Getting Ready for School

School starts on Monday. Everybody else I know has been in school for at least two weeks, and many 3 or 4 weeks. Our school schedule is set by the Turkish Ministry of Education; I don't know what they use to determine the start date. Many Turkish students take AP tests, but it is not at the same level as in the US. There is a college entrance exam that all? seniors take, which is in the first week of April, even before APs. I have heard people talk about how lise 12 is basically over at the semester since students come to school less and spend more time in their darsane (sp?) basically cram school in preparation for the entrance exam. I wonder what goes on in them...anyway, there was a sigh of relief when it was discovered that there are no L12 students in advanced chem this year. Anyway, my point is, if the exams are in April, I would have thought that starting school earlier and ending earlier would be better, but then the ministry sets the exam date as well, so who can know.

This past week has been super hectic. I guess they usually have 1 1/2 or 2 weeks to get ready for school to start, but this year because of the bayram, it was all squished into one week, which was basically non-stop meetings, including 12 hours of tech training on how to use microsoft office 2010 and windows 7 on the new laptops that IT just passed out to every teacher and admin. We were separated by content area and I guess science had one of the better instructors, but they definately had a curriculum and were determined to stick with it regardless of the needs of the audience.

This was also the first week I really got to meet the other chemistry teachers and to get a sence of the department. As I think I mentioned before, one of the things I liked about RC was that there is a chemistry department, I was looking forward to collaborating with colleagues rather than being the whole department at a smaller school. There are four chemistry teachers, although one also teaches prep science. They are all very helpful and will answer all of my questions with patience and I have a lot of questions. My major issue is just how close together do we need to be? It has been stressed over and over that the courses need to be the same between teachers or the students feel that it is unfair. "My friend's teacher gave an extra worksheet" is not a concern for having too much work, but rather not enough practice and therefore a disadvantage for the exam.

Tests are an interesting subject, we all signed up for all the test days we will use on the Friday before school starts. The ministry says a student may not have more than two tests in a given day, so there is a scheduling website which knows every students schedule. I plug in that my section 5 advanced chemistry class will take a test on Friday Nov 7th and it checks that no one in that class has another test scheduled for that day. If even a single student does, I can not give my test then. What will I be doing on Nov 6th, you ask? It doesnt matter exactly where I am in the curriculum, not at the end of a unit? no problem, I just test on what I have covered up to then. This seems backwards to me, but when the students have 10 periods a day, and as many as 12-14 classes a week, I guess it is a safety valve for them. Science, and especially Tony, is known for getting their test dates in early to the chigrin of the other teachers. So, Nov 7th is an AC test, for all the AC sections which meet throughout the day. If two happen to be at the same time, great, they can have the same test, but next period, it has to be a different test, after lunch, another test. I think there are 6 sections of AC, so we will need to write 4 versions of the test. There are 10 sections of introductory chemistry, and there is no day that they all meet, so I think we need 6 versions of the test. I asked, can we just change the numbers, and the answer is no, we have to change to question. Remember, telling your friend what is on the test is not cheating, its helping.

Ok, so I know when the tests are, that gives me a framework for timing.  Jim and Tony have given me copies of the AC and IC tests, so I know about what needs to be covered by those times, I have the Atlas curriculum map, which gives the 'units' and their timing, and I have a folder full of labs, some of which aren't done anymore, but it isn't clear which.  This should be enough, I should be grateful that I can fill in the details myself with exactly how I get from here to there, and I am sure I will be grateful once I get the swing of things, but right now I am worrying about the details.  No body makes a unit calendar, so I dont know how much homework they assign on a given night, or what topics they emphasize.  If I felt like I had autonomy I wouldn't mind, but I feel like I wont know where the end of my leash is until I strangle myself. 

Enough about that, I will just have to get my feet wet before I know what strokes I want to use. 

Teachers are not the only folks preparing for the new school year.  Maintainance has been repainting things and the fleet of minibusses have been spiffed up and are ready to go.  Yesterday on my way back from Ulus at the top of campus, I chose not to walk through campus, but around it and found the 'okul taksi' staging area.  I think I saw more than 15 busses parked, or being labled or otherwise getting ready for Monday.  Of the 1000 students that attend this five year school, 185 live on campus and the other 815 live close enough to comute.  I think some parents drop off studnts, but most come on the service bus which goes door to door morning and afternoon all over the city.