry from Spanish to English for him. Never again.
After recess was the 8th grade class that I had prepared for. Just like on Monday, I prepared lessons on multiplying polynomials, however when I got there, the teacher told me that the 8th graders would also have their test on Friday and she needed me to do a review of some of the concepts that would be on the test. Multiplying polynomials was on the test, so that was okay...but then she needed a review of statistics, specifically histograms, mean, median and mode. I knew I could do all of that, but the problem with teaching geometry and statistics in Spanish is NOT the fact that it can tend to be more difficult mathematical material, but that I need time to go over some of the key content words in Spanish in order to be more effective in Spanish. Also, anyone who knows me knows that I do not do well being put on the spot with surprises. So coming into a classroom with everything planned for the class period, and then to be asked to add in to the lesson something all together different? It is a total shock to my system. We got through it though, by the grace of God.
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| Our histogram with mean, median and mode example |
When the 8th grade class was done, it was the boys turn to clean the classroom (the classroom gets swept and mopped at the end of each day) and then we headed to the Comedor for lunch. Oscar and the women in the kitchen had prepared spaghetti with vegetables and tortillas. After eating, I headed to the Baby House to work with Danielle's two 10th grade girls that had requested an extra review for the math test coming up on Friday. We went into the small chosa that is usually reserved for early childhood education for the 2 and 3 year olds. Karen used to do this, but her and Mike have since moved back to the United States. I believe when I left last summer, April took it over...but she too, went back to the U.S. after Christmas and has not been back down since. We sat at a table on little preschool chairs and worked through different questions the girls had on the 3 topics that would be covered on Friday's test: Trigonometry, Vectors, and Matrices. When we were done working together, I headed back to the Girls Volunteer House to get ready for supper...we were served rice, beans and tortillas.
Wednesday nights are church nights. Patrick (the husband I sat next to when the Team invited Staff and Volunteers to supper earlier this week) gave the sermon and his testimony. Raleigh translated from the English to Spanish. After church ended, I chatted with some kids, staff and volunteers outside the church before heading back up to the house, chatting with my friend Cheryl through Facebook Messenger about her mom's surgery that day and the upcoming one tomorrow, and then turning in for the night.
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