Daily Routine

My daily routine while volunteering at Colegio Sagrado Corazón was the same for every day that I volunteered. I volunteered every Monday and Wednesday, from 8:00 A.M. to 11:00 A.M. and 8:00 A.M. to 1:00 P.M. respectively. I would walk to the school from my apartment in Valencia and find the teacher that I volunteered for, Lucia Rus. In Spain during college, the teachers move between classrooms and the students stay in the same classroom all day as opposed to the other way around like in the United States. On some Wednesdays, in the middle of the day the entire school attended Mass, which was live broadcast to every classroom while the staff performed the service with several students in the center courtyard of the school. My responsibility was to talk to the students in English in groups of 2 to 4 and the students rotated in and out of the classroom about every 10 minutes. Lucia would give me lists of discussion questions or occasionally a board game to play with the students. I always started the conversation by asking the students’ names and how they were doing that day. I would then ask them questions and they would take turns answering. Some examples of the questions are, “What is your favorite subject in School?” “If you could have a superpower, what would it be?” “Are you doing anything fun with your family or friends this summer?” Sometimes it would be difficult for the students to engage in the conversation besides simple answers, but my favorite conversations were the ones that went off on tangents and when the students talked about Valencia. I enjoyed these conversations because they flowed naturally, and I was able to connect with the students and learn about their daily lives. I was particularly interested in learning about how their lives are different from mine when I was growing up in the United States. I would end the day at either 11:00 A.M. or 1:00 P.M. and leave the school.