Hello faithful readers!
I'm sorry that its been awhile since our last post, but we've been rather busy doing what we came here to do... teach!
The school year got off to its official start a week from this past Monday with the First Bell ceremony. It wasn't an official full school day, but it involved a ceremony to mark the start of the school year and a chance for the parents to come to the school and hear about the school, policies, etc. while the students got their schedules and locker assignments. The ceremony is meant to mirror the traditional start of school in Russian public schools. In Russian schools the first day of school (September 1st) is a holiday of sorts called the "Day of Knowledge." Our apartment is right across from a Russian school and it was all decked out with colorful balloons to mark the start of school.
The next day (August 31) was the first day of actual classes for us. It went well for both of us. Amanda has the 6th graders and has a great class of 10 students. She teaches their social studies, reading, language arts, and math. Amanda is also responsible for teaching the 4/5th grade class language arts. As you can imagine, this keeps her on her toes dealing with all of these different subjects and the high energy levels of the students:-) A few of Amanda's students are having a bit of a rough time dealing with some cultural adjustments as they are fairly new to Russia, but all of the students are friendly and everyone in the school keeps talking about how this year's 6th grade class is one of the best classes the school has had.
On my end of things, I have 15 students for a 9/10th grade U.S. History course, 11 students in 11/12th grade Russian history, and 9 students in 7/8th grade U.S. History. To top it off, I found out last week that I need to teach an environmental science course for our seniors because they need an additional science course for their transcripts but they have already taken all of the science courses that IA usually offers. I've been given pretty much a free hand to do what I want with them (and as much and as little as I'd like), and I am working on trying to figure out things to do. So far I've just let them do reading in class until we can cover some basics and I can pull some things together. I would appreciate some prayers for this course! I have the option of just letting them work independently through the textbook, but this would be extremely tedious for them and for me, so I am trying to find ways of making this more interesting with the limited time I have to devote to this unexpected course.
All of these classes are going well and I am enjoying teaching. Not being a trained educator, I wasn't sure how I would feel as a teacher, but I like it (I'm not sure if my students agree:-P I think they're still trying to figure me out). In addition to the wide array of grades I have, I have a range of ability levels too which is posing a bit of a challenge as I try to prepare material. Added to this is the fact that in my two U.S. History courses I have a total of 24 students of which only 3 are Americans (the others are Korean, Japanese, Swedish, and Canadian).
Our days fill up fast with teaching and the large amount of additional time spent planning lessons, writing assignments and tests, and doing battle with the school copy machine, but we have had a chance to get out a bit. We've gone out to eat with friends and our fellow teachers and last Sunday we were able to see the last day of a Picasso exhibit at the Hermitage. These have been enjoyable moments of rest and relaxation. We also started our Russian language work this week. We meet three times a week after school with Katya, who teaches the 2/3rd grade class at the school, and she works one on one with Amanda and I. Its nice to finally be working on learning more Russian than trying to get by on what I remember from 3 years ago and what I taught myself in the intervening time. Language study is an important part of living in another country, so please pray that this will be a profitable time for Amanda and I!
We are only midway through the second week of school, but Amanda and I can already say that we feel blessed to be able to be a part of this school. The environment is so positive, our colleagues are great, and God is present and at work in our students and our school! These first two weeks haven't been without the bumps and rough spots that life always has, but we feel very encouraged by the way things are going and are continuing to adjust and adapt to life in Russia.
-Matt
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Kronstadt
Hello everyone!
It's been about a week since our last post so we thought it was time to bring everyone up to date once more. This past week was full of meetings at school and time spent in planning courses and lessons. It's been fun and exciting to getting to know the other teachers and making concrete plans for our classes. Tomorrow is the First Bell day, where we have a beginning of the year ceremony and students receive their schedules, locker assignments, and we go over some procedural things, and Tuesday marks the first official day of classes. So just in case you thought all we did was go around and see cool things, we'd like to note that we haven't forgotten that we came here to teach and we've been hard at work preparing for classes.
