Submitted by Carmen Ramirez Griffin on the 2020 winter session program in Barcelona, Spain sponsored by the College of Education and Human Development…
This week has been truly amazing! We have not really been able to travel as much as we did last week, but being in the school with the students was an eye-opening experience. To be honest, the first day was not the best. We woke up to a horrible storm. I already hate rain, so imagine having to walk almost a mile, with nice shoes and clothes, to the top of a very steep mountain…. It was not the best experience. Getting into the school made the hike worth it. Carma and her partner fed us and explained to us a little bit about the school, their curriculum and the kind of students that attended the school. I was very intrigued because their system is so different from the Spanish education system as well as the American education system. They have a mixture of various education systems and I find that so amusing!
I have fallen in love with the students in my class. I was a bit scared because I was placed in a 6th grade classroom and I am not used to teaching older kids. However, even though I was scared, I learned that with different age groups come different experiences and different learning opportunities. My 6th grade class divides into various groups depending on the subject and their level of efficiency in it. For example, if a student from Russia just moved in and is placed in this classroom, he would be placed in the lower group for every subject they have since he wouldn’t be able to speak, in this case, Spanish on the same level as other students in the classroom. I like this system and I appreciate the different learning groups for every subject as every student in the class can feel integrated and not out of place.
I wish we stayed a few more weeks. Two weeks is not enough time to form connections and build a trust relationship between a student and a teacher, but I will make the most of it during my second week which starts tomorrow. I can’t wait to tell you all about it! I was not able to take many pictures since we were in the school for most of the time, but here are some pictures that I took during some of the school breaks!
On Saturday, we took a trip to Montserrat and it was such an incredible experience. Disregarding the fact that it took us two and a half hours to get to Montserrat and another two and a half hours to get back to our apartments, the views and the history of Montserrat were great. We got to visit the famous monastery of the town and even though we did not have a tour guide, I informed myself about the Black Madonna (or Lady of Montserrat) on our way to the town. Apparently, the Black Madonna is very famous because she is the patron saint of Catalonia, along with Saint Jordi. Montserrat itself has a lot of religious significance. In this town, the Romans built a temple to praise the goddess Venus. There is a legend in town that mentioned the monks of the monastery not being able to move her out of the temple, so they decided to build around her. This is a very celebrated image in Spain, and Barcelona especially. I was only able to take a picture of the sanctuary in which the statue of the Black Madonna was kept because I did not want to stop the traffic of the people that wanted to come in and see her, but I have some pictures of the views from Montserrat. Hope you enjoy them!
