Today I went on my first field trip with my students. The 3rd of ESO group went to a nearby school for its "dia del centro". Students from16 bilingual sections from surrounding towns came to participate in a day of speaking English and playing games. There were more or less 20 students from each school, which means 320 students, plus a couple teachers from each school. With that amount of people it turned out to be impossible to control anyone, and I'm pretty sure the students just hung out and spoke Spanish all day. There was a schedule of events, but there was no organized way of telling the students where they were supposed to go and when. I ended up sitting in the auditorium with David for the whole morning listening to students presentations about their schools, watching an abridged rendition of High School Musical and watching students sing karaoke in Spanish. I was amazed at how disorganized everything was in comparison to how everything always has to be organized to a T in the states.

One of the consequences of this disorganization arrose later in the day when we were leaving. Apparently there had been an soccer game earlier in the day, and there had been some tension between my students and another group of kids who didn't even go to the school. These kids were able to just walk in because no one was keeping track of who should be there and who shouldn't. There was an issue with one of the other kids pushing and teasing the students from my school, and later on when it was time to leave it escalated to the point I had to step in.

At the end of the day the students were waiting outside the school gate for the bus, alone. They shouldn't have been allowed to just leave in the first place, but again, no one was keeping track of the students. I was outside talking to another lanuguage assistant and waiting to leave when I saw a couple students run over to me saying that the other kids from the game were going to hit my kids. So I ran over and pushed the kids apart and just stood between them. I told them to leave in my not perfect Spanish, and they just laughed at me. The kids were standing all around us, and kept trying to get my students, and I had to push them away a couple of times.

They were saying things to me that I half understood-enough to know they were not at all friendly- and one of them stood so close behind me I could feel his face in my hair, just to push my buttons.  I had enough of a power position, though, that they didn't try to push past me, and finally I got my students inside of the school gates.  The group of quinquis (loosly translated to hooligans-but with a negative conotation) taunted us and even banged on our bus as we were leaving.

Today was the first day I have been in the position where I needed to be in control, but couldn't because I don't speak Spanish fluently. Usually I am able to communicate whatever I need, but here I was just at a loss. I knew that the only thing I could do was to keep them apart until another teacher came out. Luckily we were supposed to leave right then, so the other teachers came out shortly after.

This situation would have been so easily avoided if there had been some form of supervision throughout the day. This was an issue that had escalated from earlier in the day, and should have been taken care of right then. Instead, I was the only one there to deal with it when it finally turned into a fight. Hmm...