Teacher Work Days

Here's the report on our first two teacher work days in Slovakia.....
For all you American teachers out there, we have observed some differences and similarities.  First, there is a whole week to prepare before the kids come, which is really nice.  And in 2 days, we only had one 2 1/2 hour meeting.  :-)  Sweet!!  And the work days are only 8:00-2:00, with time for lunch within that.  The government also requires that employers subsidize worker lunches, so we were able to purchase 10 vouchers for 10.80 Euros, that are worth 2.85 Euros each.  The really good thing is that restaurants all offer 3 Euro lunches that are amazing - each day we've had wonderful soup and bread followed by  a hearty meal of meat and potatoes or rice, and then a fancy filled cake dessert.  We spent most of our time in a large teacher workroom with a desk for each teacher, in department groupings.  Our English department colleagues are terrific - mostly younger - and very friendly & helpful.  We met so many people and are trying to learn names.  The English teachers (there are 10 including us) helped us figure out our schedule and what the designations for all the classes are.  We teach 16 classes a week (45 minutes each), which is a lighter schedule than the Slovak teachers.  But the usual number is 22-24 classes per week even for them.  Not like in America, for sure!!  Over here, they actually think teacher preparation time is a valuable thing!!  Tim and I will be teaching Conversation classes only, and we have each group of students for one, two, or three times per week - it varies.  Very confusing, but we're starting to catch on.  We each will have a total of about 120 students - 10 different groups of 12 students each - all between the ages of 14 and 19.  

Evanjelicka spojena skola in Liptovsky Mikulas - our new school!!  

Tim on the way into school our first day of teacher work week.   :-)  

Janka and Katerina took us to lunch and helped us with the vouchers, and then Katerina was our translator with the business secretary helping us to fill out paperwork in Slovak for our work visas.  We had been told to bring extra passport photos for Slovak forms and  documents, which we did, but they are the wrong size.  Grrrrr!!  So Katerina sweetly offered to take us to get new ones made at a photo shop after school on Monday.  It was great having her there to be sure we got the correct photo size this time.  

Today started with the English department meeting, which was very helpful.  We were asked to introduce ourselves, tell a little about our education background, and any comments on what we've observed at their school.  Everyone was assigned extra duties, and ours include being in charge of a speaking contest in which our school's students will compete in another town.  Yikes!  We are also in charge of the role-playing portion of the "Maturita" which is the tremendously important set of final exams all students are required to take at graduation time, to determine college entrance scores.  Part of the Maturita is oral/speaking for a jury of teachers from our school and another school (20 minutes), with 5 minutes in role-playing with a teacher --- Tim or me.  That is a lot of pressure!!  I'm sure by then we'll be O.K. with it.  During the meeting today, one of the teachers we replaced came by.  She was here 4 years, so she was asked to come back for our first month to help with the transition, since all the classes except one will have new textbooks, so all the curriculum she wrote will have to be rewritten for the new materials.  (That's a difference --- they write the curriculum to match the textbook!)  The yearly plan (curriculum) has to be submitted by Sept. 19, so the three of us will be working diligently to get it together.  For about 4 classes!!  

Tomorrow is a national holiday, so there is no work day, but Carol is coming over here to our flat so we can work here.  That's because Tim and I won't be at school Thursday (so Carol will go to school and work on the curriculum herself), since we have to go to another town for our Slovak physical exams.  We keep hearing it's quite an ordeal for all the American teachers, so we'll see how that all goes!!  One of the teachers will pick us up at 6:00 a.m. to head to our 7:30 appointments.  The assistant headmistress told the teacher to make a day of it, show us around the historic town where we'll be, go out to lunch, and not bother coming back to school that afternoon.  :-)  Sweet!!  So we'll make up for that day by working tomorrow and won't have to feel guilty.  LOL!!  

Oh, I almost forgot to mention, our luggage did indeed arrive on Monday.  It was actually waiting for us in our apartment (the land-lady let them in) when we returned from getting the visa photos after school.  So we spent a good deal of time getting the large bags unpacked, and now we feel much more settled.  The teachers also told us some other places to check for fitted sheets, flat sheets, pillowcases, and mattress pads to help with our bed situation.  We had to wander around to multiple stores to find everything.  It still isn't ideal, but much better now.  The nights have been perfect for sleeping - cool evenings and beautiful warm days!!  

This is the view of Liptovsky Mikulas from a shopping center across the Vah River from town.
We are still in awe of the beautiful mountains surrounding us every time we look or go outside!
  

This dinner was an attempt to re-create some restaurant meals we've had here!
Salmon baked with olive oil and lemon pepper, zucchini boats filled with 3 colors of peppers, onions, cheese and baked, home-grown tomatoes given to us by the deputy headmistress, and the typical bread rolls sold for .06 EU.
Oh, and some of the Slovak white wine!  :-)

Not many pictures today - just long descriptions.  Feel free to comment --- I wonder if anyone reads the blog besides our parents.  :-)   (Thanks, Moms and Dad!!)