Costa Rica vs. Spain en la vida de Fishy

I can´t believe how much my life has changed in the last year, or even the last few months.

A few months ago, I lived in Granada, Spain.  I taught English to 3 year olds - 6th grade as the assistant to the English teacher.  There were 25 kids in each of my 8 classes (5th grade was the only class I didn´t work with).  All of my co-workers spoke Spanish as their first language, and only a few could converse in English.  The ones that could were the English teachers, and wrote English very well, but had rarely had a chance to practice speaking.  Almost none of the students could converse in English when we started.  My school was named after an important woman in Spanish history.  Our school was directly controlled by the government.  They decided how many hours a week of each subject was taught, they prohibited differentiated lessons, gave the school options of 3 text books that could be used for each subject, chose the school´s budget AND how it was spent.  They even chose which teachers taught in which schools and which cities.  The school couldn´t even hire the people they wanted to!  I was contracted to work 12 hours a week, but opted to work 20 hours in the school and I taught about 5 hours a week of private lessons to earn me some extra cash to travel.  My co-workers were contracted full-time at 25 hours a week.  School was 9-2 M-F with a 30 min recess and 15 minute breakfast break for everyone.  And my commute to school was a mile walk to the bus, then a 30 minute bus to the school that was 3 towns away.  But at least I met another bunch of teachers from the other schools on that bus and we´d go out once a week for a drink and a tapa after school.

Outside of school, well I lived in a decent sized city.  Granada is home to about 250,000 people, plus 80,000 students, 10,000 of which are internationals, mostly from Europe and the US.  Granada had a busy nightlife, and my street was right in the middle of it.  I would go out for tapas (cheap drinks with free food) at least 4 times a week because it was almost as cheap as cooking for myself.  I would go to an intercambio to practice English and Spanish with other people. I would also eat Kebabs (aka Schwarmas) a couple times a week, and I think that they are my favourite food.  A night out with friends would usually consist of a kebab around 11 or 12, and or tapas from 9-12.  Then to a different bar for drinks until 2, then a club til they close at 6 (I often would go home before the club and call friends from the states thanks to the 6hr time difference).  After the club closed we´d get churros for breakfast and head to bed around 8am and I´d wake up by 1130.

I lived in a small flat with 2 roommates who were filthy and I didn´t get along with.  Rent was 200Euros a month, (about $260) which wasn´t bad, because we had internet and I was making about 1000E a month with my private classes added in. 

In Costa Rica...

I live in Monteverde, o mejor dicho, I live in the district of Cerro Plano, which is largley Tico.  I live in a nice house (I often compare it to a cabin) with 2 of my co-workers.  We get a long very well and all help clean and cook.  We each pay $100 a month for rent.  Our neighbors are our landlords and the parents of some of our students.  We rarely go out for dinner, and if we do it´s usually a pot luck at another co-worker´s house.  I regularly cook and bake for the 3 of us and bring the left over baked goods to friends. If we go out “late” I would still be in bed by midnight.  Sometimes I´ll babysit for our friends.  Their 6 year-old is one of our best friends here.  On the weekends I can sometimes sleep in until 730, but I am usually awake between 5 and 530.

At school, we are contracted to be there from 730-400 Monday - Friday.  Our students are in school from 8-250 on M-Th and 8-1220 on Friday.  I get paid 350,000 colones / month before taxes, so about 289,000 colones (about $600)  after Costa Rican taxes are paid.  This year I teach 5th graders reading, writing, spelling and math in English.  As well as 6th grade math.  Most of my co-workers are bilingual (English-Spanish).  One is bilingual (English-French) and some Hindi, Korean and Mandarin is also spoken.  The teachers who are not bilingual (or want to improve their 2nd language) receive free classes Mondays and Tuesdays after school either by the Spanish as a 2nd Language teacher or the 6th grade teacher.  The students receive most of their education in English from kinder (3-4 year olds) on, so by the time they get to 5th grade with me, the ones who have been here speak English well.  Our school is very different from any other school I´ve worked at or attended because of our unique situation.  We are a private school in the cloud forest of Costa Rica.  Our school was designed originally by parents   Our school has 2 official names and 1 name that everyone class it.  Officially we are the Cloud Forest School in English and the Centro de educación Creativa in Spanish.  That translates to the school of creative education.  And locally everyone calls it La Creativa. We don´t really use text books, except as occasional resources to see that we´re teaching everything the public schools get, and to give the students the vocabulary in Spanish.  The education we provide is aimed to be holistic and to teach the whole student, not just their academic needs.  Students receive Special Ed for emotional, behavioural and academic issues.  We also provide ESL (English as a 2nd Language) and ESI (Spanish as a 2nd Language) for any students who need it.  Our school is mostly tico, but has a couple gringos (international kids from the US and UK) in most classes.  And unlike last year we are not required to teach religion in school.

The best part about the school is that we are right in the cloud forest.  One important part of campus is the fact that we are spread out with most buildings only having 2 classes in them and the primary and secondary schools being separated by the meadow where kids play basketball and fútbol.  But our campus is much more than the classrooms, offices and recess areas.  We also have a composting building, 2 green houses, an organic garden, 2 kiosks, and miles of trails through the forest.  We can see a lot of wild life on the campus, enough so that people pay to take tours on campus at night.  I often see hummingbirds outside my class window, coatis outside the office.  One of the trails is called the Monkey Palace because you can usually find monkeys all over.  But the only time I´ve been I only saw my monkey students.

--- one addition I forgot to put in, thanks to Chelsea for reminding me, ---
My commute this year is also significantly shorter, only a 10 minute walk straight up hill this year.