Since I’ve been busy packing, moving and now slowly unpacking, I haven’t had a chance to show you some of my fall fashion finds. However, it’s Throwback Thursday and I do have tons of pictures of my previous life as a teacher. I know, me as a teacher?! Believe me, I never pictured myself teaching high school kids in Medellin Colombia but life is crazy like that sometimes.
While living in South Korea and shopping a ton, I had the idea that I wanted to go back to my place of birth, Medellin Colombia and teach English. It was a romantic notion that I would be educating young people, reconnecting with my culture and working on my Spanish. The only good comparison I can give to teaching high school kids in Colombia, is Dangerous Minds meets Mona Lisa’s Smile.
View from my classroom.
I was the outcast from the beginning, the Canadian teacher that speaks Spanish in a funny way but has “wandered” all over the world. My first couple of months there were meltdown worthy. Rebelous teengaers thinking that English wasn’t important or relevant to them, parents not understanding my teaching style and family not understanding who I was or what I wanted to accomplish there. With so much going on around me, the one thing I held dear and still do were my students.
Where I wanted to teach them English so they could get out of Colombia and travel the world, they wanted to teach me that all they could ever want was in Colombia. It was one of those things where they taught me so much more than I could ever teach them about the English language.
Senior class boys.
Senior class girls.
Out of all of my painful, stressful days, my worst had to be the day I left them. Signs were made begging me not to leave, notes, gifts and my favorite gift of all, the senior class jacket they all signed for me.
Looking back on this Throwback Thursday, teaching in Medellin Colombia was probably one of the best experiences in my life and I will cherish that experience forever.
Keeping it Confident on this very grateful Throwback Thursday – Patty
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