Some kind of start on "the road of life"

Just over a month into my time here in Spain, I am still deciding on what direction to go with this much-delayed blog. I want friends and family to be able to keep up with my life here to some extent, but I would like these posts to contain more than just personal updates. At the same time, I lack a coherent project or subject to follow and report on, such as the domestic political situation in Bolivia when I was researching there last summer. So, I will begin this blog from the standpoint of a recently graduated college student who, after falling just short of two other jobs in the U.S., shipped himself off to Spain to teach English for a year.

The “year” is actually an 8 month school year, October-May, as part of the Spanish government’s bilingual education program. My title is "Auxiliar de conversacion," or "Foreign Language and Cultural Assistant," and my employer is the Junta de Andalucia. I teach in a public primary school in the small coastal city of Motril, Granada province, in Andalucia. The school’s bilingual program is relatively well-developed, with most teachers speaking some basic English and science classes taught in Spanish and English, in addition to English language classes. The school even has a blog, where parents can read about class field trips or find class activities when their kids are out of school sick. It strikes me as a good and sensible tool for connecting parents to schools, one that U.S. educators and administrators would do well to learn from (especially considering the relative ease of access to internet for most American families, compared to Spain).

I teach grade levels 4, 5, and 6, which here means students from 7 to 10 years old. I’m lucky to have this age group, as they are perfectly situated between the crazy energy of young kids and the insecure coolness of pre-teens, young enough to be enthusiastic about learning but old enough to actually have (some) attention for it. And not a class goes by that doesn’t make me laugh out loud. My time in class is evenly split between English language, taught mostly with the same teacher, and Natural Science (or “knowledge of the medium/surroundings”, directly translated), a bilingual subject for which each lesson is taught in Spanish by another teacher and then in English by yours truly. Overall, relative to other auxiliaries (‘auxiliar’ is the official job title), I am fortunate in the amount of structure I have at my school, while still maintaining a fair amount of autonomy and independent planning and teaching.

I am also fortunate, considering the numerous horror stories regarding Spanish bureaucracy and late payments, to have received my first monthly salary. Which is to say, I have euros in the bank. It is a great feeling to be financially viable here, to be earning my keep, paying my way, making money and not just spending it, actually living and working in another country. While I won scholarships, took out loans, and worked a part time job to pay for rent and tuition at college, and could claim more self-sufficiency than most, what I feel here is something far beyond that. This current phase of living entails an entirely different level of self-sufficiency and independence, a life and the means for that life completely separate from any support structure, financial or otherwise, outside of what I create and/or carry with me.

I guess this is my version of the so-called ‘real world’ experience, that first job and living situation after college that is so dramatized in the minds of students. The interesting thing is that, while the responsibilities of a post-college life are more legitimate and serious in society’s eyes, they are not necessarily more burdensome or stressful. In fact, based on anecdotes and general impressions, I would venture that the stresses of a working graduate, while defined as more ‘real world’, are actually less intense and ubiquitous than in the daily life of an overextended college student. Concerns about the future -and of course the demands of rent, bills, and budgeting expenses- are still present, but they are generally more sensible and manageable than those of the everything-all-the-time mindset and lifestyle of college.

Perhaps most importantly, a job-holding graduate’s concerns lack the constant underlying doubts about individual purpose, the importance of ideas, personal independence, and the worthwhile-ness of the college experience in general. There is something grounding and legitimizing about having a clear day-to-day purpose, doing a job that is needed, and getting paid for it. It is basic, and simple, and refreshing after the big doubts and questions of college inherent in that mixing of pure fun, big ideas, constant work, moderate responsibilities, and individualism. Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t trade my college experience for anything. And I also don’t consider my current job to be the most serious or invested job out there. I do, however, consider myself lucky to have any job at all in this dismal economic scene, especially a job so perfectly tailored to the interests and outlook of a recent college grad. And while this particular job is a far cry from a conventional career, there are still things about working and living independently (whether in Spain, the US, or anywhere else) that make college seem a world away.