Seño, ¿se colorea?: Part two in an occasional series of observations on Spanish public schools

A rather odd fact about myself: I kind of like vacuuming. It's somehow really satisfying vacuuming the carpet in the living room and making parallel lines. It's methodical. It's calming. It's my inner obsessive compulsive. Don't get me wrong, there are a million things I'd prefer to do rather than cleaning the house, but of all the activities involved in cleaning, vacuuming is probably my favorite.

Those kinds of mundane, methodical tasks are satisfying because you can see the progress. It's not a challenge, it's not difficult, and you get instant results, just like all of those New Years weight loss commercials say. Another thing that is strikingly similar to vacuuming; creating straight lines and uniformity, instantly seeing results, is coloring. Kids will color absolutely anything they can get there hands on. In elementary school, with the abundance of coloring items, including but not limited to crayons, markers, colored pencils, oil pastels (whoever let THAT into an elementary school apparently has never tried to wash that stain out of a white shirt), paint, glitter paint, felt-tip pens, etc. etc., and the steady flow of worksheets, is the perfect storm for coloring madness!

Lucía going to town on a Christmas tree.

So everyday, in every class, whenever we have anything that is paper, the question comes up:

"¿Pero seño, se colorea?"

Every.Single.Day.

The paper could be a math worksheet, with numbers and lines, and they bust out the colored pencils and start coloring in the squares.

Starting them young.

Coloring is great, I don't have too much against it. But when you are in school, supposedly learning to read and write in Spanish and English, coloring becomes a battle field between teacher and student.

For example, today with 2nd years we are talking about the environment. We are going to learn about the water cycle and the different forms that water can take: liquid, gas, solid. I want you to label the pretty diagram with the waterfall and snow and steam with the name of that form of water in Spanish and English. Whilst writing on the board, I hear the sound...

A scraping, shuffling, clacking sound of little hands combing through the boxes of crayons that are situated on their desks like a donut shop in a fat camp, looking for a red or blue or whatever colored crayon.

Whipping around and zeroing in on the noise like predator.

"NO se colorea!!!"

The offending child lets go of the crayons and sits straight up. Silence reigns, I return to attempting to write these words neatly in cursive, which I haven't used since I was those kid's age. Faintly, a rustling is heard in the back. Not the sweet sound of pencil and eraser scratching softly on paper, but the hush of crayon laid sideways, painting in huge blocks of color on a background.

"NO SE COLOREA chicos! Estamos escribiendo las palabras en inglés! Nada de colorear! Suelta los colores!"

Silence. Pencils on paper. Making the rounds to check spelling and have them pronounce the word. Suddenly, a tiny hand begins tugging on my shirt.  

"Seño I'm finished." 

It's perfect. Spelling is correct. Accent marks over the correct letter in Spanish. Capital letters. It's begun... Soon, another hand taps me on the arm. And another. And another. They tug on my shirt. They grab my wrist. They step in front of me. They grab my leg. They're closing in from all sides!

"Seño what do we do now?"

It's the early finishers! The kids who pay attention the first time I explain things and have the skill to write more than one letter at a time without double checking it on the blackboard. Quickly getting bored, they get up to talk with their friend on the other side of the room. With 7 minutes left before the bell there is no time to begin a new activity and half the class has not finished. The talking distracts them. They start talking. Things are spinning out of control. It's getting louder. And louder. And LOUDER...

"Chicos! Si hayais terminado, COLORÉALO!!!"

Color it.

The kids run back to their seats and start scrambling for crayons. They outline, they shade, they dot, they add stars and flowers to the pictoral water cycle scene. Absolute silence in the class. The kids who were dawdling while writing the words somehow magically find the focus to get them finished, eager to get on to coloring. The bell rings, everyone has the words copied, everyone is sitting, everyone is smiling.

Coloring: a teacher's best friend and worst enemy.