Jul

Making Believe with the children of Costa Rica

Posted by studmeister Published in Entries

Several years ago, after school was out, I’m a elementary school teacher, I took a trip to San Jose and stayed downtown in a hotel not too far from a small school. Every morning I awoke to the sounds of children playing in the yard during the day. For me that is a very familiar sound. One day I was walking by the school in the morning and I met one of the teachers supervising the kids playing. She spoke enough English and I spoke enough Spanish and we talked about being a teacher. All the problems, love, hard work, low pay you receive from teaching kids.

So, one day she invited me into her 4th grade class and I felt right at home. Then she asked me if I wanted to do anything with the kids. I paused not sure what to do, after all it was her class and my Spanish was not as advanced as the 4th grade class. The only thing I could think of that was fun for the class, I sure wasn’t going to make then do math problems, was some improvisational acting.

This is how it works and the kids loved it. I think kids worldwide are natural actors anyway. I would simple talk what I was doing and the kids had to act it out. Like: It was early in the morning and I was sleepy when I got out of bed—the (the teacher helped with my Spanish I might mention) kids would yawn and wake up. I took a bath—the kids would act washing. Of course I would say things like—I saw a panther and got scared and climbed up a tree and then swam across a river and ran down the road and then I flew like a bird and landed on a volcano and then drove a car—The kids would really got into it and we laugh and laugh. They all wanted to be the actors. For the next week when I walked by the school the kids would see me and come running and want to play the fun game again called “Making Believe.” Little kids are great, I love them.

Presently I am retired and living in Lake Chapala, Mexico.

Michael McLaughlin