Las Condes, Santiago de Chile. 19.13.
As I expected, when I arrived at school this morning, a plan for whatever it was I was supposed to do out here had yet to materialise. I think part of that is because they didn’t really know what they were working with: whether I was here to observe, to gain teaching experience, or perhaps even to help out in Maths (god forbid!). When they realised that I could not only speak Spanish but had been teaching for eight years already, that changed the game quite a bit… Really, you’d have thought this kind of thing would have been communicated ages ago! But, like I said, it was not altogether unexpected – I knew this exchange was going to be a bit ersatz until I found my feet, given how little information I had to work with before setting out.
Anyway…! What a school. What an incredible institution! I’ve been teaching the IB Diploma for the best part of five years now, but to see a school system where it is not just an additional pathway but the culmination of a five year programme… It almost seems ridiculous to offer the standalone diploma without the run-up of the MYP.
Craighouse sits at the very top of the extremely well-to-do suburb of Lo Barnechea, which is a step-up from the already smart Las Condes. It seems the higher up the mountainside you go, the higher up the societal ladder you climb, too. Mock Tudor houses with half-timbered facades. Americanesque mansions with illuminated porches and Spanish haciendas. The drive up to school from Las Condes felt like orienting one’s way through a bougie estate agent’s catalogue.
The school itself? An absolute dream of an establishment. Making rooms for scientific inquiry… Inquiry centres, which are glorified libraries with all the bells and whistles… Gyms and sports facilities that would make even my sportier students salivate… And when the clouds clear, the snowy peaks of the Andes all around them. How lucky these kids are!
The plan is coming together – slowly. For now, I’m going to be working with the Lenguaje department, helping to deliver Language and Comprehension classes. Ironically, in a school that teaches almost entirely in English, it’s the one department that is taught exclusively in Spanish. Bizarrely, they’ve hired in an English exchange teacher to help deliver the Spanish Language and Literature programme.
It is exactly what I wanted. It will be a challenge, I won’t deny that. But it is precisely what I was angling for. It is all part of the grand plan: teach Spanish, even to the Spaniards, until I am good enough to return to Spain and do the same over there. In Spain – at least in public schools – teachers of English are expected to be able to deliver Lengua Castellana as well. That’s like expecting our French teachers to be able to offer English Literature.
Of course, the British system doesn’t work like that at all – but then, why should it? Our entire curriculum fails to consider the importance of bilingualism, purely because of the cultural dominance of English on the world stage. If not English, which language would you choose? It would have to be one that your average teacher spoke well enough to capably deliver their subject, and that sole requirement kills the idea in one shot. Your average British teacher is simply not good enough at any foreign language to teach their core subject to the same standard as they would in their own, never mind finding one common foreign language at a national level. No – until another language reaches the same level of prestige as English, I don’t think it’s likely we’ll see that kind of programme over here.
But that’s ok. I plan to move abroad anyway. The more I see of this whole school IB approach, I have to admit, the more I like it. If I can only find a school in Spain where I can sink my teeth into a system like this one… Boy. That would be the dream. BB x
The Book of Barnabas 