The Best Internship in the World

Last week I finally started my internship. I had an interview on Monday at 5 and was pretty nervous going into it. I finally mustered up my courage and went in for the interview and it was amazing. My supervisor is an absolute sweetheart and I fell in love with the association immediately. It is an after school program that works with lower income families and has a tutoring program. They help out the kids for an hour after school and then they take the last half hour to play outside with the kids. Most of the kids really struggle in school and have immigrated to Madrid from other countries. Needless to say, they are absolutely adorable and I fell in love with them immediately.

Right after my interview I went straight into a classroom and was told that I would be working with Alonso and helping 5th and 6th graders with their homework. I was designated official English tutor since that is my native language and we had a great time. During free time/play time I talked to Alonso and realized that my supervisor never told me my hours. When I asked Alonso when I worked I made him repeat it about 3 times because I didn’t believe what he said. Sadly, I only work 1.5 hours ever day, from 5-6:30. We can’t work anymore because it is an after school program and before then the kids are always in school. SADNESS. Anyway once July comes and the kids are out of school I will be working more, so that is good.

When I returned the next day I thought I would be doing the same thing of tutoring kids with Alonso, but I was soon proved wrong. At first I went into a classroom with Eva and was helping her draw silhouettes of the kids. After about 10 minutes, Beatrice came in the room, chose 10 students, and had me follow her to a classroom across the hallway. She introduced me to the 10 kids and made sure that I knew all of their names. Half way through the introduction process a warning flag popped up in the back of my head. I thought, “wait a minute, she isn’t going to leave me here with them, right? No she couldn’t do that, I don’t have anything planned. She wouldn’t do that…I hope” that is right about when I started to pray really hard that she wouldn’t leave the room. Next thing I know though, she was saying goodbye, told me to bring the kids outside in 45 minutes, and then she LEFT THE ROOM. All of a sudden I was left alone in a room with 10 kids who all spoke Spanish and had to pull something out of the air for us to do for the next 45 minutes. I was in total panic mode, but decided that we would learn the parts of the body so I taught them the song. Head shoulders knees and toes and then we played Simon says.

Since then I have had much better lessons planned and I have to say it is so incredibly amazing to have my own class. It is still weird to hear the kids say, “profe” and be asking me questions. I keep on thinking that they are talking about a different professor in the class and I can’t help but look around when they say “profe…” It is really cool though because for the first time ever I have my own classroom with my own kids. It is my first step towards being a real teacher. I love it.