The Week of Christmas

I brought a little American Christmas to the kindergarteners in Costa Rica! It might have been one of the most wonderful weeks here in Costa Rica thus far, but I also know that I do NOT want to be a Kindergarten teacher….especially in Costa Rica. Why?

1. The school system is set up so that each teacher has to teach TWICE a day. Imagine that teachers. If you didn’t have to do your job ONCE a day, but TWICE. So we gave the class to 26 kindergarteners in the morning from 7-10 and then to 26 kindergarteners in the afternoon from 12-3. (WHICH DOES NOT INCLUDE the preparation and clean-up)
2. Discipline here is….non-existent. So imagine 26 kindergarteners who are allowed to speak and move at will. They didn’t have to share and they didn’t respond well when I said “No.”
That sounded negative, but I loved it. We made Christmas cards, three dimensional stars, reindeer puppets, a giant paper Christmas tree which we decorated with ornaments that we colored…and we ended the whole week with a HUGE Christmas party for the kids and their families!

OH! And the most important part! I taught the kids to sing “Feliz Navidad” – the Veggie Tales version. This version is in both English and Spanish and there is an interlude where the kids played homemade maracas! It was so cute and wonderful!

I was and am very proud. It was a very successful week and I felt like a designed, organized and carried out a project that ended by blessing the kids with a fun cultural experience and time to share it with their families. It might sound silly, but we take for granted that kids in the United States get to participate in many activities that they get to be proud of…and us lucky ones have parents who support us and our proud of us as well. The sad part was that out of 104 parents who should have been there to admire the art work, the song, and share in a time of eating and supporting their kids…maybe 25 parents showed up. The parents who did show up…some came so late with their kids that they and their child missed the PERFORMANCE! (We’re talking like an hour late.)

The week was successful not because I did anything SUPER HELPFUL, but because I learned so much about how to carry out a project like this in Costa Rica and what to expect from the participants. It’s A LOT of work and only a select few are going to be HALF as excited about the outcome, but that’s ok. From this experience, I would like to propose a project to some businesses here for funding to do more family activities. This type of project could include anything that would encourage the parents to take pride in who their child is and what their child is accomplishing in school.

*some of you may be thinking about how we´re not allowed to celebrate holidays anymore in the US, but here the school system is very different and we did this as CULTURAL experience...how do some people celebrate Christmas in the US?