KENTUKIANA 7: 'Fútbol' at School

Just back from Christmas break, on January 2, the idea came up of incorporating the teaching of European soccer into the Spanish classes. The play came straight from the bold mind of Miss Jane, the physical education teacher, who must have seen me on occasion kicking around a pickup game of soccer with the girls and boys in the ‘gym’, and something must have started brewing right there. Maybe she imagined that back in Spain I had been an ace with the ball, or perhaps she thought: -let’s turn this one into a coach too-. Just a coach? Referee, goalkeeper, kit man, nurse, ball boy, cheerleader, psychologist. I’ve even had to suit up as a player when the teams come out odd-numbered, or when one of them starts losing in resounding fashion and, to spare them those crestfallen faces, I join their side playing ‘super Messi‘, the savior. Another of the superpowers a good teacher takes on: ‘instant transformation‘, an ability I didn’t mention in the previous post (see Kentukiana 6: Should I Stay or Should I Go Back?). This way, by adopting all these roles, I usually feel closer to a Mortadelo playing soccer than to a Filemón knocking the ball around.

I usually feel closer to a Mortadelo playing soccer

than to a Filemón knocking the ball around.

The truth is it turns into quite a spectacle to watch them run and play, going at the ball with headers, scissor kicks and boots that land in the air and sometimes, by ‘mistake’, on a classmate. It’s lovely to watch them dribble, shoot, score, make saves — and not just for how they do it, but for the innocence of their movements, for all the rules they invent, for their ways of taking throw-ins, which tend to be one-handed and in the style of the NFL (National Football League); or for how many times they forget you can’t intercept the ball with an arm or a hand. When that happens, they all look at me and shout –Handball! Handball!– Sometimes I choose to simplify and don’t even call certain handballs or out-of-bounds: –There is no out! There is no out!– I exclaim to them. –Continue! Continue!-. Mostly to give the game — and the kids — some agility and continuity, hoping they’ll at least wear themselves out a little. In fact, if I had to blow the whistle every time the leather crosses the sidelines, I’d already be half deaf and half bonkers. Because that’s another thing: I usually blow the whistle while covering my ears with both hands, since the little ‘sound’ that comes out of that devilish whistle — good grief — I wouldn’t have wished it even on the men of the Inquisition. That’s why I’d rather do that, or wear earplugs, than assault my treasured eardrums so gratuitously.

The idea of bringing soccer into the Spanish classes was put on the table during one of the weekly meetings held by us teachers of the subjects known as the ‘specials‘, that is, music, art, gym, library, and Spanish. Gatherings that go by the name of PLC (Professional Learning Communities), something like ‘communities where teachers learn their craft together‘. They are sessions of about 45 minutes, same as a class period, which the principal attends almost every time she can. The main objective is to work collaboratively among the teachers who make up the team and to reach consensus on the various agreements so that they always help improve both the students’ results and those of the teachers themselves. That is precisely what we’re after by alternating the hands-on soccer sessions with the Spanish classes, since above all they will serve to cement and reinforce those bonds that many of the students have yet to build either with me or with other students.

Keep very much in mind that this is the first time Spanish has ever been taught at this school, and I’m as new here as the subject itself. ‘A new spanish teacher in Newport‘, the movie could be called. So it’s no surprise that some students are reluctant about my classes. They don’t bother, or maybe they don’t yet have the level to understand that I left my whole life behind in Spain, covering more than 7,000 kilometers and their 9 hours on a plane, to come here and help them with everything a teacher can offer as an educator. The thing is, too, that most of them tend to have minds so precocious and immature that demanding any kind of reasoning from them is more than they can handle. But as educators we have to try. That is one of our objectives, and the one we owe ourselves to.

I left my whole life behind in Spain, covering more than 7,000 kilometers

and their 9 hours on a plane, to come here and help them with everything a teacher can offer as an educator.

In every group I always spot the typical ‘smiley faces‘, who may be that way because they like your class or because that friendliness comes factory-installed. Then there are the ones reluctant to walk into your class, the barely participative, the ones in constant motion: the ‘movers‘, as I call them; the absent-minded or more unmotivated, the ‘up set‘ ones disappointed with the world, the depressed ones because something has happened to the poor things, and then there are the ‘destroyers‘, the ones whose little smirk tells you, the moment you see it, that they’re going to make a scene. Still, are they too young to understand the importance of learning a second language? Is it because they have no study habits, no listening habits, and even less any learned sense of attention? Or is it me, who as a teacher should be able to bring in activities and methods so supremely motivating and eye-catching that the class just works? Maybe it’s a totum revolutum, and on top of that facing cognitive levels and levels of behavior as varied as a painter’s color chart.

Maybe it’s a totum revolutum, and on top of that facing cognitive levels

and levels of behavior as varied as a painter’s color chart.

Now let the system, the politicians, and everyone responsible for training future teachers tell me what good my two university degrees are, a master’s (‘of the Universe’, like He-Man’s), umpteen thousand hours of courses, when in all of them the ‘practical examples’ of actual teaching are conspicuous by their absence.

