School Policy

Mini Rooster

A mini rooster is not a small male chicken, it's a day at school when the lessons are only 45 minutes, as opposed to 75. It's my first mini rooster day, and I like it. It was only 12:45 and my classes were all done. I not have to wait another 15 minutes before I have a meeting with Henri.

I don't know if I've written lately about Henri. He's really a lovely guy. He's friendly and cheery and very accommodating. He's a God-send. He's sort of got an Omar Sharrif thing going on there with his two front teeth not meeting. At first I thought he looked a little haggard, and while he definitely looks a little care-worn around the edges, all in all, he's a nice looking guy.

On Friday of this week, I will begin the speaking exams with the kids. I've been trying to prepare them for it for the last few weeks. I have to work the whole day on Friday and then every day next week - meaning again on Thursday and Friday. It'll be a long week, but I heard that the pay off is that when the graduating kids are gone, I'll have tons of free time. That's three classes of kids that I won't have for several weeks. Plus, I will be finished with the lower lever tenth graders in two weeks. And I'll never have them again! Yip-ee! They are a horrible class and they sort of pride themselves on being difficult to handle.

That will leave my ESL tenth graders and my higher level eleventh graders. That sounds really wonderful. A nice way to end the year.

I've started thinking about how I'm going to go about telling people that I'm leaving. Monica will be absolutely sore, so I will wait to tell her. But I really wish I had someone to talk to about it. Some one to help me figure out how and when to tell the others. I may have to do that myself. Maybe I'll do some planning on that sometime soon.

There's a guy here, Simon, who is here also for the first year. He teaches maths in English. I wonder if he feels as "on the outside" as I do. These teachers who have been here for a while are certainly cliqué-ish. My feeling is that he feels pretty left out as well - and he is Dutch. I don't even try any more. I just walk around doing my thing. When It's time to go, I'm so very gone.

posted by Philip @ 1:27 PM