NCA- Nejapa - where I go every day.

What does a typical weekday look like for me? Well, every morning I wake up at about 6:30-7 am and listen to the Randall's get ready for school.  I usually read in bed or snooze and then get up sometime after seven.  I make breakfast and read some more, drink my coffee, before slapping on the sunscreen (every time I step outside folks!) and biking 15 minutes to NCA-Nejapa arriving around 9:15.

Grade 5/6 classroom - its packed!

NCA (Nicaragua Christian Academy) is located in the area called Nejapa and is a school for mostly middle class Nicaraguans who want to give their kids a better education than they can get in the public system, but can't afford the prices of NCA-International (school where Aleida teaches).  NCA-Nejapa conducts all of their classes in Spanish, and beside the Directors and Principal, I am the only North American teacher there. 

I am helping in 3 advanced English classes, with a teacher named Blanca Lopez.  She is really willing to learn and wants to make learning more interesting for her students.  That being said, she has grown up in a system of education that is all about wrote memorisation, so she is working hard to see education differently.  It  is definitely a different system of education, that is steeped in culture.  As a North American, sometimes it is hard for me to see what is cultural and what needs to change to make a better learning environment.  I have a lot of notes with ideas for improvement, but I only dole out a few at a time, as it can be overwhelming to be given suggestions all the time.  

Blanca helping a student

I have only been working in the advanced classes, as otherwise I am unable to help the kids, as the language barrier is too great.  It has been great getting to know them and even in my short time there I have grown to enjoy these kids. All of the pictures are from the 5/6 Advanced class.  I receive hugs everyday from some of them (high school student don't do that!) and the boys especially love to try and tell me stories in Spanish (I think they forget that my Spanish is a lot worse than their English).  

The second classes is the 9-11 grade Advanced class (31 students), which I love because I am with high school students and I get to talk about things I know.  Recently they had a unit on the Olympics, so I could share with them my love for it, as well as talk about the Vancouver games.  They were very surprised that I have tried a lot of the sports that are in the Olympics as there is not a big push for sports (except maybe soccer), especially for girls, in Nicaragua.

The last class of the day is 7/8 Advanced, and I remember the students names the best in this class, because you have to constantly tell them to be quiet!  There are a lot of great kids in this class as well, they just don't seem to be very studious yet...
English classes are done at 12:30 each day and sometime we meet as a department after that.   I try to debrief what went well with Blanca each day, and try to help her towards some reflection.  Its good to talk about assessment and what she is actually looking for and trying to help her make the questions reflect this kind of thinking.

Sorry for the thumb... but this expression is priceless

After classes are done, I bike 15 minutes back (all up hill) and immediately put on my bathing suit and jump in the pool.  I have also been using that as a time for working out, I swim for about 15 minutes each day as well.  Then I go back to the house and make some lunch around 1:30 and decided what I am going to do for the next couple hours before everyone else comes back from their jobs!  

I am glad to be working in a school, and one that has some challenges ahead of it.  Pray for a blessing on this school as their teachers strive to better Christ-centred education.