How Scary, How Hard, How Rewarding

How scary it was at first, both teachers and students wondering where to start, and how to move on, how to make it work. It’s not a surprise that our country is not well prepared with efficient platforms to be in a virtual class for so long, but the love of every teacher and student involved in this issue didn’t lower the motivation to keep learning, improving and in the meantime, having some fun too.

Part of making this work was choosing wisely the topics our students really needed to learn, so the class time could be used at its best. The entire school dedicated many hours working on cool projects that made the language to be used in real ways, like crafts, plays, puppets, dramatic readings, riddles, music, games …  you name it. We can say that somehow, we made our way to have more fun than ever. 

The whole point of living the subject in this way was to make our students aware that no matter how different things seem to be now, or how hard the transition from style to style might be, when we work together, we will always figure things out.

For our cultural week, we celebrated the one-hundredth day of class which had the intention to show how great our teachers, students, and parents had been so far during these rough times. The event was celebrated in every class with its corresponding teacher. We reviewed all those cool things children had done so far. Part of the process was watching some bloopers from our recorded sessions, so we could all laugh about our own mistakes.  Our little kids turned white t-shirts into creative artworks, that became a flag of positivism and endurance; that is why they still keep them!

Some other kids even dressed up as elderly people to make a play about how this generation not only survived but evolved too into better people, stronger, smarter, and more grateful. They “came from the future” to deliver a positive message for everyone: “The best things are yet to come, so be patient, stay at home and be positive.”

All this effort implicit in the planning and execution of all these activities proofed that our team gave its best to keep our kids interested not only in the subject, but in being active despite the lockdown and positive despite the boredom of the solitude in some cases. 

It was something really beautiful to watch how our students lived their classes and said yes to any fun challenge teachers proposed, to any game they set, to any crazy project they presented. So here there is a golden chance to thank all of our students who decided to live this year in the best way possible and those committed parents who supported all those ideas the English team proposed to make the experience what it was. Thank you all!

To us, we get as a lesson that we are always committed to our important job, that we do not settle with low expectations. We promise to be in constant renovation so we can always set new standards of excellence for this generation and the ones to come.