A teacher’s preparation could be nurtured and made far more concrete, enriched, renewed, so that out of that effort exquisite teaching professionals would then emerge: ‘soldiers of education‘. We need to invest more in education, but not just with money — with more energy, attitude and commitment from the entire educational community. Aren’t we teachers that cornerstone that both this world and its children so urgently need? And then they go around saying that education is one of the fundamental pillars of a society. Not even they believe it, since it’s plain to see that it isn’t supported and not nearly enough is done. Only the experience of daily classes will help us train ourselves in handling those countless situations that have almost never been given enough attention. You only run into them once the doors of a school swing open for you.

We need to invest more in education, but not just with money,

but with more energy, attitude and commitment from the entire educational community.

As of today I see certain university degrees, the civil-service teaching exams, and all the other ‘course-ologies‘ as mere collectors of content where words abound and what’s missing are the deeds, the conferences, the talks, and every kind of real practical case study that would help breed better teaching professionals. Don’t they require pilots to log some 1,500 hours of flight time? How many hours of practice do they require of us teachers to fly three, four or five classrooms a day — and successfully? Don’t we also need a minimum of school flight hours before diving into teaching? Don’t your children, our students, deserve it already? More hours of ‘practicum‘ and less ‘verbum‘ is what’s needed. Politicians, parents, teachers, the school community, and everyone else taking part in the process — I will never tire of repeating it: more involvement and less inaction.

More hours of ‘practicum‘ and less ‘verbum‘ is what’s needed.

So, by introducing Europe’s king of sports into a Kentucky school this way, not only do they learn to play it and further develop their mobility, but it can also mean a great improvement in their classroom behavior. Although it doesn’t work for everyone, far from it, it remains to be seen what will happen in the decisive final weeks ahead. In fact, it will be discussed in the upcoming posts on this blog. Now I see the point of sacrificing a few weeks of Spanish classes if it helps foster the development of their good conduct, though I keep alternating the theory classes with the soccer ones, since between bad weather and other events taking place in the gym, playing sometimes becomes impossible.

not only do they learn to play it and further exercise their mobility, but it can also mean a great improvement in their classroom behavior.

PLCs start from one basic premise: students learn more when teachers work together. This is fundamental. That’s why we began working on this idea from the very start of the year. The great project that will underpin it all, however, will be holding an Olympics with European football or ‘soccer‘ as the star sport. Seeing as I came from the old continent, I was the perfect ambassador for introducing this sport at the school. And so Miss Jane proposed we work together to promote enthusiasm for this sport and thus set off a carom of results toward my subject and those of my other colleagues. Jack, the art teacher, would take charge of crafting the trophies and medals, as well as the outfits or props for said Olympics. Nick, from music, would be in charge of giving the event its notes — pun fully intended. Finally, Ivy, the librarian, would also join in the outreach and organizing duties. We got the green light from the administration, and by the end of January the ball was already rolling around the gym.

students learn more when teachers work together.

These Olympics will take place on March 13, 14, and 15, with the pre-Olympics the week before. While never letting up on the Spanish lessons, I did make sure, right there in the gym, that they learned and practiced certain terminology such as ‘mano‘ (handball); ‘falta‘ (foul); ‘fuera‘ (out): ‘pelota‘ or ‘balón‘ (ball); ‘penalti‘ (penalty or penal); ‘portero‘ (goalkeeper); ‘defensa‘ (defense); ‘delantero‘ (forward); ‘tarjeta amarilla‘ (yellow card), or ‘roja‘ (red card); ‘árbitro‘ (referee); ‘silbato‘ (whistle); as well as other more common expressions like ‘¡pasa!’ (pass!); ‘¡tira!’ (kick it!) and ‘¡gol!’ (goal). Of course, before I could teach them to belt out a goal like the legendary Jose María García, they first had to learn how to play it. What they do know down to the last detail, famous little hop included, is the celebrated goal celebration of CR7, Cristiano Ronaldo, and his ultra-famous –Siuuuuu!-, both arms stretched down and parallel, chest puffed out like a peacock’s. It amazed me to see how a simple gesture has spread to nearly every corner of the planet.

Although almost all the students already knew about ‘fútbol’ or soccer, until now very few dared to play it. Now it’s becoming a reality in which even the girls are getting into it — and very well, by the way — especially the Guatemalan students, who seem to carry a certain magic in their touch on the ball. About all this — the unfolding of the matches, the making of the teams, and plenty of other anecdotes — I will keep writing in future posts.

What’s needed, then, is a resounding change of mindset, and to start seeing in these kids an opportunity to work on values as key as motivation, integration, respect, attitude, perseverance, tolerance and play. Only then can we help them become more humanized beings, which is what this world truly needs.

we can help them become more humanized beings,

which is what this world truly needs.

“The problem,” in the words of the philosopher Umberto Eco, “is that politics and, to a great extent, the intelligentsia still have not grasped the scope of the phenomenon.”