So far, I love it. Everyone is very friendly and I am surrounded by people from all over the world with such fun accents. (I am a sucker for a good accent! There was a time in college when my blonde counterpart and I may have followed a group into a bar just because they used passports as IDs!)
The students I've taught up to now have been from Norway, Sweden, Finland, Holland, England, Germany, Spain, Prague, Israel, South Korea, Japan, Malaysia, Latvia, Czech Republic, Lithuania, Kazakhstan, and the US. There were even two students from Houston.
I haven't had much of an opportunity yet to learn about their curriculum, what they use to gather data, how they handle discipline, etc. The following are just some fun observations that I think my teacher friends will find interesting.
- There are 7 periods within a day. Most days, teachers get two - I repeat, two - conference periods. And some days, they don't even have a duty!
- Students go outside to play before lunch for 25 minutes. Then again in the afternoon for 15 more!
- I find transition time fascinating -- There is no lining up in straight, quiet lines to move from point A to point B. Most of the time, students transition on their own much like in middle school. If they are escorted by a teacher, they are in more or less of a line and there's lots of chatting. Of course, walls & doors help with his.
- Yeah, walls & doors. Go figure.
- They go to ski school one day a week for the first half of the day for five weeks of winter. Ski school!
- They use ... dare I say ... workbooks! Back home, we all know that when the teacher is out, the day is wasted. I only ever left busy work for my students and never expected the substitute to actually teach. It is the exact opposite here. I've taught whatever lesson the teacher would have had she been in that day. And the students actually completed assignments. Crazy. I know the difference here is that most students were on or above level and if they weren't, they were not far behind.
Even though these things sound appealing, I don't think I'll be able to conclude whether their system or what I'm use to back home is better. It would be like comparing apples to oranges because of the vast difference between student backgrounds. For readers who do not know, I taught students who were mostly second language learners from underpriveledged homes. The kids attending the international school may also be second language learners, but they're here because they've moved for their parents' work which is most likely for either an embassy, an oil or IT company, or something of the sort. It would be completely unfair to compare the two.
Believe it or not, I really miss teaching back home - even the stress, crap, and drama! That's not to say that I would trade what I have now. I'm not that crazy! But I miss having my classroom and 40+ students to call my own.
To my teacher friends reading this -- I'll be sending you all relaxing, score growing, alcohol filled happy thoughts throughout the testing season! Cheers!
