It's been a really long week. A couple of weeks ago I was pretty much ready to quit my job here. I don't enjoy being a teacher. This is the hardest job I have ever had - this is even harder than finishing my PhD - and that was no easy task! I have no complaints (or very few ;-)) about the school, my fellow teachers and other staff, the students (except for one or two rotten apples), or really anything about this experience, except that I don't like teaching. I never realized how invested a person has to be to be a teacher! I come home utterly exhausted - mentally, emotionally, physically - every day. I can't imagine teaching all year long - I would go completely insane. Thank goodness for the summer "break". Anyway, I think I've gotten over the getting used to the new job hump though. I don't think I'm going to quit - at least for the first year, we'll see about the second. I have decided that I do not want to be a teacher. I suppose that's not all that surprising. I had hoped that I would grow to like it. Maybe I will, but I'm not holding my breath. When we leave Bulgaria I will find a job back in the GIS world. That is my passion. And I'm good at it. And I'm comfortable doing it. And even though I regularly swear at my computer, it doesn't ask anything more of me than some electricity and sometimes a connection to the internet. I can do that. :)
So, back to the long week. I had a lesson last week that included a slide show with pictures of the Mount St. Helens 1980 eruption. I think this was the first time I actually saw some interest from the students. So apparently I have to show cataclysmic events to get their attention. I felt like that lesson went fairly well. Then on Friday (which right now is the first day of my teaching week, so I start a new lesson then) I gave my first quiz. I think my students hate me now. I gave it to two sections. Out of nearly 40 kids only 5 or 6 were able to finish it. I have not graded them yet - that's this evening's task - so I don't know how anyone did. But I'm afraid there are going to be a lot of really bad grades. Is this because they don't know how to study, I didn't teach the topics well enough, I simply made the quiz too hard? I don't know. I've only met the kids 3 times prior to the quiz, so I haven't been able to pass along a lot of information. Plus we're all getting to know each other. I guess this quiz will be an assessment of my communication skills as well as the kids' study habits. I teach the 9th grade. When these kids were 8th graders they studied 4 major subjects: English, math, science, social studies; and then had a few more fun classes like PE and music. Now in 9th grade they have 14 subjects! Can you imagine how hard that would be to adjust to?!? So it falls to me and the other 9th grade teachers to help them figure out how to manage their time well so they can pass all these classes. I supposed by giving them a really hard first quiz they will learn quickly how much work they're going to have to do to keep up in my class.
Oh and the longest thing about the week was writing the quiz on Thursday evening, along with writing a homework assignment (actually Jeff did that for me), coming up with a group project for the kids, and figuring out a lecture for this week's lesson. Ugh. I was up way too late and still didn't get everything as ready as I would like it. This is the thing that I promised I would never do again. I seriously need to be at least one week ahead in my lesson planning. Thus tomorrow will be a lesson planning day.
Wow - I'm just blathering away here. I hope you're still reading...
Today we had an open house at the school. This is where parents get to come in and meet the teachers and find out what is expected of their children in each class. I think about 20 sets of parents or grandparents or aunts and uncles visited me today. About half spoke English. I had an interpreter with me - she graduated from this school many years ago and is working in Sofia right now. Most of the parents just wanted to meet the new teachers, but a few were curious about my first impressions of their children. Having only met each child 3 times prior to this it was a little hard to express my first impressions. I remembered all of the students and all but one stuck out in some way - that is I remembered them because they have been participating in some way or another. It was interesting having a conversation through an interpreter. I wasn't sure which person to look at as I talked! I heard some words that were familiar, but still couldn't tell exactly what they were saying in Bulgarian. The open house was for 4 hours. So during the time that no parents were in my classroom, Valentina and I chatted about her experience here, her university studies and what she's doing now. She said she loves to hike, so we swapped emails and hopefully will be able to go outside and play together sometime.
So I've set up a website for my students. It's really bare, but it keeps them informed. If you want to look at it click here.
Jeff went out with a mixed group of international and Bulgarian teachers to Murphy's Irish pub in downtown Sofia this evening. I couldn't bring myself to join the party, though. I'm pretty peopled out. But I will definitely have to visit the Irish Pub in Sofia, Bulgaria. Tee hee. That just makes me laugh.
Still here?
I apparently had a few things to say. Well, I'll close up these musings with a picture or two for your viewing pleasure. First, there are some trees on campus that grow these almost tennis ball size fruits that basically look like lime green puffer fish. I don't have any pictures of the fruits when they're green, but I now have pictures of the fruits after they have dried up and fallen from the tree. I've heard that these are either buckeyes or chestnuts of some sort. You can hear the seeds falling and you have to be wary as you walk under the tree or you might get pummeled.
The red things are the seeds - about the size of a large marble. The brown spiky things are the outer shell of the fruit and the yellowish thing is also the shell but the inside. The leaf was just on the ground but is not from the tree that these beauties fell from.
Another view for scale:
And one more completely random pic from the far distant past. I finally reconnected with my friend from many years ago, Lori, from Ohio and she sent this picture to me from a time long, long ago...
Chestnuts and buckeyes are the same genus (Aesculus), and what you have are seeds of some tree in that genus.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you aren't quitting. I was worried about you.
In England they are called Conkers and kids play a game with them tied on a string. It's a big deal for like 8 year old boys on the play ground. And I think there is even some sort of Conkers Champion of England!
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conkers