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Back to School


Back to school,
Sept. 2008




Funny how you forget what school's like, if you haven't been there a long time, isn't it? I've just returned to full-time school teaching after several years in Business English.

Back "at the chalk face" all of a sudden is like being parachuted into the middle of a Grand Prix circuit, and told to mind out for passing vehicles.

I'd totally forgotten what a noisy place school is, for a start. That really struck me at lunchtime today, as I collapsed in a corner of the classroom and listened to the elephant-like stampede of some 500 pupils out in the corridor.
If you'd told me they were handing out 100 € notes to the first pupils through the front doors, I'd have believed you.

But no, they were simply making a beeline for the canteen, lured no doubt by the smell of fresh-baked pizza.

There's a lot of things I like about this school though. It's so much better organised than anywhere I've taught in England.

There the first part of each lesson invariably involved coercing pupils into not climbing out of the windows, clearing up their crisp bags from the floor and rubbing obscenities off the blackboard.
Here in Germany pupils are assigned classroom "chores" in pairs on rota basis.

Responsibilities include opening the windows (for so-called "Stoßlüftung" - lovely word), sweeping the debris away from around your feet and handing you the class registration book (thoughtfully opened at the right page, naturally!). That means as a teacher you can simply get on and teach.

That said, whilst I've been writing this I've been putting off preparing tomorrow's lessons. And correcting some 30 exercise books. Some things in teaching never change.....






KnowHowe
KnowHowe
Latest page update: made by KnowHowe , Sep 24 2009, 1:20 PM EDT (about this update About This Update KnowHowe Edited by KnowHowe


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