First Days of School

This is how school works in Kazakhstan (at least for the first few days, which may not be final as the one thing you can be sure of here is that things are in flux).

Students and teachers arrive between 8 and 8:30 in the morning and hover around the mounted monitors in the atrium where the class schedule is cycling through 6(A) then 6(B) and so on until 12(D). This is the first time that teachers and students have seen the schedule and the classrooms where their classes will be held. For foreign teachers the hunt is then on to find the classroom in the expansive school, not a simple task in some cases but simple for me since my first lesson was in the room belonging to my department head, and the site for a few of our meetings last week.

Class begins with a melodic tune rather than a shrill bell and various tunes chime in and out classes throughout the day, one of which is rather ominous sounding. My classes run 80 minutes with a 5 minute break in the middle. Before my students came in the first day I was nervous thinking of the students' English proficiency, the way things would go with my team teacher on his first day of teacher in his first year, the course curriculum, plus all the general first day jitters. When I started setting up I saw the daily schedule on the teacher's desk and noticed that after each 80 min block there is a 20 minute break. First one is for breakfast, second one is called the "dynamic break", in which the students engage in a quick zumba-like exercise led by a few students in the atrium and the music, sometimes questionable in taste, is pumped throughout the school. And the third is for lunch at about 1:30. These twenty minute breaks are my new favorite thing about the school day here in Kazakhstan because it gives me time to move classrooms and get set up as well as enjoy some entertainment, eat a snack, grab some water and then get ready to continue. I don't know if it is because of this break, but I am finding that students do not socialize in class as much here, they sit down ready to be taught and they have a lot of fun on breaks, singing, dancing, laughing.

My first group of students surprised me. I don't quite what I was expecting, but they surprised me. The class had 10 students (my largest is 12) nearly all of which speak very good English and are eager to speak it. They had no clue what the class was about, same as me a few weeks ago, but immediately wanted to know if it would be marked. Apparently the students don't take too kindly to taking classes that don't 1) have something to do with science, 2) count on their transcripts, which some do not, 3) have a clear purpose. I was pleased to say I have at least two on that list and possibly all three, depending on the day. The students have strange names, even stranger than my students names in Texas (Jugbeh, Lil' Marlon). Here my students are named things like Shiopan, Ainur, Bekmuhammed, Gulnaz, Nazgul, to name a few.. it is rather dizzying and the kids get a good laugh hearing try to pronounce them correctly. I'm getting better.

The students move as groups, have all their classes with the same classmates throughout the day. Each of these groups also has a tutor. This doesn't mean the same thing as it does back home. The group's tutor is simply one of the teachers who is in charge of this group. The tutor supplies them with important school information, is the liaison with each student in the group's parents, and is the first point of contact if a teacher is struggling with a student in class or is having behavior problems, and organize time for the student to meet one on one with teachers of classes that they are struggling with. The trick is that tutors never have a scheduled time to meet with their students in a week. They have to text, call, catch students in the hall as far as I understand. It is a big responsibility.

I have so much more to talk about but don't want drag on. The week has been incredibly busy and exhausting, partly because I am in a foreign country, but mostly just because the first week of school is exhausting, on top of which we had a church meeting on Tuesday with the Area President and the Mission President, Russian lessons two evenings this week, the gym nearly every day (go us), a football match with a bunch of the international teachers Friday night at 10:00pm, yikes, and of course bridge with our friends Saturday night. Oh, and we gave talks in church on Sunday. Also I had a small meltdown over salad, or rather my inability to get any here that isn't covered in mayo or cheese that I don't really like much. Never thought I'd say that about any cheese, but there you have it.
Again, let me know what you still want to know or know more about. Here is to hoping next week is a little less crazy than this week.