Teaching at Monteverde Friends School

My first weeks have been complete with teacher orientation, boxing an abundance of mismatched texts from my shared classroom, and attempting to figure out what math curriculum needs to covered in my combined grade classes. Toting my Spanish/English dictionary everywhere, I attempt to make the most of teacher meetings that are conducted in Spanish. All school meetings are mostly English but people are free to speak in either language and someone might translate. I am the only staff member not fluent in Spanish while there are several who are not fluent in English. Most students are bilingual, except for those who have recently moved here from the States. One family just returned to Monteverde after seven years in Tanzania, so the children are re-establishing their Spanish while teaching me a few words in Swahili. Fortunately, I teach math (matematicas) and science (ciencias) in English and need to use strategies to assist second language learners.

The strength of the school community can be attributed to its small size of 114 students ranging from preschool to high school, the many related family members that study or work within its walls, involvement of parents during Thursday afternoon minicourses, daily all school meetings complete with singing “feliz compleanos” to the day’s birthday celebrant, the hour long silent meeting held each Wednesday morning, the all school cleanup each day at 2:50 PM where each and every student and teacher plays a role in cleaning the building and taking care of compost, garbage and burnable toilet paper, the multi-age soccer games that occur every recess, lunch and rain or shine, the local bread bakers or dairy farmer selling their goods each afternoon, and the smiles that accompany a ‘buenos dias’ or ‘pura vida’ or ‘good morning’ shared amongst all.

The feel and philosophy is similar to Francis W. Parker School in Chicago, except only1/8th its size and about 1/80th the budget (an estimate at this point). Overall, people here are very resourceful and purchase only what they plan to use rather than what they might use. Lights are rarely turned on even on cloudy days and computers are off when not in use. I heard that the finance committee was concerned when the electrical bill soared close to $100.00 in a month. Which brings me to another topic for another day: cost of living!

The school follows a Quaker philosophy that fosters democracy, peaceful attitudes and personal responsibility without coercion or manipulation. We are all on first name basis with each other, yes, students call me ‘Mike. Are there any challenges? Sure, one major challenge is the general lack of material resources and difficulty in shipping things to the school. I would like to add a few things to create an environment that feels more like a science lab than a regular classroom. Some of this is a space issue while some is a funding issue. Fortunately, if I am going to practice at a school with limited funds, why not do it where the personnel resources are great?

Monteverde is a haven for biological research and I am establishing relationships with local naturalists with the goal of creating better connections between the school and the local body of research. Today, a PhD candidate from the University of Washington and his assistant joined my class to share their research about local army ant colonies. Did you know that army ant colonies are nomadic? They do not dig an underground home, but bivouac into a giant ant ball when not raiding an area for tasty critters to eat. For more info about army ants, see: http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2006/08/army-ants/moffett-text

Caio for now, Signed, M