Professional Development Week = hellish. .. There have been some big changes and it has made many people very upset so there was a lot of tension in the air. Not to mention the first day was nine straight hours of sitting and listening to presentations. I was soooo grumpy after that day that I dragged Kelly and Nick into the field and forced them to ply Frisbee with me so I could get out some aggression. The rest of the week was basically full of meetings or lesson planning from 8am to 6pm. ROUGH. In terms of lesson planning we pretty much designed the entire curriculum and then planned out the first two weeks. It was a long and arduous process; nobody enjoyed themselves that week.
Part of the issue is that the school year was made significantly longer by like 3 or 4 weeks. (A whole Easter break was done away with) The school day was made longer by a couple of hours. (We have to be at school from 7:40am to 4:30pm. I bit much in my opinion especially when the kids get out at 3:30) Teachers that eat meals provided by the school must eat with the students (a rule I heartily disagree with. I spend too much of my time with the kids; I do require an adult break during the day. Thank you very much. We’ve been trying to get around this one.) Also they have increased the amount of duties that each teacher will have do. There will be eight weekday duties during the year. On these days you just have to monitor breakfast, lunch and dinner and then deal with the two hour homework block after dinner. (I’ve already done one day and it’s just plain boringggggg) On Friday duty you deal with the meal times and then you have to stay on campus that whole Friday night. And then 4 weekends out of the year you have weekend duty. You have to amuse the 50some boarders for all of Saturday and all of Sunday. (Not looking forward to that. I’m hoping my group will at least make it interesting by going on a weekend trip or something.)
On a better note I got to meet the other teachers in my grade. Lisa has been here about five years and has an adorable baby boy. Sofia has been here a shorter time but still a few years. They are both new to Year 3 (Lisa was Year 6 and Sofia was Year 2) so we’re all scrambling to come up with lesson plans. They are both fabulous and I am really glad to have them in my Year group.
My hall
I finally got into my classroom this week. I got the smallest classroom in the entire school (figures) just by luck. According to Lisa, last year the son of the prime minister of Tanzania lived in this room. Very strange…there has to be more to that story. Anyway because if that I am also the only classroom in the school to have curtains, which is nice. These pictures are the before pictures...It actually looks alot better now and will hopefully actually look nice and colorful as soon as I get some of the students' work up on the walls.
My classroom has to be majorly swept everyday because everything gets dusty soooo easily. They don’t really do carpets here because the dust gets in it and then it’s nearly impossible to get out. Also, the amount of dust sticking to the walls means nothing else will stick to them. Posters held up with sticky tack, scotch tape, or even command strips fall within minutes. The only thing I’ve found that works is long strips of clear packing tape on all sides.
Kelly and I are still not able to move into our houses yet, but we’re better off than some of the other girls. Alex and Becca were put in a room in the borders dorms until the houses are finished and the other day the dorm room they were in flooded. A whole bunch of Alex’s things got all wet including her phone, ipod and camera. (They’re ok though, excluding the phone I think.)
Anyway……lesson planning must be done…..
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