Clase 3 Manana
Clase 2 Tarde
I had 9 kiddos in the morning and 20 in the afternoon, all first graders. While 20 seven-year-olds is a handful, it was actually easier to teach the 20 than it was the 9. The students in the morning were older (most were 8 or 9 years old) and each one had an incredibly strong personality. Many of the students who are older than they would normally be in the first grade either were unable to start school on time because they were working, or didn't pass first grade the first time around usually due to poor attendance at the national school.
Discipline proved to be much harder in the morning than the afternoon as well, since many of the children in the morning came from very tough family situations. One of the students lives with his grandmother ever since his dad abandoned the family and left Santa Maria which caused the mother to flee to a convent. One of the other students refuses to act like an adult because "adults hits". The smallest girl in the class is just as quick to throw insults as the boys since she is the lone girl in a family of brothers.
Yet while each class at the school in Santa Maria has enough sad stories to make your head spin, it still stands that kids will always be kids and the chicitins (little kids) of Santa Maria really are no different than children anywhere else in the world. They throw their crayons on the floor when they don't want to do something, they pout when they don't get their way, and they shriek with delight when they find out we're using paint that day.
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