But since all work and no play is no good, we do have some pictures from our most recent excursion.
Yesterday we had the pleasure of exploring the island of Kronstadt with our friend Masha. We went and visited her grandmother, who lives on the island, and spent the day walking around and exploring the area and especially the harbor. Kronstadt is the island that guards the entrance to St. Petersburg on the Gulf of Finland and used to be a major naval base. There are still various naval installations on the island and we saw quite a few sailors and ships. You can read a bit more about Kronstadt here if you're interested.
After spending most of the afternoon on Kronstadt we took a hydrofoil back to the city. It was a lot of fun to approach the city from the water and it was a really good deal at 96 roubles (compared to the 500 roubles we would be charged as foreigners to go to Peterhof by water, which is closer to the city than Kronstadt). After getting back in town, Masha took us to a wonderful Greek restaurant off of Nevsky Prospekt. We enjoyed a good meal, complete with live music and dancers. A little bit of ice cream from Baskin Robbins topped things off for the night.
It's been great to settle in these past four weeks without having to start teaching immediately, and we have been very grateful that we had this time to figure out how to do things, and to make some mistakes and learn from them. But now the real work begins as we start teaching. As things get busier we may find it a bit more difficult to update here as often as we'd like to, but we will do our best to keep it up to date!
And now, some pictures from yesterday's excursion:
The Naval Cathedral on Kronstadt. Unfortunately, it is under extensive rennovation at the moment so we couldn't see it. There is a picture of it without the wrappings in the Wikipedia entry that I linked to above.
A statue of Peter the Great, the founder of St. Petersburg and Kronstadt.
The stars of our show!
A candid shot I took and decided to post, which probably does not please Amanda or Masha:-P
Ships in the harbor at Kronstadt.
A submarine.
Amanda and Masha.
I took this picture of a ferry as we went past it on the hydrofoil.
One of the small islands that ring the harbor at Kronstadt, also taken from the hydrofoil.
Kronstadt from the hydrofoil (complete with authentic water-streaked window!)
The Peter and Paul Fortress, which we passed as we went back into the city.
A picture, which I am rather fond of, that I took just as we were about to go under the Troitsky Bridge.
The hydrofoil we took back (well, technically only half of it)
And to finish things off, a great shot of the Winter Palace that Amanda took last night.
That's all for now!
-Matt
It's been about a week since our last post so we thought it was time to bring everyone up to date once more. This past week was full of meetings at school and time spent in planning courses and lessons. It's been fun and exciting to getting to know the other teachers and making concrete plans for our classes. Tomorrow is the First Bell day, where we have a beginning of the year ceremony and students receive their schedules, locker assignments, and we go over some procedural things, and Tuesday marks the first official day of classes. So just in case you thought all we did was go around and see cool things, we'd like to note that we haven't forgotten that we came here to teach and we've been hard at work preparing for classes.
But since all work and no play is no good, we do have some pictures from our most recent excursion.
Yesterday we had the pleasure of exploring the island of Kronstadt with our friend Masha. We went and visited her grandmother, who lives on the island, and spent the day walking around and exploring the area and especially the harbor. Kronstadt is the island that guards the entrance to St. Petersburg on the Gulf of Finland and used to be a major naval base. There are still various naval installations on the island and we saw quite a few sailors and ships. You can read a bit more about Kronstadt here if you're interested.
After spending most of the afternoon on Kronstadt we took a hydrofoil back to the city. It was a lot of fun to approach the city from the water and it was a really good deal at 96 roubles (compared to the 500 roubles we would be charged as foreigners to go to Peterhof by water, which is closer to the city than Kronstadt). After getting back in town, Masha took us to a wonderful Greek restaurant off of Nevsky Prospekt. We enjoyed a good meal, complete with live music and dancers. A little bit of ice cream from Baskin Robbins topped things off for the night.
