Teaching in the State School in Copan

I have restarted Spanish lessons but for one week Gaby was ill so Maria stood in for her. She teaches at the Juan Ramon school in Copan in the morning and when she found out I was working as a teacher at San Rafael I was invited to visit her school which I gladly accepted. There are 850 pupils at the school, grades 4,5,6 are in the morning and grades 1,2,3 are in the afternoon. At the weekend, the secondary school pupils attend. Class sizes are typically around 35 children.

When I arrived at 3:35, it was break time. I met the teacher Sara and the girls wanted to take me away to play. They took my hands and led me to playground where I felt I had to entertain them. This was where I had a sudden panic as I tried desperately to think of something so I did "Round and Round the Garden(Jardin) like a Teddy Bear" and that was a great success. Soon I had many hands being thrust at me and more kids rushing over to join the ruck.

I enjoyed it so much that I went back the following day with Lucy. When I saw Lucy being led away by the girls, it so reminded me of the shots on television you see when people are visiting places in Africa. On the second day, I organised with Lucy's help the kids into a circle and we had seventy kids doing a version of the Hokey-Cokey! I felt a sense of achievement at that. The only problem was that the kids decided that going into the middle was a reason for pushing over and all the boys ended up on the floor. We had to curtail it before it got too violent. Lucy took the girls aways and she had them in a queue for "flights". The boys were now excited, we decided to play Cat and Mouse, I was the mouse and when caught they all charged in and despite my best efforts, I was toppled over, lots of arms, bodies, legs all over the place. I was wondering where the teachers were but if they had noticed then they at least were thinking, he can look after himself.

When break was over, I thought that was it but Sara told me to teach the class. One the first day, the kids sang me a song and as it was the same grade, I gave them sums to do and taught them English words for head,nose,mouth,eye,ear so we could play Simon says. On the second day I was more prepared and Lucy and I repeated a lesson from San Rafael in the morning.


Here is the class - you can see my face drawing on the board.

I keep being asked by the kids around the town to come back.

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