The following videos are a tour of my school. Click here for Part 1 and here for Part 2. I’m at an all girls school which is about 15 - 20 minutes away by foot, 7 minutes by bike, 5 minutes by taxi, 2 seconds by Startrek transporter. My school is surrounded by gates and fences of red roses (apparently that is the school’s symbol). The school is in two different buildings. My office is in the main building and my classroom is in the second building. When you walk into the main building you have to remove your outside shoes and so there are little cupboards with all the teacher’s shoes in it. You switch into “comfy shoes” (as they call it) but really they mean slippers or plastic slip on shoes. What I find strange is that you walk from building to building with your comfy shoes on, thus defeating the purpose of keeping the school clean from mud and dirt...or maybe it’s just me that thinks that’s weird.
My office is a big open room with desks and little mini-cubicle like dividers for all the English teachers. My desk is beside my co-teacher (who speaks English) and she is very sweet and very helpful. The office has a hot and cold water machine and above it is bags of green tea and coffee sticks. These coffee sticks are awesome, you can get all flavours (including with or without cream/sugar) and you just rip the top and dump it into a mug of hot water. If you want cold coffee they have special ones for ice coffee and iced tea. Everyone has their own mug, and at the end of the day around 4:10pm all the girls clean the whole school. Sweep the floor, mop the floor, pick up garbage, everything. When they clean the office they take your mug, clean it, and put it back into the UV ray sterilization box located in the office. Crazy huh?
The Vice Principal is also in our office and he has a little rug and leather chairs in his giant cubicle. The Principal has his own office downstairs and it is the biggest Principal’s office I have ever seen in my whole life. It has a small forest worth of plants and about 16 big leather chairs all facing each other. His desk is huge and has a big beautiful rug underneath it. Pretty different than North American school offices.
My classroom is in the building which houses art, dance, music, science labs, and singing. I have quite a colourful atmosphere around me! If I leave the door open I often get swarmed with 1st year students coming in to say “hi” or ask if I am teaching them next year. I’m hoping to get a video of this swarming one day. My classroom is big because I have classes of 35 - 40 students. My students are very easily excited, but otherwise they are well behaved... besides chatter. Lots and lots of girly chatter and giggling. I will also try and video tape the chatter and giggling.
A few strange things Simon and I have both noticed is that the schools tend to keep the lights off. You’ll notice in the video the hallways are very dark. I’m not sure if it is an energy saving thing or a way to keep the heat down. It isn’t hot here yet, but we have been forewarned that it will be very humid eventually. That’s it for now, pictures of coffee sticks soon to come!
