School and running

Another good day at school – as I get used to the schedule and the students, things are starting to calm down a bit.  I’ve decided that I can do essentially one lesson plan a week with all of my classes except the 9^th graders – and vary it by ability level.  I have the 9^th graders 4 times a week.  I really like them – I never thought that 9^th graders would be my thing, but they aren’t like 9^th graders at home.  They are still at the point that they naively think school is cool – and so are the teachers.  Though I should say that the students as a whole are different here.  They are ALL learning TWO foreign languages.  Not just one foreign language, TWO.  My Dual Language students have their math, history and science lessons in English – and the 9^th graders have 20 lessons of English a week (there are 30 lessons per week).  They are very interested in being successful, and not falling behind in school.  I have not had to spend ANY time on rules or behavior because my standard (which were deemed as borderline ridiculous by many of my students at Burnsville) is the NORM here.  There are no hats, no one uses the bathroom during class, a small percentage of them speak out of turn- but not many, there are no fights, there isn’t detention, there just aren’t problems.  They stand when I enter the room, and they stand when I leave.  The schedule for teachers is a funny one (maybe I’ve talked about this before – but when the bell rings to indicate the start of class, that’s when teachers think about leaving the office.  Keep in mind that it’s a 5 minute walk to some of the buildings… so we are always there after the students are already there.  (no students are ever tardy either – did I mention that?)  90% of the students, whether I have them in class or not, greets me as they pass in the hallway.  I think I’ve created some identity crises – because sometimes I greet them in Hungarian, and sometimes in English – so it’s funny to watch them react to my greetings.  All in all, people are generally more respectful here.  Perhaps it is because this is a high caliber school- who knows. 

 

            I had a running date today with two of my 9^th grade students.  They wanted to go for a run with me, so we agreed to meet after school.  I initially assumed that they meant right after school, as that is when we practiced at home… well –they settled on a 5:00 meeting time (which just seemed odd) but I was excited none-the-less.  I met the two girls by the roundabout near my house, and away we went.  Silly me, I thought we’d start running right away – that was not the case.  We walked to the smaller lake, “stretched” (which means we did the 30 second routine they do in gym class) and then took off for our run.  The small lake is just over 2k around (about a mile and a half) and we ran around it once – and were done.  A grand total of 13:11 minutes of running – but it was still fun.  Have I mentioned that I registered for a “minimarathon” in Budapest?  This was not going to take me far in my training, but it was still fun.  By the way – a “minmarathon” – or at least this one – is 7k, so just over 4 miles. 

            After our short run, we walked around town and over to the big lake. They shared information about themselves and the town with me as we walked, and had a nice time.  I also cleared up (I thought) some questions about the bus system here – yet it would still be getting the better of me in the future.  They were very sweet and walked me back to my flat – I wasn’t sure if they thought I was going to invite them up or something, but I hadn’t planned on it, so I cut it short and they left for home.  I learned later that the reason the 5:00 meeting time worked for them is because their parents won’t let them do anything until their homework is done… oh Europe.