My school is participating in a Comenius Program with other schools from Turkey, Portugal, Romania, London and Italy. --A European Comenius Program is when schools from various countries work together on one specific project. Our project is a Recycling Program. During the next two years the schools will work together on a recycling campaign that will be implemented in each school and town.—
November 23rd -27th our school hosted the first meeting of teachers from all of the participating schools. Since people from Turkey, Portugal, Romania, London, Italy and Spain all speak different languages they all communicated in English, well at least they attempted to communicate in English. Needless to say I was very busy that week.
The program started Monday morning with a welcome song from our students; they sang “Hallelujah.” It turned out being really funny, but I don’t think it was meant to be!? -Think about 250 Spanish speaking kids singing Hallelujah, you get the picture.- Then the English teachers, Emely and I took the visiting professors to each class in the school to see how our English classes work. The kids all had a little paragraph about their class prepared and then asked questions to the visiting professors. Then we had meetings all morning.
The interesting part about Monday was the lunch the school hosted for our guests. Our AMPA (aka PTA) hosted a potluck meal in our school with various tapas (breads, cheeses, meats and anything else you could imagine). Then after the lunch we were taking the visiting teachers to see our town church, since it’s pretty much the only interesting thing to show off in Lebrija. Ok, here’s the interesting part; I am at the lunch talking to a teacher when I look up and see a couple of our teachers carrying cases of beer and wine down the stairs! Only in Spain can you drink in a public school...while working. Well, the next thing you know we are leading 20 fairly tipsy teachers through the Lebrija church.
On Tuesday we had various meetings throughout the morning and had lunch in a popular restaurant in Lebrija. We then headed to Sevilla for a tour. It was a fun, but long day. We didn’t get home until almost midnight.
The rest of the week consisted of meetings and food. I felt like we were feeding them every two minutes. But, I think they all had a good time in Lebrija and they got a great start to the program.
On the last day during our "send off" program the students sang another couple of songs and a couple of students danced Flamenco. It was cute and I think the visiting teachers enjoyed it.
That night we took them to a Flamenco performace at a local bar...we didn't get home until 3am! They sure were troopers.
The next meeting is in April in Turkey…I don’t get to go. Bummer!
Some of the teachers in Sevilla.
The visiting teachers with a couple of 6th graders.--The second from left is my principal.--
The students colored HUNDREDS of flags to represent each country, we hung them like this all around the school.
The students singing and dancing to a Flamenco song.
Some of our teachers dancing Flamenco, after the Flamenco performace we went to...they might have had a few drinks beforehand.
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