7:15am I actually slept pretty well last night, falling asleep before midnight, but I woke up early thinking about what I had to do, even making up things I dont have to do. I am ready for today with my genius cards, pens, pencils, camera and demos. I just want to get started as I feel that so many of my doubts will be addressed once I meet the students. I have wanted to prepare a calendar, so that I have a plan for a few weeks at least, but I dont know what pace I can use, or how long 40 minutes really is. I also dont really have a handle on how much homework I can give. Over and over I feel like I run in to the ambiguity or even the mixed messages of "we all need to do the same thing" and "you can do what you'd like." I appreciate that two students of the same ability in the same course who do the same amount of work should get the same grade. Of course this is true. I just dont know what that looks like here yet.
8:00 am Anyway, I was early for the bus, not wanting to leave without me and it didnt leave until 7:34 by my watch. I was dropped off at the back of campus near the science building and went into my office. Sibel was already here and asked if I had slept. Ipek dropped by with a card of good wishes, and I looked at my moodle page. I just added a tag line that says welcome to my class and a link to webelements.com. The hall got very loud at 7:57 as the students arrived for homeroom at 8. New teachers dont get a homeroom, for which I am grateful. There is a whole school meeting at 9am in the maze (the whole school doesnt fit in the theater at once) for the opening flag ceremony and announcements. This will be at the same time as my first class would be on a regular Monday. After the meeting everyone goes to their 4th period class. My next class is double intro 5th period.
9:44am We are just back from the opening ceremony. The setting was beautiful. We were in the maze, which is an outdoor ampitheater with the center part filled with chairs. Students sat by homeroom, but there were extra people there with some parents and graduates also attending. There was a brief welcome, then we stood to sing the Turkish national anthem. The headmaster, John Chandler spoke first with a L11 student providing the Turkish translation. It was particularly funny when John was talking about Farhat and thanking him for translating, which then he had to translate. The Turkish director, Gular spoke next and then a student - maybe the class president? They both spoke in Turkish, so I dont know what they said. It kind of felt like one of those Gary Larson cartoons, where the human speaks and the dog just hears his name and food amongst all the blah blah blahs. I picked out teacher and student several times, but that was it.
The students look just like students anywhere, if better dressed. They smiled and yawned, they played with their ties and picked their nails, they laughed and they shaded their eyes from the sun when it peeked through the trees. Even though I didn't understand much of what was going on , it was good to get a reminder that these kids are not that different from the kids I know back home. Now it is tea break and I dont teach next period anyway, so I have a bit more time to sit.
1pm: I have finished my first two lessons and they went just fine. My first class has only 12 students in it, they are L10 so their English is better and I have been told that they are more squirly as L10 taking intro than they would be if they were L9, so it is nice to have a small class. We did genius cards and I found that they need the same encouragement to be creative as my Gunn students would. The hardest part was switching between the rooms in the 5 minute passing. Even though it is only across the hall, when I have my stuff spread out and demos to clean up, the time was tight. Bells ring. No, I mean bells. None of this electronically generated buzzer sounds, actual bells, which is a bit disturbing at first, but it is clear when it is time to switch classes. The students names were a bit of a challenge, but they were very helpful. Oddly, many of them go by their middle names. The IC kids were very surprised when I ate the candle after they had 'observed' that it was made of wax and that it was melting. The AC kids guessed right away that it was made of cheese or potato, even after I lit it. They were still surprised when I ate it. (-:
1:50pm: I am back from lunch and I dont have another class today. I downed four glasses of water straight off. Note to self: bring water to class. Lunch is provided for all staff and students and it is pretty good. There are always a few choices of meet and then a starch and vegitable as well as soup and fruit in addition to a salad bar. The salad bar has always had tomatos and cucumbers, grated carrots and yogurt, but the other slots change with the day, lettus, pasta salad, potato salad, bean salad, etc. One of my favorite discoveries at the salad bar is pomegranate syrup/vinegar. It is sweet and tart and thinker than vinegar. It is very tasty on the tomato/cucumber salad. There is usually a dessert as well. Today was a rice pudding with carmalized top, yum! When you sit down to eat, you say afitosen, which I am sure I didn't spell correctly. At first I thought people were saying goodbye in German, but no, it means someting like bon apatite, which I probably also didn't spell correctly. (As a side note: I am not a good speller in English and trying to spell something in another language is harder. Also, I am using a Turkish keyboard set to English. This means that if I am touch typing (thank you Mr. Froli) I only have issues with the location of the shift key, which is farther away due to the additional keys for the Turkish letters. If I am not touch typing, for instance with - and = etc, the keys are not labled correctly so there is a bit of guess and check. None of this excuses my spelling, but I hoped the story would distract you from worrying about it too much.)
Next to work on pictures and homework schedules for tomorrow.
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