A day teaching in Buenos Aires

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Wednesday was the first of 2 days we spent in Buenos Aires and what better way than to play teaching assistant at the school where my daughter works.

We left her house in La Plata at 5-45am on a bus to the La Plata bus terminal, jumped straight onto the commuter bus into Buenos Aires which takes just over and hour. You get off near Retiro and the subway and then we jumped straight onto a train to the suburb of Olivios where Colegio Tarbut is located. This is a 18mths to high school private Jewish school surrounded by a heap of other private schools all around it. To give you an idea of the type of neighbourhood, this is where the Argentinian president lives. He does not live at Casa Rosada in the city, this is the administrative centre of the government not where people live.

My daughter is one of the ¨native language¨ teachers at this very well resourced school, her job is to supplement the English curriculum which is already taught as 40% of the whole curriculum by the immersion method. She does more interactive sessions than the classroom teacher with the children from 5-7 years, kindy to grade 2.

Today was the end of the Australian theme she was working on so 4 kindergarten classes had a hands on session with making lamingtons and of course eating them too. Some of the children were very resistant to getting their hands sticky, others joined right in. We only speak English, my daughter is not allowed to speak or show understanding of any Spanish so it is total immersion.

The grade 1 classes has some different lessons with her, I joined in the whole day at the school including being fed a cooked meal at lunch time in the dining area.

School goes from 8-30am to 4pm for the children a very long day, but needing to be this long to fit in Hebrew, Spanish and English. 2 teachers for the kindy group of up to 25 children, play based, and a sleep after lunch.

So after school we took a bus to Belgrano suburb where we stayed at the Pampa hostel for the night. This is on the edge of the province of Buenos Aires and close to where a friend lives.

Getting right into Argentinian living with a coffee and light snack at 6pm at Havanna, a type of Gloria Jeans coffee franchise. We went to a Peruvian restaurant for tea nearby, sharing a seafood entree followed by rice and white beans and a braised steak plate along with a plate saying goat in Spanish, lamb in English and what looked like mutton when it came out.

Youth hostels do not allow you to come and go here, they lock the front door and let people in, you collect your key for your room each time you come and go. You also need to show your passport when booking.

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