Hello Again!
Our first quarter is officially over! Tomorrow we have our parent-teacher conferences, which for me doesn't mean as much since the parents of the secondary students aren't required to meet with all of their children's teachers. Amanda will be meeting with all of her parents tomorrow and I'll see if I end up speaking with any of mine.
In honor of the end of the quarter, I thought I would post what a typical school day entails for me. Amanda will be posting her typical day in the near future as well:-) A lot of what we post on the blog are the things that we think will be the most interesting for potential readers: places we've been, pictures of things, interesting places in the city, etc. However, we don't want to give the false impression that all we do is sit around in fun restaurants and exciting tourist destinations blowing all of the money that our wonderful donors have so generously given.
Most of the time we are busy at school doing what we came here to do... TEACH! Since we do this 5 days a week, its nice to write about something different on the weekends, but its also important to let you know about what exactly goes on at school. So without further ado, here is my typical school day schedule:
7:40-7:50 a.m.
Arrive at school. Depending on whether either of us needs to make any copies for our first class affects how early we arrive.
8:00 a.m.
Morning devotional time with the rest of the teachers. John Siegel, who teaches Bible, History, and P.E. classes, leads the devotional time. We are currently reading through the Gospel of Luke. We also take time to pray and go over announcements.
8:20 a.m.
Time to head upstairs to the small room at the end of the third floor where my first period environmental science class meets. During the rest of the day it is used for ESL classes, but for first period our three seniors and I rule the roost as we discuss various ethical issues associated with the environment.
8:30 a.m.
First period begins. Right now I have the students at work on reports on cities in Russia with major pollution problems. Regrettably, Russia has many areas facing serious environmental problems and several cities in the country consistently rank on top ten lists of the most polluted cities in the world.
9:15 a.m.
First period ends. I'm off to the teacher resource room on the second floor. "My" classroom is used the first two periods as a math room, so I need to go to another room to do prep work. The resource room has two computers with printers as well as two copy machines. I use this time to make copies of readings, handouts, assignments, tests, quizzes and whatever else I might need to give to my students. I also use this time to review my lecture notes for the rest of my classes for the day so that the material is fresh in my mind when I roll into the classroom.
10:00 a.m.
Morning break time! At 10:00 there is a 15 minute break where the students can eat snacks they've brought, play at the ever-popular Foosball table, or do other non-school related things. I use this time to get settled into my room since I have three classes back to back and need to get my materials for all of them ready to go.
10:15 a.m.
History time! Break is over, and now the real fun begins, or so I tell my 9/1oth grade U.S. History class most days. It is a bit weird to be teaching U.S. History to a class of 15 students that contains only 3 Americans (the other students are Korean and Japanese along with one Canadian and one Swede), but that is the class I have been assigned and teach it I will. Right now we are finishing up discussing the 1850s and the buildup to the Civil War. Next week we have a test, which is always fun for me if not for my students.
11:00 a.m.
Russian history! Ok, so this should probably be labeled 11:03 or 11:05 since I am consistently late at getting my students out on time. Technically we don't have any time built into the schedule for passing periods so we are supposed to let our students out a few minutes before the scheduled end time so they can get to their next class on time. I do try, but I am often late at letting them out. What can I say, I just can't stop talking... But Russian History is the next class. Here I have 11 students in grades 11 and 12. I am working on trying to prepare them for college by making them read challenging articles and do critical writing assignments. It might not be the most fun they'll have all year, but I hope they will see the value of it later. Right now we are covering Ivan IV ("Ivan the Terrible").
11:45 a.m.
Russian history is over, and now its time for another round of American history, this time with 7th and 8th graders. The 7/8 U.S. History class is supposed to cover the first half of American History but my class is made up of students who have either more limited English ability or need stronger reading comprehension skills so the focus of the class is on reading comprehension. By comparison, my 9/1o class looks like its chock full of Americans as my 7/8 U.S. History class does not have a single citizen of the U.S.A. in it. Korea, Japan, and a part-Russian student represent the nationalities that I get to teach the history of a country that most of them have never visited. Currently we are looking at the various English colonies established in North America.
11:55 a.m.
Lunch time! 5th period is the time that the elementary school, middle school, and high school have their respective lunches. Even with only 94 students in our school, our cafeteria isn't large enough to handle the entire school so we have three different lunches. Middle school lunch gets placed in the middle of 5th period, so after 10 minutes of history I dismiss my class to lunch. I head on down to the teachers' lounge on the first floor to heat up my leftovers (or ham sandwich), eat my chips and cookies, and have a few cups of tea to try to get my voice back from talking so much the previous periods.
12:25 p.m.
Back to class! Lunch is over and its time for the rest of history class. We finish class and then I am done teaching for the day (except on Tuesdays when the P.E. schedule means that I have my 7/8 history class last period instead of 5th period)
1:00 p.m.
Class is over and its time to do some lesson planning and/or grading. My last two periods are free almost everyday for me, and I use it to read and write materials. This time usually involves a conversation with John Siegel, since his room is right next to mine. John has been at the school for many years and has taught most of the history classes in the past. These past few years with myself and another teacher who didn't return this year he hasn't taught as much history but he has lots of experience at the school and in Russia and is full of great stories and advice for a new teacher like myself.
1:45 p.m.
Technically, this is the start of 7th period, the last period of the day. However, since I don't have a class at this time (except on Tuesdays) I just keep on working in my room on the third floor.
2:30 p.m.
School's out! The school day ends and everyone gets to go home! Well, not quite for us teachers. I make my way downstairs at this point to Amanda's classroom on the second floor. There are usually still a few students in her classroom who need to be herded out the door and then we hang around until the elementary teachers finish their hall duty.
2:50 p.m.
With the little ones successfully herded out the door, its time to begin Russian lessons! We do Russian lessons with Katya, who teaches the 2/3rd grade class, on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays after school. Katya works with Amanda on an introductory Russian language book (actually, its the same book that I used as a student 3 years ago), and then spends time with me doing a bit more advanced work in a few other books. We are going through an old Russian language book that I have that is hilarious because of its extensive Soviet-era vocabulary and often inane dialogues, but we are supplementing it with additional readings and exercises from other books Katya has.
I am currently slogging my way through exercises on the various word endings and cases that Russian has (nominative, genitive, accusative, dative, prepositional, and instrumental). It's not fun but its definitely what I need to be working on and repetition and practice are the only way that I will ever learn them with any degree of proficiency. Even though it can be a bit tiring to try to do a Russian lesson after a long day at school, I really enjoy studying it and its always good to have some Cyrillic in front of me after reading and speaking in English all day.
3:35-3:45
Time to head home! We pack up our things and begin the arduous five minute walk back to our apartment. It is such a blessing to live so close to the school. Several of the other teachers have commutes of an hour or longer each way every day, so we feel very fortunate to live so close. It makes it so much easier to come to school in a good frame of mind when you haven't spent an hour of standing in traffic on a crowded bus or running after a marshrutka.
This schedule is pretty much the same the entire week with the exception of Wednesday which has no history classes. That's my relaxing day where I only have environmental science and a study hall. However, the rest of the week follows very closely to the schedule that I've just explained. Hopefully this gives you a better idea of just how I spend my time 5 of the 7 days each week!
-Matt
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