It's been great to settle in these past four weeks without having to start teaching immediately, and we have been very grateful that we had this time to figure out how to do things, and to make some mistakes and learn from them. But now the real work begins as we start teaching. As things get busier we may find it a bit more difficult to update here as often as we'd like to, but we will do our best to keep it up to date!
And now, some pictures from yesterday's excursion:
The Naval Cathedral on Kronstadt. Unfortunately, it is under extensive rennovation at the moment so we couldn't see it. There is a picture of it without the wrappings in the Wikipedia entry that I linked to above.
A statue of Peter the Great, the founder of St. Petersburg and Kronstadt.
The stars of our show!
A candid shot I took and decided to post, which probably does not please Amanda or Masha:-P
Ships in the harbor at Kronstadt.
A submarine.
Amanda and Masha.
I took this picture of a ferry as we went past it on the hydrofoil.
One of the small islands that ring the harbor at Kronstadt, also taken from the hydrofoil.
Kronstadt from the hydrofoil (complete with authentic water-streaked window!)
The Peter and Paul Fortress, which we passed as we went back into the city.
A picture, which I am rather fond of, that I took just as we were about to go under the Troitsky Bridge.
The hydrofoil we took back (well, technically only half of it)
And to finish things off, a great shot of the Winter Palace that Amanda took last night.
That's all for now!
-Matt
Saturday, August 21, 2010
Mega Picture Post!
So the past couple days we've mostly been working on lesson plans and such in the apartment. We had dinner with the O'Burne family and they are all wonderful so that was a lot of fun. When we went home we rode in a vanbus that had thick tiger print seatcovers and blinds. We were mildly worried that we would end up at a bar, etc. but we got back fine! :-)
Yesterday we met up with Masha again and our project was to get a coffee maker and cellphones. We got the coffee maker at Matrix and it is a bit spendy as far as USD but it was the best price here. I am very pleased indeed to have a coffee maker! We wandered around the mall and successfully bought cellphones.
Our cellphones ended up being 649 RUB (about 20 USD) because the phones here are carried by everyone (the iPhone is carried by every mobile line, not just AT&T) and you end up with a more pay as you go or X # minutes per month (pretty much the same). Everything is stored on SIM cards so you can switch phones by just changing the card in the phone. If you wanted to use it in the US you could just put in a SIM card for a US carried and it would work. Mobile communication is something that Russia passes the US in 100 times over!
We then had dinner with Masha and played with our purchases. The last big thing to get is heavy blankets because it got cold here fast and our bedroom is pretty cold at night. So we are off to IKEA again on Monday! After that we have used all our settling in money and have all we need!
The Admiralty Building behind a fountain at the park!
I originally went to take this picture because it was a bird on this man's head but it turned out to be Gogol with a bird on his head! Even better!
Nevsky Prospekt
A memorial for the WWII blockade. over 1 million died (largely from starvation and disease) in the city.
down a canal
The Stroganov Palace. This was a prominent family who had a lot to do with the expansion into and development of Siberia
just a cool building
Kazan Cathedral
Dom Knigi. The book store where I found Mr. Gaiman.
The Cathedral of the Spilled Blood! As you can tell there is much more sun than our last pictures!
Inside it is covered with mosaics of bilibcal scenes and angels and saints.
Mary is in the top center under one of the domes
Christ is in the center under the main dome
The woman at the well
Pretty
Good ceiling shot
The iconostasis
woman washing Christ's feet with her hair
Transfiguration of Christ
Calling of Mary by God
This was made when they fixed the Spilled Blood. It had fallen into disrepair in Soviet times (we overheard a tour guide say that an opera stored their props here). This picture of Christ is based on a sketch.
No clue who he is.
Birth of Christ
On the far high wall there is Mary and Joseph fleeing to Egypt
Christ's trials before Sanheddrin on lower column and crucifixion above the archway
raising of Lazarus
Jacob's dream at Beth-El
Christ's Baptism
The exact place where the tzar died
This was just plain funny. Worthy of Engrish.com I think!
And that's all for now!
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